FALL 2008 UPDATE: Rutgers Research Prepares Voters for Presidential Election
Throughout the campaign, Rutgers has been a center of original research and teaching about the U.S. political system and its impact on the lives of Americans. Rutgers faculty members, backed by their scholarly work, continually analyze political trends and the most compelling issues on voters’ minds. Rutgers also polls voters across New Jersey and beyond.
Regardless of the outcome, the upcoming presidential election will set a new agenda for the nation. Rutgers faculty and staff are working to ensure that voters go to the polls as informed citizens armed with more than sound bites and slogans.
Ruth B. Mandel, Board of Governors Professor of Politics and director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, teaches and writes about women’s political history, focusing on women as candidates and officeholders. Mandel taught the first-year seminar “A Woman for President?” and wrote a chapter about women presidential candidates for Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change. She is compiling information on the presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton (including first-hand observations from several states) and is monitoring Clinton’s role during the Obama-McCain race for the White House. Mandel continues to study how the campaigns deal with gender issues, reach out to women voters, and also the roles played by women political leaders and women’s political organizations. Mandel, the founder and now a senior scholar at Eagleton’s Center for American Women and Politics, attended the Democratic and Republican conventions. Contact Mandel at rmandel@rci.rutgers.edu at 732-932-9384, ext. 228. |
|
Richard R. Lau, a professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences, has studied political decision-making and voting and the effect of media on political campaigns. He is an expert on the different strategies voters use to help them reach decisions, the role of self-interest in political attitudes and behavior, and the effects and effectiveness of negative political advertisements. He is the author, with David P. Redlawsk, of How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Election Campaigns. |
|
Cliff Zukin, is a professor of public policy and political science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. He is a national expert on opinion polling, mass media and American politics, and often provides election night exit poll analysis for network television. Zukin is a co-author of A New Engagement: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen. Zukin also is a senior research fellow at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, where he co-directs the acclaimed Work Trends survey series. The most recent survey, “The Anxious American Worker: Jobs, the Economy and a Call for Help,” received international attention. |
|
|
|
The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute is a national authority on the history and growing impact of women in American politics. The center conducts and disseminates research about women in public office and offers programs aimed at inspiring and educating women of all ages to become involved in politics and government. The CAWP website posts facts on women officeholders around the country, data and analysis on elections with women candidates, research on the status and impact of political women and the history of women in U.S. politics. Director Debbie Walsh attended the Democratic and Republican conventions. Contact Walsh at walsh@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 227. |
|
Susan J. Carroll is a professor of political science and women’s and gender studies as well as senior scholar at the Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women and Politics. A nationally recognized expert on women’s participation in politics, she has conducted research on women candidates, voters, elected officials and political appointees. Carroll is the author of numerous publications, and, most recently, the co-editor of Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics. Contact Carroll at scarroll@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 235. |
|
|
|
Jackson Lears is a Board of Governors Professor of History and editor-in-chief of Raritan Quarterly Review, a literary journal that for more than 25 years has explored the arts, poetry, literature, science, and - more recently - politics. Lears teaches the first-year seminar “How to Steal an Election.” The seminar explores the history of electoral fraud in the United States, from ballot stuffing and vote buying deployed by urban political machines and rural courthouse cliques to steal elections in the post-Civil War era, to the 20th Century’s literacy tests and poll taxes used by white elites in the South, to such modern techniques as electronic tampering and computer hacking. Contact Lears at tjlears@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-7887. |
|
The Youth Vote |
|
Elizabeth C. Matto, a research associate, directs the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Youth Political Participation Program. She recently piloted a citizenship training initiative for high school seniors and an online survey that measures the civic engagement of high school students. Matto is working on a research project, “The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection: The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy.” This semester she is administering Eagleton's RU Voting initiative, an effort to register, educate and mobilize Rutgers students to participate in the upcoming election. Contact Matto at ematto@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 256. |
|
The Politics of Immigration |
|
Jane Y. Junn was an associate professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences with a joint appointment at the Eagleton Institute. Her primary interests include political participation and elections in the United States, and political behavior and attitudes among American minorities and immigrants. Her newest book is New Race Politics: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Politics (edited with Kerry Haynie) and is at work on another dealing with race and political participation in the United States, with an emphasis on the dynamics of immigration and racial diversity. Contact Junn at junn@usc.edu or 213-740-6998. |
|
Janice Fine is an assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations and an expert on immigrant labor and public policy issues. Her book, Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream, examines community organizations and worker centers as alternatives to labor unions in improving wages and working conditions for immigrant workers. Fine is also a member of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s Blue-Ribbon Panel on Immigration Policy. Contact Fine at jrfine@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-1746. |
|
The Presidency and the Media |
|
David Greenberg, associate professor of history and of journalism and media studies, is an expert in American political and cultural history, including the presidency and presidential campaigns with an emphasis on questions of public relations, propaganda, “spin,” image-making and presidential debates. Greenberg is the author of the award-winning Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image, Presidential Doodles, Calvin Coolidge, and the “History Lessons” column for Slate, for which he covered the Democratic National Convention. He writes frequently for both popular and scholarly publications. Contact Greenberg at davidgr@scils.rutgers.edu or 732-932-7500, ext. 8178. |
Need additional Rutgers experts on politics or another topic?
Visit ur.rutgers.edu/experts, a service for the news media.