UW News

Politics and government


April 10, 2023

Beyond Trump — UW political scientists on the legacy of the indictment on the U.S. presidency

The indictment of former President Trump isn’t just about an individual but about the office of the presidency, and what the country is willing to accept from its leaders, say University of Washington political scientists James Long and Victor Menaldo,


March 16, 2023

Q&A: Navajo Nation water rights case an opportunity to reaffirm treaty obligations, UW law professor says

Monte Mills, professor of law at the University of Washington and director of the UW Native American Law Center, discusses the significance of Arizona v. Navajo Nation, a water rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court.


February 6, 2023

UW project has uncovered thousands of racially discriminatory housing covenants in Washington state – and it’s not done yet

Artwork featuring newspaper articles about racial covenants in the background and a white family in the foreground. Family is walking by a sign that reads "Welcome: A restricted residential community."

More than 40,000 property deeds containing racially discriminatory language have been uncovered in Western Washington by the Racial Restrictive Covenants Project. Director James Gregory, professor of history at the University of Washington, and his team aren’t finished yet.


September 9, 2022

Pandemic federal programs helped kids in need get access to 1.5 billion meals every month

National Guard distributing food

  When schools closed during the first year of the pandemic, an immediate and potentially devastating problem surfaced: How would millions of children in struggling families get the school meals many of them depended on? The U.S. Congress responded by authorizing the Department of Agriculture to roll out two major programs. It launched the “grab…


August 2, 2022

Popular map for exploring environmental health disparities, vulnerabilities in Washington gets an update

Since it first launched in 2019, Washington state’s Environmental Health Disparities Map has been used to help decisionmakers and government agencies engage with overburdened communities to clean up contamination, improve buildings and electric grids, plant trees and many other projects. Using a complex matrix of data, this open-access, interactive map ranks Washington’s nearly 1,500 U.S….


June 22, 2022

Q&A: New book from UW professor examines history, consequences of fifth columns

Hand controlling a man as puppet

A new book co-edited by Scott Radnitz, associate professor in the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies, features original papers on the roots and implications of the politics surrounding real and imagined fifth columns.


May 27, 2022

Critical race theory at center of UW study of unequal access to treatment for opioid addiction

Opioid use disorder is an addiction crisis in the United States that has become increasingly lethal during the COVID-19 pandemic. To preserve access to life-saving treatment during the pandemic, federal drug agencies loosened requirements on physicians for treating these patients, including moving patient evaluations away from in-person exams to telemedicine. This federal policy change focused…


May 26, 2022

Seattle democracy vouchers increase donations, number of candidates in city elections

Two hands putting voting ballots in box

A new study from Alan Griffith, assistant professor of economics at the University of Washington, shows that Seattle’s democracy voucher program has increased the number of voters donating to city elections and the number of candidates in those elections.


May 12, 2022

Simulation offers UW students practical experience in crisis negotiation

Students sitting at a table

Robert Pekkanen, University of Washington professor in the Jackson School of International Studies, teaches Crisis Negotiation. The centerpiece of the course is the International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE), a negotiation simulation where students act as diplomatic teams facing a real-world crisis scenario.


May 9, 2022

Q&A: Exposing the anti-radical origins of anti-Asian racism

A row of books with their spines facing up

In his new book, University of Washington history professor Moon-Ho Jung traces how Asian radicals organized and confronted the U.S. empire and were labeled criminally seditious as a result.


May 7, 2022

Consensus approach proposed to protect human health from intentional and wild forest fires

Prescribed forest fire

All forest fire smoke is bad for people, but not all fires in forests are bad. This is the conundrum faced by experts in forest management and public health: Climate change and decades of fire suppression that have increased fuels are contributing to larger and more intense wildfires and, in order to improve forest health…


May 5, 2022

UW professors to participate in panel on recently removed Volunteer Park plaque

A road lined by trees leading into a park

University of Washington professors Christoph Giebel, Vicente Rafael and Ileana M. Rodríguez-Silva will participate in a discussion on about a memorial plaque that was recently removed from Volunteer Park due to concerns about its accuracy.


April 4, 2022

Q&A: From the Philippines to the US, analyzing a global political shift to the right

A flag of the Philippines waving in front of a blue sky

In his book “The Sovereign Trickster,” University of Washington history professor Vicente L. Rafael examines the authoritarian rule of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and tries to make sense of a global shift to the political right.


