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The probability that Iran's presidential election was fair is less than .005.Read how our newest assistant professors, Bernd Beber and Alex Scacco, come to this fascinating conclusion in their June 20th Washington Post article.
Congratulations to Prof. Howard Rosenthal for being selected as a Fellow of the Society for Political Methodology.
Congratulations to Profs. Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan Nagler for being chosen as inaugural Fellows of the Society for Political Methodology.
Congratulations to Prof. Russell Hardin on being named as the first incumbent of the Helen Gould Sheppard Professorship in the Social Sciences.
Congratulations to MA student Ben Cokelet, one of the three organizers of the Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research (P.O.D.E.R.), that recently won the $100,000 Grand Prize at the NYU Stern Business School Social Venture Competition.
Congratulations to Prof. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita for being named as on of the "Golden Dozen" for outstanding teaching in the College. This marks the fourth year in a row that a member of the Politics faculty has been so honored.
Congratulations to incoming interim chair, Prof. Michael Laver, on his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Laver is the eighth member of the department to be so honored. Prof. Laver is a long time member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Congratulations to second year Ph.D. student Didac Queralt for winning the Hans Daalder prize for the best paper presented at the 2008 Graduate Student Conference of the ECPR in Barcelona.
The department welcomes four new Assistant Professors joining us Fall, 2009: Bernd Beber (Columbia, IR), Oeindrila Dube (Harvard, Political Economy), Ryan Pevnick (Virginia, Normative Theory) and Alexandra Scacco (Columbia, Comparative).
The department congragulates Professor Kanchan Chandra for winning a Guggenheim Fellowship. Here is the NYU announcement.
In memory of our dear colleague and friend, Fiona McGillivray
The Department mourns the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Fiona McGillivray, who died on September 2, 2008 at the tragically early age of 40.
Her family has requested that donations be made to the MS Society Scotland (http://www.justgiving.com/alastairsmith1). Our thoughts are with her family, and she will always live on in the lives of all who knew her.
Fiona was an extraordinary scholar and teacher. Not only did she publish in the finest journals (e.g., the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, International Organization, etc.) and with the leading political science book publisher (twice with Princeton University Press), but she wrote work of uncommon significance and impact.
Her book, Privileging Industry, examined in theoretical and empirical depth how different voting systems shape national policies on trade and tariffs. She showed how first-past-the post systems emphasized privileges for specific firms whose workers were concentrated in swing districts while proportional representation systems privileged entire industries with heavy concentrations of workers. In addition to creating an entirely new political economy theory of trade and protectionist policies, Fiona also worked out how to use stock market pricing and the like to test her theory against a broad, comparative body of data. The book is a brilliant piece of scholarship that was recognized as such by receiving the coveted William H. Riker Best Book Award from the Political Economy section of the American Political Science Association in 2007.
Her 2008 co—authored book with Alastair Smith, Punishing the Prince, was published to early accolades just a few weeks before she died. This book demonstrates how to rethink the impact of carrots and sticks, foreign assistance and sanctions, as a strategy to induce the removal of undesired leaders. The book emphasizes the distinction – originally introduced by Fiona in a series of articles – between leader-specific punishment strategies and grand strategies of national foreign policy. This book profoundly changes how we think about foreign policy strategies and notions of the national interest. It is firmly grounded in game theoretic reasoning, large-N empirical tests and detailed, nuanced case analyses.
Fiona was not only a superb scholar. She also was a great teacher, devoted to her undergraduate and graduate students. Her outstanding teaching was recognized with NYU's Golden Dozen teaching award, given to the university's best teachers based on student and faculty recommendations. Fiona loved the classroom and, indeed, prepared a syllabus for a new team-taught course that is to serve as the core introductory course to political economy. She was scheduled to be one of the instructors in that course but tragically died the day before the first session. It is now dedicated, as are we, to her memory.
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