Maxwell School News and Commentary

"The current struggle over an affirmative message is further compounded by the fact that the negative messaging is taking up all the energy," says Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher. "Everything is about opposing Trump." 

The SoldierStrong scholarship program supports U.S. military veterans wishing to pursue higher education opportunities as civilians upon their return from service abroad. Maxwell graduate students Mitch Forbes and Chris Tonsmeire, both U.S. military veterans, have been named as this year’s SoldierStrong scholars.

Maxwell alumnus Ben Walsh '05 M.P.A. was elected mayor of the City of Syracuse. Walsh is Syracuse's first independent mayor in more than 100 years and the city’s second mayor-elect to ever be unaffiliated with any major political party.

“I think this part of an an escalating war of words between the Saudis and the Iranians, really instigated by Saudi Arabia, but unfortunately [for the Saudis] I don’t think they’re really as strategic as the Iranians are in terms of making these moves of the chessboard of the Middle East,” says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science.

Miriam Elman, associate professor of political science, says that "the current hostility to the Balfour Declaration Centennial tells us a lot about why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains so intractable. It isn’t really about post-1967 settlements or post-1967 borders, but about a very basic and visceral intolerance to Jewish sovereign legitimacy anywhere in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland.”

"When you see a piece of misinformation, even when it’s in the context of being corrected and you believe the correction, it can still have lingering effects on your attitudes," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.

"I would never underestimate the Japanese military," says Robert Murrett, deputy director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. "In terms of just sheer military proficiency — unit for unit, person for person, they’re the best military in Asia."

"People have always been susceptible to misinformation," Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, says. "The real challenge now lies in the immediacy, scope and ease of dissemination we now see with new technologies like social media."