Researchers find patterns of handgun carrying among youth in rural areas, building foundation for injury prevention

The first results of research led by the University of Washington into handgun carrying by young people growing up in rural areas has found six distinct patterns for when and how often these individuals carry a handgun. The patterns, or “longitudinal trajectories,” suggest that youths in rural areas differ in some ways from their urban…


February 28, 2022

UW authors in IPCC report emphasize threats to human health and well-being

Two University of Washington experts in climate change and health are lead authors of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The new report titled Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability, published Monday morning, details in over three thousand pages a “dire warning” about the consequences of inaction on reducing…


November 8, 2021

Political ads during the 2020 presidential election cycle collected personal information and spread misleading information

bar chart showing an increase in number of political ads in Atlanta as the date approaches for the Georgia run-off election in 2021

University of Washington researchers looked at almost 56,000 political ads from almost 750 news sites between September 2020 and January 2021.


July 9, 2021

Study model explores impact of police action on population health

A specific police action, an arrest or a shooting, has an immediate and direct effect on the individuals involved, but how far and wide do the reverberations of that action spread through the community? What are the health consequences for a specific, though not necessarily geographically defined, population? The authors of a new UW-led study…


June 16, 2021

UW Ocean Voices program, seeking equity in ocean science, gets key approval from United Nations

Ocean Voices, a program of the University of Washington-based Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center to advance equity in ocean, science has been named among the first group of actions taken in a United Nations-sponsored, decade-long program of ocean science for sustainable development. "The human relationship with oceans under modern market systems is unsustainable, unstable and inequitable," writes Yoshitaka Ota, director of the center.

Ocean Voices, a program of the UW Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center to advance equity in ocean science, has been named among the first group of actions taken in a United Nations-sponsored, decade-long program of ocean science for sustainable development.


May 20, 2021

Scott Radnitz explores post-Soviet conspiracy theories in new book ‘Revealing Schemes’

Scott Radnitz is an associate professor in the Jackson School of International Studies. His book, "Revealing Schemes: The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the Post-Soviet Region," was published this month by Oxford University Press.

Scott Radnitz, associate professor in the Jackson School of International Studies, discusses his new book, “Revealing Schemes: The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the Post-Soviet Region,” published by Oxford University Press.


April 9, 2021

Divided America needs ‘new, more viable history’: A talk with Dan Chirot

A root cause of America’s sharp division, UW international studies professor Dan Chirot says, is that the visions of the left and right are based on “drastically different histories.”


March 15, 2021

New Stroum Center podcast series ‘Jewish Questions’ explores anti-Semitism, features UW faculty

“Jewish Questions,” a podcast from the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, explores issues of Jewish life, politics, history and culture


March 2, 2021

Faculty/staff honors: Field research grant, staffer’s play streams, cartoon remembrance

Recent honors and achievements by UW faculty and staff include a grant for field research in the Middle East, a staffer’s play being streamed by a Seattle theater and a professor’s cartoon remembrance of a relative lost to COVID-19.


February 16, 2021

UW books in brief: Historian Anand Yang explores British ‘penal transportation’; world music textbooks by Patricia Shehan Campbell

Historian Anand Yang writes about the British history of shipping of convicted criminals to other continents; and new world music education books from ethnomusicologist Patricia Shehan Campbell.


February 9, 2021

Faculty/staff honors: Holocaust commemoration, new compositions, a top local album of 2020

Recent honors and achievements by UW faculty include a keynote address at a national Holocaust commemoration event, an album of new compositions and a best-of-2020 musical nod from the Seattle Times.


February 5, 2021

New nationwide survey shows MAGA supporters’ beliefs about the pandemic, the election and the insurrection

New data from the University of Washington, collected just before and after the Capitol riot, reveals fervent Trump voters’ opinions about race, gender, the pandemic and the 2020 election.


January 25, 2021

Nicolaas Barr translates powerful Dutch coming out memoir ‘Djinn’

Nicolaas Barr of the UW’s Comparative History of Ideas Department talks about his translation of “Djinn,” a memoir by Tofik Dibi, who served for six years as a member of the Dutch Parliament.


January 20, 2021

‘Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems,’ co-edited by UW’s Robert Pekkanen, out in paperback, online

"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems," published in 2018, is coming out in paperback in February from Oxford University Press. The entire book is already available online through UW Libraries.

