Speaker Series

The Political Science Department Speaker Series brings leading scholars to campus to present their research and engage with students and faculty. Each talk highlights the speaker’s substantive focus, methodological approach, and current projects, providing opportunities for discussion, feedback, and collaboration. The series is designed for PhD students, faculty, and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of contemporary political research.

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Academic Year 2025-2026 Speaker Series

Douglas L. Kriner, Cornell University (6 October 2025)

Douglas L. Kriner
Clinton Rossiter Professor in American Institutions, Department of Government, Cornell University
Talk Title: "When Disaster Meets Relief: Partisan Moderation of Crisis and Aid Effects in the 2020 Election:
Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, October 6, 2025 | INTS 1113

Abstract: How do voters respond when a national crisis imposes harm but also delivers federal aid? The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique test of what considerations voters bring to bear in response to both loss and relief. We theorize that federal spending can mitigate the political costs of disasters, but only under certain partisan and contextual conditions. Specifically, we hypothesize that the electoral effects of pandemic costs and relief will be interactive, and their effects will vary across partisan subgroups depending on whether each factor reinforces or conflicts with partisan priors.
Drawing on county-level data and nationally representative survey evidence from the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we find that pandemic costs and relief had the greatest effects on vote choice among independents who lacked strong partisan priors. Among partisans, exposure to pandemic costs was most influential among Republicans and localized relief was most influential among Democrats. Relief spending also shaped the 2020 election outcome indirectly by mobilizing Republican turnout and changing the composition of the electorate.
Finally, we find strong evidence that the effects of pandemic costs and relief on political behavior are interactive, with the influence of each varying on the level of the other and across partisan subgroups. These findings advance theories of retrospective voting and distributive politics by demonstrating how crisis exposure, partisan identity, and economic relief jointly shape the electoral consequences of national emergencies.
Margaret E. Roberts, UC San Diego (3 November 2025)

Margaret E. Roberts
Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: "Propaganda or Parity? TikTok’s Algorithm and Pro-China Messaging"
Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, November 3, 2025 | INTS 1113
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Lisa Beard, Western Washington University (17 November 2025)

Lisa Beard
Associate Professor, Political Science Department, Western Washington University
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Daniel McDowell, Syracuse University (18 February 2026)

Daniel McDowell
Professor, Political Science Department, Syracuse University
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Valentina González-Rostani, USC (3 March 2026)

Valentina González-Rostani
Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Department of Political Science, University of Southern California
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Claire Adida, Stanford University (4 April 2026)

Claire Adida
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Jonathan Homola, UCLA (06 May 2026)

Jonathan Homola
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.
Julia Park, Ohio State University (18 May 2026)

Ju Yeon (Julia) Park
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University
Talk Title: To be determined.
Details: to be determined.
Abstract: This item is a work in progress.

Academic Year 2022-2023 Speaker Series

Jesse Driscoll, UC San Diego (24 April 2023)

Jesse Driscoll
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Chair, Global Leadership Institute University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: "Ukraine's Unnamed War"
Details: 12-12:20 PM | Monday, April 24, 2023 | Sky Hall 173
Abstract: The roots of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 trace back to the revolutionary events of 2013–2015. "Ukraine's Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022" argues that Russia, before and after seizing Crimea, was reacting to events it could not control. The Kremlin sent troops only to areas of Ukraine where it knew it would face little resistance (Eastern Donbas), and the end result was a ragged military ceasefire that neither Ukrainians or Russians believed was just. Anchored in a simple model of domestic Ukrainian politics, this book traces efforts by the Kremlin to shape those domestic politics with military threats and coercion -- and how Ukrainians have adapted their institutions to the threat from its Russian neighbor.
Alisa Bierria, UCLA (15 May 2023)

Alisa Bierria
Assistant Professors, Department of Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: "Structural Racism within Reason"
Details: 12-12:20 PM | Monday, May 15, 2023 | Sky Hall 173
Abstract: Alisa examines reasons and the politics of intention through an analysis of structural racism. She discusses two key black feminist critiques of reason — Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of “controlling images” (2000) and Michelle Cliff’s concept of the “mythic mind” (1982) — to propose "controlling intentions" as a framework to theorize how structural racism produces fictive intentions used to rationalize the criminal punishment of survival and justify that outcome as common sense. As an example, she analyzes how Marissa Alexander’s intentions and intentional actions were replaced by controlling intentions in her 2011 Stand Your Ground hearing to illustrate how reason provides a vehicle through which structural racial/gendered violence becomes naturalized within the law.
Paul Apostolidis, London School of Economics & Political Science (10 April 2023)

Paul Apostolidis
Professor, Department of Government, London School of Economics & Political Science
Talk Title: "Marx and Microwork: Night Work and Social Reproduction in the Factory and on the Platform"
Details: 12-12:20 PM | Monday, April 10, 2023 | Sky Hall 173

Abstract: This talk lays foundations for a critique of night work in contemporary capitalism through a novel reassessment of Marx’s analysis of “the working day” in 19th century England. It reads Marx against the grain, gleaning overlooked conceptual resources for understanding night-work’s vampiric devastation of working-class social reproduction, as the rule of capital over the worker’s “life-day” leads to both the quantitative exploitation of workers and qualitative impoverishment of everyday time and freedom. Night comes to represent the contracted time, condensed space, petrified relational capacities and thwarted desires for human “reproduction” that includes reinvigorating oneself, caring for others, and enjoying experiences apart from work or care. I demonstrate the power of this under-developed Marxian analytic by considering the compression and warping of social- reproductive time among today’s “microworkers”: a global legion of labourers who work at all hours earning a pittance doing platform-based online ‘tasks.’ On this basis, the paper argues for making struggles over social reproduction central to working-class politics today..