Political Science

A tradition among first-year students to read and discuss a common text has inspired a campuswide initiative called “Human Identities: Global, Local, Personal,” designed to raise nuanced dialogue about gender and sexuality across the Vanderbilt community. Read More

The latest political ad to be rated by the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project shows former president Bill Clinton doing a better job of rallying Democratic voters to re-elect President Obama than the president himself. Read More

One of Mitt Romney’s latest campaign commercials against President Barack Obama seems to be hitting a nerve among independent voters, data from the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project shows. Read More

Positive ads from President Obama won't get the job done of defeating challenger Mitt Romney in the presidential race, data from the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project continues to suggest. Read More

Nearly a third of American voters finds a new ‘positive’ ad by President Obama contrasting his approach to the economy with that of Mitt Romney to be 'disgusting.' Read More

Voter reaction to campaign advertisements by the presidential candidates will be evaluated this fall through a partnership between Vanderbilt University and YouGov, a prominent research firm. Read More

The flag of the Dominican Republic (Paul Stein) One of the most important factors influencing citizens to participate actively in political campaigns in the Americas is education, according to a survey conducted by Vanderbilt University. “Working for a political party or campaign is uncommon,” the researchers wrote in a… Read More

This year a record number of Vanderbilt Graduate School students have won prestigious National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships. Read More

The latest Vanderbilt poll shows Republican Mitt Romney firmly in position to win the state of Tennessee in the presidential election in November. Read More

The latest Vanderbilt Poll shows that there is a divide between the priorities of state lawmakers and the citizens they serve. Read More

How the media covers campaign advertising can influence election results. Associate professor and co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Josh Clinton explains his research on the 2004 “swift boat” ads and how media coverage impacted the election. Read More

Withholding aid from governments with a reputation for corruption can have a "vicious cycle" effect that makes it very difficult for them to progress, according to analysis from the 2010 AmericasBarometer survey by The Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University. Read More

Vanderbilt's Larry Bartels and Randolph Blake were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the government on science and technology. Read More

The responsibilities of family life tend to impede political participation by women in the Americas, a new study from the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University shows. Read More

John Geer (Vanderbilt University) The Tea Party is a formidable force in American politics, but the movement will actually help President Obama win re-election in 2012, according to John Geer, chair of Vanderbilt’s political science department. Geer will discuss “Why the Tea Party is Obama’s… Read More

This week on VUCast, Vanderbilt’s weekly newscast  highlighting research, experts, students, sports and everything Vanderbilt: Provocative Politics: the power of a sensational ad See the Civil War through the eyes of those who stayed at home Vanderbilt Emergency Medicine goes hip hop [vucastblurb]… Read More

Because racial identification is much more fluid in Latin America and the Caribbean than it is in the United States, researchers with Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project used actual skin color rather than racial identity to examine the effect of ethnicity on equality issues like class and educational attainment. Read More

Rebecca Traister, a Salon.com senior writer who covered the 2008 presidential race from a feminist and personal perspective, will speak at Vanderbilt University’s Stevenson Center at 7 p.m. Feb. 22. Read More

New Vanderbilt research shows that though the Republican base is generally biased against Mormonism, Mitt Romney’s religion would not hurt his chances among the GOP faithful as a presidential candidate in the general election. Read More

The nomination of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “is clearly an issue that has come to the forefront because of election year politics,” said David Lewis, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Read More