A book co-edited by Robert Pekkanen of the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies brings together top scholars to study the origins and effects of electoral systems in the United States and other democracies.


December 8, 2020

Round 2 of Washington study underway to determine food, economic insecurity during pandemic

Dinner setting on wood table

Understanding Washington residents’ access to food and their economic well-being – or lack of it – during the COVID-19 pandemic is vital for state and community partners to identify those needs and allocate resources effectively. To help accomplish this goal, the University of Washington, Washington State University and Tacoma Community College, along with input from…


November 24, 2020

UW public health expert calls on state officials, citizens to defend and rebuild public health agencies

Betty Bekemeier

Even before the pandemic and disagreements over social restrictions recommended by public health officials across the state, public health agencies in Washington were struggling due to a lack of resources. In recent weeks, firings, resignations and death threats targeting local health officials has led to a staffing crisis in the agencies most responsible for local…


November 9, 2020

Professor Margaret O’Mara on history around election concessions nationally and in Washington

Concessions from U.S. presidents usually happen quickly, without drama, says UW history professor Margaret O’Mara.


October 29, 2020

UW Space Policy and Research Center brings researchers, policymakers together for online symposium Nov. 6

A preview of the Nov. 6 SPARC Symposium, which will feature a conversation with Andy Weir, author of “The Martian.”


October 27, 2020

Vanessa Freije of UW Jackson School explores Mexican politics, journalism in new book ‘Citizens of Scandal’

A talk with Vanessa Freije of the UW Jackson School about her new book, “Citizens of Scandal: Journalism, Secrecy, and the Politics of Reckoning in Mexico.”


October 22, 2020

COVID-19: CDC advisory committee hones in on vaccine rollout recommendations

Vaccine and syringe

When a vaccine to fight COVID-19 has been approved by the FDA for distribution, it’s unlikely that at first there will be enough doses for everyone. Consequently, the United States will need an equitable and effective plan for who gets those first doses, how they get them and who’s next. Just as important, that plan…


October 6, 2020

‘Neither Free Nor Fair’: New UW podcast takes on election security in US and abroad

Election security is the theme of a new podcast by James Long, an associate professor of political science at the University of Washington. “Neither Free Nor Fair?” features experts from the UW and elsewhere on topics such as mail-in voting, foreign interference and the role of social media, and resolving disputed elections.


October 5, 2020

Women, workers of color filling most ‘high-hazard/low-reward’ jobs in Washington

When exploring data on Washington workers during the pandemic — demographics, working conditions, wages and benefits, and risks of exposure to disease — the authors of a new report found that women hold two-thirds of the jobs in the harshest category of work. “The big takeaway from our research,” said David West, a co-author of…


September 30, 2020

UW receives $1.5 million CDC grant to study handgun carrying among rural adolescents

With roughly 109 people dying every day and many others treated in emergency rooms from firearm-related injuries — which are the second leading cause of death among adolescents — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has, after decades, stepped in to fund critical firearm research. The CDC announced on Sept. 23 it would fund…


September 29, 2020

Diplomacy on point: Anne Searcy’s book explores role of ballet in US-Soviet Cold War relations

A conversation with new School of Music professor Anne Searcy about her new book, “Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange.”


September 26, 2020

UW political scientist: Amy Coney Barrett gives conservatives a ‘hammerlock’ on the US Supreme Court

Quote: (Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett) will give Republicans a 6-3 hammerlock on the court, and short-term consequences include the near-certain overruling of Roe v. Wade, with the Affordable Care Act also in real danger.

University of Washington political scientist Scott Lemieux calls Trump’s Supreme Court pick a conservative “hammerlock” on the nation’s highest court.


September 24, 2020

Colleges with primarily in-person instruction leading to thousands of COVID-19 cases per day in US

As universities and colleges struggle to find the right combination of in-person and online classes combined with protective measures to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, a new study by researchers from four institutions has reached a troubling conclusion. Reopening university and college campuses with primarily in-person instruction is associated with a significant…


September 15, 2020

UW political scientist Megan Ming Francis named one of 12 grant-supported ‘Freedom Scholars’ for work on economic and social equity

Megan Ming Francis, University of Washington associate professor of political science, has been named one of 12 grant-supported “Freedom Scholars” in a new $3 million initiative by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Group Health Foundation, working together.



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