Maxwell School News and Commentary

"The supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] might have the ultimate say on all major decisions," says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science. "But he’s not a leviathan that everyone obeys without question."

"Despite being a single-party polity, public preferences in China correlate strongly with ideological orientation. Put simply, China’s liberals are more tolerant, support free markets and prefer a softer foreign policy. Conservatives support state intervention and promotion of traditional culture and remain suspicious of Western ideas and institutions," writes Dimitar Gueorguiev, assistant professor political science.

"The release of two pages from President Trump’s 2005 tax returns didn’t show much. But they did show just how much Trump—and other super-rich Americans—would benefit from his proposed tax plan," says Christopher Faricy, associate professor of political science.

"This ban leaves thousands of our wartime allies to fend for themselves against the very enemies we asked them to fight," writes Maxwell alumnus Matt Zeller, co-founder and CEO of No One Left Behind. "We are permanently harming the fabric of U.S. national security. Our credibility is forever tarnished if not eroded."

"The current environment of spiraling violence and economic and political uncertainty makes predicting the outcome difficult," writes Yüksel Sezgin, assistant professor of political science and director of the Middle Eastern Studies program, of the referendum to transition Turkey from parliamentary to presidential.

"The E.U. must therefore promise to enforce political autonomy for the North after reunification—by, for instance, threatening to impose sanctions on the Cypriot government if it fails to live up to the deal," writes Kristy Buzard, assistant professor of economics, on the reunification of the Republic of Cyprus with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

"A careful look at conflict-resolution theory suggests that moving the embassy could be a constructive move, pushing Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations," writes Miriam Elman, associate professor of political science, on President Trump's proposal to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science, says that conspiracy theories are "constructed in such a way that there isn’t any evidence you can present to someone who believes them that will lead a believer to change his or her mind."