Politics and Government

For six minutes on Wednesday at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, all eyes were on Amanda Gorman. The 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate combined a message of hope and promise as she read, “even as we grieved, we grew.” Hanson Hosein, co-director of the UW’s Communication Leadership program, is interviewed.

President Joe Biden acknowledged the “uncivil war” festering in the United States in his first address Wednesday, but did so in a way that largely avoided the pessimism of his predecessor’s “American carnage.” That was the assessment of political scientists, former speech writers, language and history experts who took in Biden’s speech. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Concerned it would threaten their cultural preservation, history and treaty rights, 40 tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska joined a Jan. 4 lawsuit with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson to stop the federal government from selling the National Archives facility in Seattle and shipping its millions of boxes of records to California and Missouri. Alexandra Harmon, professor emerita of American Indian studies and of history at the UW, is quoted.

Steve Herbert, the Mark Torrance professor with the department of law, societies, and justice, discusses his podcast "Making Amends," in which he speaks with men from the Oregon State Penitentiary.

Many professors addressed the recent coup in their class, including assistant professor of political science Jake Grumbach.

Victor Menaldo, a UW political science professor, and Rebecca Thorpe, an associate professor of political science, explain the importance they see in a Trump impeachment.

Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, joins other experts to share her thoughts on the legacy of President Trump.

John Wilkerson, Chair of the Department Political Science, responds to the current political landscape that we face and shares insights on the student response.

The breakdown of the neoliberal consensus creates an opening for a more progressive China policy —while also increasing the danger of war. Daniel Bessner, associate professor of international studies at the UW, is quoted.

This week’s move by more than 200 workers at Alphabet to form a union is being seen as an alternative framework for organizing at other Silicon Valley giants. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

“As a scholar who writes about the moral justifications of social and legal institutions, I argue that there may be good moral reason for this impeachment – even if it cannot be completed before Trump leaves office,” writes Michael Blake, professor of philosophy and of public policy and governance at the UW.

The ability of companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to control what people see online is so potent, it is the subject of antitrust hearings. But the decision by Amazon to push Parler off its dominant cloud-computing service illustrates just how powerful its content-moderation capabilities are as well. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

As the Donald Trump administration winds down, anti-nuclear weapons activists are hoping that a Joe Biden presidency will mark a turning point in the way the U.S. approaches nuclear weapons. Scott Montgomery, lecturer of international studies at the UW, is quoted. [This story appeared in multiple outlets]

“Death penalty advocates most frequently focus on deterrence [as a justification for the death penalty] — but as research including my own work shows, it has not been shown to be effective,” writes David Barash, professor emeritus of psychology at the UW.

James Long, associate professor of political science at the UW, breaks down what’s happening in the House of Representatives regarding the effort to remove President Trump from office.