Amanda Clayton Gives Keynote Address at World Bank Conference

Published by Apolonia Preciado | Sep 25, 2026

Amanda Clayton gave a keynote address, entitled “Women's Political Inclusion and the Quality of Governance,” at a World Bank conference in London on women in leadership.

Upcoming Events

Oct 01, 2026

Are We Living in a 1938 Moment? How Autocracies Threaten the West

The warning signs of the 1930s feel alarmingly familiar today: nationalist rhetoric, revisionism, military rearmament, political polarization. In this book talk, historian and security expert Dr. Moritz Pöllath argues that these patterns function as an early warning system for the present: a new authoritarian axis — Russia, China, North Korea, Iran — is forming and exploiting a strategic power vacuum to impose a world order beyond freedom and democracy.

Oct 23, 2026

Indispensable but Invisible: Legal Expertise and Juridical Capital in the Governance of Late Imperial China | Lecture by Li Chen

During the Qing period (1644–1912), late imperial China was in theory governed by approximately two thousand local administrators who were appointed for their mastery of the Confucian classics rather than for their administrative or legal expertise. How did these scholar-officials actually carry out the daily tasks of local governance, including judicial administration? Based on a forthcoming monograph, this talk analyzes the training and roles of the thousands of legal specialists who advised local officials behind the scenes and handled most of the judicial and other substantive administrative work on their behalf. Despite their important functions in local governance, these legal..

Nov 12, 2026

Surviving Exile: Why Activists Persist and Why it Matters Back Home

Professor Elizabeth R. Nugent will present part of a book she is finalizing on activism in exile. Dr. Nugent studies the politics and political psychology of authoritarianism and religion in the Middle East and is the author of After Repression: How Polarization Derails Democratic Transition, published by Princeton University Press (2020).

Nov 13, 2026

Under Pressure: Attitudes Towards China Among American Foreign Policy Professionals | Lecture by Rory Truex

How do social norms and professional incentives affect policy discourse within the Washington foreign policy community? We conducted over 50 semi-structured interviews and a survey of nearly five-hundred American foreign policy and national security professionals about their views towards the People's Republic of China. Over one fifth of survey respondents noted instances of professional pressure to voice a more hawkish point of view towards China, and many feared being perceived as naive or compromised by their views on, ties to, and experiences in China. These pressures were particularly acute for foreign policy professionals that are traditionally marginalized from power–those who..

Political Science in the News