Ph.D. student Wataru Onishi has received an APSA Centennial Center Research Grant for his innovative study on how ordinary members of Congress might help reduce partisan hostility by revealing internal diversity within their parties.
New research by Professor Ben Newman, published in PNAS, examines the political attitudes of college-bound students who aspire to careers in law enforcement. Drawing on survey data from over 13 million adolescents collected over four decades, the study finds that those intending to become police officers hold more right-leaning social and political views than their...
By Reny, Tyler T., Marcel F. Roman, Benjamin J. Newman, and David O. Sears |
The relationship between democracy and digital technology is often cast in pessimistic terms—marked by polarization, misinformation, and online hostility. But what if the same tools that threaten democratic life could also help renew it? In a recent IGCC blog post, UCR’s own Professor Kevin Esterling, Director of the Laboratory for Technology, Communication, and Democracy (TeCD-Lab)...
We are proud to announce that UCR Political Science graduate student Bea-Sim Ooi has been awarded a Second Century Fund grant through the American Political Science Association’s Summer Centennial Center Research Grants program. This highly competitive award supports graduate students conducting original research that advances the field of political science, and Bea-Sim’s project is a...
UCR graduate students Jieun Lee and Harry G. Muttram examine whether Americans’ immigration attitudes change depending on spatial scale—national, state, city, or neighborhood. Their findings, published in PS: Political Science & Politics, show modest evidence of NIMBYism but little variation across spatial levels or partisan lines.
A new study coauthored by UCR Political Science Professor Steven Liao examines how foreign direct investment (FDI) reshapes host countries’ trade patterns and politics. Analyzing global and Vietnamese firm-level data, the authors find that FDI not only boosts export diversity and volume but also fosters political coalitions favoring trade liberalization.
Welcoming the 2025 Graduate Cohort On Wednesday, September 24, 2024, the Department of Political Science hosted its annual New Graduate Student Orientation in the Jenkin Library. The event welcomed our incoming Ph.D. students and introduced them to faculty, staff, and peers as they begin their academic journey at UC Riverside. The orientation began with remarks...
The Department of Political Science at UC Riverside will host the 20th anniversary meeting of the Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity Consortium (PRIEC) on Friday, October 3, 2025. The event brings together scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates for a day of collaboration and community. Event details will be shared with registered participants — RSVP...
The Department of Political Science at UC Riverside is proud to announce that PhD candidate Miki Hayashi has been awarded the prestigious University of California Dissertation Fellowship from the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). Miki’s dissertation examines a critical question in international relations: How does a great power’s economic dependence on a...
This summer marks a milestone for the Ronald O. Loveridge Public Service Fellowship, as we celebrate 10 years of preparing UC Riverside students for impactful careers in government, policy, and public service. Since its inception in 2015, the Fellowship has given rising seniors and recent graduates in Political Science and Public Policy the opportunity to...
Associate Professor Nick Weller of UCR's Department of Political Science and collaborators at University of Southern California received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled: Measuring and Improving Traffic Stops: An AI-Powered Approach to Analyzing Bodyworn Camera Footage. The grant will help to fund the Everyday Respect project's development of AI-powered tools for analyzing...
We are proud to share that Eunseong Oh, a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside, has been awarded the 2025 John T. Williams Dissertation Prize by the Society for Political Methodology. This prestigious award recognizes the best dissertation proposal in the field of political methodology and honors the legacy of...
We are thrilled to announce that Jieun Lee, a doctoral candidate, has been honored with the prestigious Russell Sage Foundation Dissertation Research Grant. You can view more information about the award HERE. This initiative supports innovative and high-quality dissertation research projects that address questions relevant to RSF’s priority areas. Jieun will use the grant to...
We are proud to celebrate the accomplishments of Debanhi Rojas Figueroa, a graduating senior from the Department of Political Science at UC Riverside, who has been featured in the University of California’s Class of 2025 spotlight: “Building California’s Brilliant Future”. During her time at UCR, she participated in the department's MSIRA program, the internship program...
The Department of English at UC Riverside announced that Donald Zarate, a Ph.D. student in Political Science, has been awarded the 2025 Lindon Barrett Award for his outstanding essay, “Here and Now: Black Perspectives on Antiutopianism.” The award is named in honor of Lindon Barrett, a beloved professor and pioneering scholar whose work centered Black...
The Department of Political Science is proud to announce that Sarah Siddique and Harry Muttram have been recognized as Outstanding Teaching Assistants (OTAs) for the 2024–2025 academic year by UC Riverside’s Graduate Division. This honor is awarded to graduate students who demonstrate exceptional dedication to undergraduate instruction and consistently strong teaching performance. Sarah Siddique is...
The Department of Political Science at UC Riverside is proud to announce that Professor Jennifer Merolla has been elected President-Elect of the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), one of the largest and most respected professional associations in the discipline. This is a significant and well-deserved recognition of Professor Merolla’s outstanding contributions to political science as...
The Department of Political Science is proud to recognize Karina Alpayeva, a second-year Ph.D. student, for earning an Honorable Mention in this year’s UC Riverside Grad Slam competition. Grad Slam is a UC-wide contest that challenges graduate students to present their research to a general audience in just three minutes — a test of both...
We are proud to announce that Mirena A. Munich, a first-year Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside, has been awarded the prestigious Spring APSA Diversity Fellowship. Offered each spring by the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Diversity Fellowship Program (DFP) supports graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds who are in...
We are thrilled to share some exciting news about one of our outstanding alumni. Zabdi, a first-year Ph.D. student in Political Science at UCLA, has received an Honorable Mention in the highly competitive 2025 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)! 🎉 This recognition speaks to the importance and promise of Zabdi’s research, which centers on...
