Throughout the campaign, Rutgers has been a center of original research and teaching about the U.S. political system and its impact on the lives of Americans. For example, political scientist Jane Junn is an author of a forthcoming study on Asian-Americans, politics and voting; and Jackson Lears, a Board of Governors Professor of History, is teaching a special seminar for first-year students, “How to Steal an Election.” Rutgers faculty, backed by their scholarly work, continually analyze political trends and the most compelling issues on voters’ minds. Rutgers also polls voters across New Jersey and beyond.
Regardless of the outcome, the presidential election will set a new agenda for the nation. Rutgers faculty and staff are working to ensure that voters go to the polls as informed citizens armed with more than sound bites and slogans.
Ruth B. Mandel (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/Faculty-Staff/mandelbio.html) is a Board of Governors Professor of Politics and director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu). She writes about women’s political history, focusing on women as candidates and officeholders. Mandel taught the first-year seminar “A Woman for President?” and wrote a chapter about women presidential candidates for Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change. She is compiling information on the presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton (including first-hand observations from several states) and is monitoring Clinton’s role in the Obama-McCain race for the White House.
Contact Mandel at rmandel@rci.rutgers.edu at 732-932-9384, ext. 228.
Richard R. Lau (polisci.rutgers.edu/FACULTY/BIOS/Lau.html), a professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences, has studied political decision-making and voting and the effect of media on political campaigns. He is an expert on the different strategies voters use to help them reach decisions, the role of self-interest in political attitudes and behavior, and the effects and effectiveness of negative political advertisements. He is the author, with David P. Redlawsk, of How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Election Campaigns.
Contact Lau at ricklau@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9321.
Cliff Zukin (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/Faculty-Staff/zukinbio.html) is a professor of public policy and political science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu) and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy (www.policy.rutgers.edu/). He is a national expert on opinion polling, mass media, and American politics, and is a co-author of A New Engagement?: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen. Zukin also is a senior research fellow at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development (www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/), where he co-directs the acclaimed Work Trends survey series.
Contact Zukin at zukin@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-4100 ext. 6205.
Jackson Lears (history.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187&Itemid=140) is a Board of Governors Professor of History and editor-in-chief of Raritan Quarterly Review, a literary journal that for more than 25 years has explored the arts, poetry, literature, science and – more recently – politics. Lears teaches the first-year seminar “How to Steal an Election.” The seminar explores the history of electoral fraud in the United States, from vote buying deployed by urban political machines and rural courthouse cliques to steal elections in the post-Civil War era to the 20th century’s literacy tests and poll taxes used by white elites in the South to such modern techniques as electronic tampering and computer hacking.
Contact Lears at tjlears@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-7887.
WOMEN AND POLITICS
The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) (www.cawp.rutgers.edu/) at the Eagleton Institute is a national authority on the history and growing impact of women in American politics. The center conducts and disseminates research about women in public office and offers programs aimed at inspiring and educating women of all ages to become involved in politics and government. The CAWP Web site posts data about women as voters and summarizes the results of national polling on the question of how Americans feel about a woman as a presidential candidate.
Contact Director Debbie Walsh (www.cawp.rutgers.edu/About_cawp/walshbio.php) at walsh@ rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 227.
Susan J. Carroll (www.cawp.rutgers.edu/About_cawp/carrollbio.php) is a professor of political science and women’s and gender studies as well as senior scholar at CAWP. A nationally recognized expert on women’s participation in politics, she has conducted research on women candidates, voters, elected officials and political appointees. Carroll is the author of numerous publications, and, most recently, the co-editor of Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics.
Contact Carroll at scarroll@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 235.
POLLING AND THE YOUTH VOTE
The Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling (eagletonpoll.rutgers.edu/) conducts periodic opinion polls on a wide range of topics. The next poll (scheduled release date is mid-October) will focus on Asian-American voters in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area.
Elizabeth C. Matto (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/Faculty-Staff/matto.html), a research associate, directs the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Youth Political Participation Program (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/YPPP/YPPProgram.htm). She recently piloted a citizenship training initiative for high school seniors and an online survey that measures the civic engagement of high school students. Matto is working on a research project, “The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection: The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy.” This semester she is administering Eagleton's RU Voting initiative (ruvoting.rutgers.edu/) an effort to register, educate and mobilize Rutgers students to participate in the upcoming election.
Contact Matto at ematto@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 256.
THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION
Jane Y. Junn (www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/Faculty-Staff/junnbio.html) is an associate professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences with a joint appointment at the Eagleton Institute, where she also is serving as faculty director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll. The next poll – scheduled release date is mid-October – will focus on Asian-American voters in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, part of a groundbreaking National Asian-American Survey. Junn’s research expertise includes political participation and elections in the United States, and political behavior and attitudes among American minorities and immigrants. Her book, New Race Politics: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Politics (edited with Kerry Haynie), was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.
Contact Junn at junn@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9312.
Janice Fine (www.smlr.rutgers.edu/faculty/Fine_J.htm) is an assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations (www.smlr.rutgers.edu/misc/index.html) and an expert on immigrant labor and public policy issues. Her book, Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream, examines community organizations and worker centers as alternatives to labor unions in improving wages and working conditions for immigrant workers. Fine is also a member of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s Blue-Ribbon Panel on Immigration Policy.
Contact Fine at jrfine@smlr.rutgers.edu or 732-932-1746.
THE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA
David Greenberg (www.scils.rutgers.edu/~davidgr/), associate professor of history and of journalism and media studies, is an expert in American political and cultural history, including the presidency and presidential campaigns with an emphasis on questions of public relations, propaganda, “spin,” image-making and presidential debates. Greenberg is the author of Presidential Doodles and of Calvin Coolidge and writes the “History Lessons” column for Slate, for which he covered the Democratic National Convention.
Contact Greenberg at davidgr@scils.rutgers.edu or 732-932-7500, ext. 8178.
Additional Rutgers experts on Campaign 2008 issues may be found online at http://ur.rutgers.edu/experts/campaign2008.
Media Contact: Steve Manas
732-932-7084, ext. 612
E-mail: smanas@ur.rutgers.edu