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Politics and government

October 31, 2014

Study: Expansion of UW medical school in Spokane is state’s lowest-cost, highest-quality and most-immediate solution

The University of Washington’s plan to double the size of its medical school in Spokane is “clearly the most cost-effective option” to meet the physician workforce needs in Eastern Washington and throughout the state, according to an independent study by research firm Tripp Umbach. The study also found that Eastern Washington currently cannot support two medical schools because of a lack of capacity in clinics and residency programs. “As an established program, UW School of Medicine has greater capacity than…

October 22, 2014

Traditional, tea party conservatives seem split on foreign policy

A Tea Party Express bus.

Foreign policy looms large as the 2014 midterm elections approach. But traditional conservatives and their tea party counterparts may bring different concerns and motivations to the November ballot, according to a University of Washington political scientist. While traditional conservatives seem most motivated by concern over American security, Christopher Parker, UW professor of political science, suggests that those identifying as tea party conservatives have somewhat more mixed motivations, linked with agitation over the Obama presidency and stemming from a feeling of…

April 25, 2014

Online ‘Legislative Explorer’ uses big data to track decades of lawmaking

John Wilkerson, creator of the Legislative Explorer

University of Washington political scientist John Wilkerson has matched data visualization with the study of lawmaking to create a new online tool for researchers and students called the Legislative Explorer. Think of it as big data meeting up with How a Bill Becomes a Law. “The goal was to get beyond the ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ narrative and let users discover the lawmaking process for themselves,” said Wilkerson, UW professor of political science and director of the UW’s Center for American Politics…

November 1, 2012

Prewar citizen complaints to government explored in ‘This is Not Civil Rights’

George Lovell, UW associate professor of political science, is the author of “This Is Not Civil Rights: Discovering Rights Talk in 1939 America,” published in October by University of Chicago Press. He answered a few questions about his book for UW Today. What is the basic concept behind “This is Not Civil Rights”? The book examines more than 1,000 citizen complaint letters regarding rights from the late years of the Great Depression along with replies written by federal government officials….