Campbell Institute News

“This is one of the most unsettling, tragic pieces of news yet,” says Sean O’Keefe, University Professor and member of the presidential management program’s inaugural class. “This is a firing of convenience. They are looking for a headcount reduction; there is nothing qualitative about this.”

“Lots of the fights that they have picked—especially Musk’s out-of-control, rampant destruction of federal agencies from within—a lot of those fights they are not going to win in court,” says Thomas Keck, Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics.

“Military and surveillance tech aren’t bad or unethical as such. Instead, supporting national security and doing so in the right way is incredibly important. And supporting national security is, in fact, arguably the ethical thing to do," says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. 

“ I thought that [Pete] Hegseth, the defense secretary, was the most problematic overall, of all the ones that stayed in the process. I think given that Hegseth has made it through, that tells me that the other ones are likely to make it as well,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

Before 1934, Congress—not presidents—had power over tariff rates and negotiations, says Andrew Wender Cohen, professor of history. But Democrats had an enormous majority around the New Deal era and passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, granting the president the right to negotiate tariffs in certain cases, Cohen says.

The way the administration has framed its raids is an attempt to shape public perception by driving the narrative that “immigrants are criminals” who “don’t belong in the United States,” says Shana Gadarian, Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking.

The associate professor of political science is part of a three-person team that will investigate the conditions that make international refugee law effective.

“Because there's some evolutionary benefit in groups, I think one of the ways that politicians are quite effective at making people fearful is to make them fearful of groups that are different than themselves,” says Shana Gadarian, professor of political science and associate dean for research.

“The New Glenn rocket is all about significantly reducing the cost of access to space,” says Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and former NASA administrator. “This will give SpaceX some serious competition. ...These are exciting times in the space business.”

“He really was, I think, the right candidate and the right person and the right president for the times. And what happened to his presidency, ultimately I think, those same times overwhelmed his presidency” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

“Fundamentally, Meta's main incentive is just to keep people on the platform, that's what they want to do. And that is always going to keep priority over things like keeping people fully informed or showing both sides of the issues,” says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.

“All communities need to innovate responsibly. The review will give everyone a say,” says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. “I would not want such drones to fly under the radar of public input.”

Amid reports of democracy’s global decline, Maxwell faculty and students are gathering new insights into perception, polarization and other pressing concerns.

“If they had strictly stuck to doing technocratic policy and formulated this as a matter of bureaucratic procedure, avoiding terms to which the Republican administration is allergic, maybe that executive order could have stood a chance,” suggests Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs.

“If all of a sudden HHS is now in the business of passing more regulations on the food industry, on agriculture, we might see that a Republican Senate majority and a Republican House is less interested in allocating a budget to HHS that then would be under a different leadership,“ says Shana Gadarian, professor of political science.

“I think what he's putting out now, at this stage, could be seen as an attempt to nudge the behavior of both Mexico and Canada regarding the border and to engage in what is essentially financial saber rattling. But also, I wouldn't be surprised to see him follow through on this because he is a believer in tariffs,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

When it comes to space exploration, “I would think that this next [Trump] administration is going to be a continuation of the success in the first administration,” says University Professor Sean O’Keefe. “[Trump] prides himself on being very unpredictable, so I wouldn’t put certainty on this, but all signs point in that direction.”

Professor of Political Science Shana Gadarian and co-authors conclude that polarization is a serious—if largely overlooked—determinant of health, whose impacts must be more thoroughly understood and mitigated. Published in Nature Medicine.

The former Maxwell professor, bestselling author and happiness expert spoke during a recent Maxwell centennial celebration event.