First of all, I am pleased to announce the formation of a new Board of Advisors consisting of seven of our distinguished alumni and friends. We expect this body of accomplished individuals to form a vital bridge between students, faculty, alumni and friends of the department, and between the university and the wider world. I would like to extend a personal note of thanks to the six members of the new Board of Advisors: Lori Poloni-Staudinger (Ph.D, IU),  Dean, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona; Morgan Mohr (BA, IU), College (Distinguished Alumni of the Year 2023 and former Senior Advisor to the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; Katie Wall (BA, IU), Director of Government Affairs, True Anomaly, Washington DC; Darrell West (Ph.D., IU, Brookings Institute, Washington DC;  Matt Streb (Ph.D., IU, Chief of staff to the President and Professor of Political Science, Northern Illinois University; Jim Trilling (BA, IU), Division of Privacy and Identity Protection at Federal Trade Commission, Washington DC; and Barry Zulauf (BA and Ph.D., IU, Vienna, VA). Matt Streb has agreed to serve as the first Chair of the Boar4d for a term of three years.

With a total of 421 majors, Political Science is now the fifth largest department in the College of Arts and Science in terms of the number of majors. As such, we are bigger than all other social science and humanities departments on campus. We look forward to working with the members of the Board of Advisors on several projects, one of which is preparing our students for their careers. This is now a priority for the College of Arts and Sciences that will introduce a career preparedness requirement into the curriculum. Given our thriving DC POLS Internship program led by Professor Christine Barbour (featured in this newsletter),we are confident we can play a leading role in this regard. Another priority for us is the creation of a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) minor. Our students have already created a PPE student chapter at IU, featured in this newsletter and we hope to be able to officially launch the PPE minor in 2025.

Our graduate program remains a central to this piece of our mission. Last year, we had an outstanding placement record (9 placements, out of which five were tenure-track jobs). After two semesters, the Graduate Task Force completed its work and proposed several reforms meant to improve our program, including our mentoring practices. The department has approved important changes that will help our students make better and quicker progress toward the completion of their degrees.

Our faculty members continue to be busy and successful on the academic front. On January 19, Professor Jun Sudduth gave the first New Faculty Inaugural Lecture that attracted a strong audience in the Ostrom lecture room (218 Woodburn Hall 218. Jun’s lecture, “Strategic Logic of Elite Purges: How Authoritarian Rulers Consolidate Power Over Time” addressed the global rise of “personalist dictatorships,” one of the most pressing issues in today’s world. On February 23, Professor Diana Mutz (University of Pennsylvania), one of the most creative political scientists working today, gave the Charles Hyneman lecture revisiting some of the ideas originally presented in her widely acclaimed book Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Eileen Braman’s new book, Constitutional Power and Politics, was released by the University of Virginia Press in October 2023. It tackles a timely and important topic, namely how citizen think about authority and constitutional change. Other faculty members continue to study and teach important issues such as extremism, polarization, and democratic backsliding. Their work covers issues such as Artificial Intelligence, conspiracy theories, fake news, and cybersecurity, that are among the research priorities outlined on the IU 2030 agenda.

More information about all these events can be found in the pages of the current newsletter. We hope you will stay in touch with us and we look forward to welcoming you in Bloomington!

Aurelian Craiutu
Professor and Chair