News

Soon-to-be PhD Julian Haddad has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Political Science position at Solano Community College, starting this fall. Congratulations, Julian!

Recent PhD Yu-Shiuan (Lily) Huang has published an article in the British Journal of Political Science, entitled "Love Blinds? Winners, In-Party Favoritism, and Support for Violations of Democratic Norms." In this article, Huang asks why electoral winners are more willing to support democratic norm violations.

Ph.D. Candidate Alice Malmberg has accepted a multi-year postdoctoral fellowship at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where she will be working with Lilliana Mason in her Democracy and Division Lab. The position also affords Alice the time and resources to continue work on her own research agenda while mentoring graduate and advanced undergraduate students with their research. Congratulations, Alice!

Recent PhD graduate Jill Laufer has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the Politics of Education Lab at Stanford University. Congratulations, Jill!

PhD Candidate Alice Malmberg has been awarded $4,500 from APSA's Experimental Politics Section and the Institute for Humane Studies to support her ongoing computational research exploring how AI and large language models can be used to enhance research on public opinion and political behavior.

A new article in Conflict Management and Peace Science by recent UCD PhD RyuGyung Park and Professor Brandon Kinne examines why Americans increasingly view international trade as a threat to national security—a phenomenon the authors term trade–security equivalence. The study uses a survey experiment with U.S. respondents to show that this perception is distinct from general trade preferences and is shaped by multiple factors, especially information that trade harms the overall U.S. economy.

The UC Davis chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society, partnered with the History Department to present the 2026 Lunn Memorial Lecture on February 9. The annual lecture series featured acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, who discussed her latest work, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. The event drew strong student and community attendance and reinforced Pi Sigma Alpha's mission to promote discussion of contemporary political issues.

Brad Jones and Caitlin Patler (UC Berkeley) recently co-edited an edition of the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. The volume is a multidisciplinary collection of articles focused broadly on the important and timely issue of deportation in the United States. The Patler and Jones article explains how US immigration policy over the past 40 years has made it "easier" for the federal government to engage in mass detention and deportation policies.