U.S. Politics & Legal Studies

From Capitol Hill to Quebec, Molly Izer Makes Policy Research International

Wasiq Muhammad Muhammad Ali — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 17:10:29 +0000

From Capitol Hill to Quebec, Molly Izer Makes Policy Research International Wasiq Muhammad… Fri, 09/16/2022 - 13:10

Molly Izer’s political curiosity knows no bounds. As a second-year student in the Honors College, Izer has already explored a range of political advocacy spheres. From her high school origins in grassroots organizing in Oregon to her freshman-year congressional internships in Washington, D.C., Izer is now taking the next step with policy research at ��AV and beyond.

Merging her interests in policy advocacy and research, Izer spent this past summer as both a legislative affairs intern for the Executive Office’s Council on Environmental Quality and as an Undergraduate Research Scholar with Mason’s Office of Student Scholarships, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR). Between both roles, Izer developed her understanding of the internal dynamics of and interactions among Congress and the White House, an area she was encouraged to explore through her first-year research course, HNRS 110: Principles of Research and Inquiry.

“In my [HNRS 110] classes…we were taught to not only look for differences that we could see on the outside, but also look at why they happen that way,” Izer recalls from the course, a first-semester requirement for all Honors College students.

Izer found that her Honors College background in research greatly shaped her success with the summer internships. “[Y]our job [as a congressional and White House intern] is to produce information and compound it in a way that people can consume it quickly, understand it very clearly, and they can apply immediately.”

Practicing collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing information through HNRS 110 also prepared Izer for her summer OSCAR project. Mentored by Schar School of Policy and Government professor Dr. Jennifer Victor, she investigated the informal dynamics that occur within the House of Representatives through congressional caucuses, seeking to understand how the interactions influence various types of legislative behaviors. In September, Izer looks forward to sharing her current findings at the 2022 American Political Science Annual Meeting. Hosted by the leading organization for the study of political science, the meeting convenes in Montreal, Quebec this year. Izer is eager to present her work before similarly motivated distinguished scholars, an opportunity to which she notes few if any undergraduate students are invited.

However, she is no stranger to academic conferences. In Spring 2022, Izer participated in the Midwest Political Science Association’s 2022 conference, presenting her HNRS 110 project "Misinformation: Gone Viral.” Sharing the product of her work widely beyond the Mason community is especially important. On research communication and applicability outside of academia, Izer believes it is important “to [transform research] into something that other people can gain from and something that other people can see and learn from.”

She attributes her preparation for this task to her training in the Honors College: “The Honors College in particular teaches how to not just learn but to be teachers, and producing research gives us an avenue to be a teacher.”

Looking forward, Izer plans to publish her summer research project with Dr. Victor. Her HNRS 110 paper is also forthcoming in the George Mason Review journal. She encourages Honors College students looking to further their research or get involved in political advocacy to put themselves out there and ask for help; her experiences prove to her that reaching out to the professor or applying for the position that interests you can lead to impactful experiences.

Topics

Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

Schar School of Policy and Government

U.S. Politics & Legal Studies

Kelly K. Richter

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 17:33:55 +0000

Kelly K. Richter Andrew J Schappert Tue, 08/09/2022 - 13:33

Assistant Professor

Contact Information

krichte@gmu.edu

Biography

Kelly K. Richter, Ph.D., Esq., is a Term Assistant Professor at the Schar School whose teaching focuses on the undergraduate Legal Studies curriculum.

Richter earned her Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 2015, with a specialization in modern U.S. political and policy history, and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2018, where she was a Public Interest Fellow. She is an honors graduate of the University of Chicago and a Washington, D.C. native.

At Stanford, Richter taught undergraduate courses on recent California political history and U.S. immigration politics and policy and was recognized for her student mentoring. She was a National Fellow in-residence at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a Dissertation Fellow in-residence at Stanford’s Research Institute for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and an affiliated researcher of Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, and she won competitive university research and writing grants.

Richter brings knowledge and insight to the Schar School from her professional experiences in Washington, D.C. spanning public policy and public interest law. She previously worked on legislation and government oversight in the U.S. Congress, including serving as Legislative Counsel to U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) for immigration and the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. Prior to the Hill, she worked in immigration policy advocacy. As a licensed attorney, Richter has represented local low-income immigrant clients in asylum and detention matters before the immigration courts and aided them to seek various administrative benefits. During law school further, she assisted attorneys with civil rights and employment litigation and was a research assistant for the Georgetown Federal Legislation Clinic, among other activities.

Richter has presented her research and policy work at interdisciplinary academic and policy conferences nationwide. She is finalizing a book manuscript intended for academic press publication, based in part off her Ph.D. dissertation. Provisionally entitled Manufacturing a Political Crisis: Backlash Towards Latino Unauthorized Immigration in Modern America, the book offers an approachable narrative history explaining how Latino unauthorized immigration became a political crisis in the U.S. over the past half century – a process much deeper, more complex, and longer in invention than most policymakers understand.

Research Areas: U.S. Politics and Legal Studies, Social Policy, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity, Recent U.S. History, American Political Development, Federalism, Legislation, Government Oversight, Administrative Law, Public Interest Law, Immigration and Asylum Law

Areas of Research

U.S. Politics and Legal Studies
Social Policy
Regional Expertise – United States

Michael K. Fauntroy

Andrew J Schappert — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:47:31 +0000

Michael K. Fauntroy Andrew J Schappert Mon, 08/16/2021 - 11:47

Associate Professor
Founding Director, Race, Politics, and Poilcy Center

Contact Information

fauntroy@gmu.edu
Mason Square, Van Metre Hall, Room 615
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
MSN: 3B1

Biography

Michael K. Fauntroy is an associate professor of policy and government and the founding director of the Race, Politics, and Policy Center at ��AV. He began his second stint at Mason in 2021 after eight years on the political science department faculty at Howard University, where he also served as acting director of the Ronald W. Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center. He previously served on the Mason faculty from 2002-13.

Prior to joining the faculty at Mason, he was an analyst in American national government at the Congressional Research Service (CRS). At CRS, he provided research and consultations for members and committees of Congress. He also served as a civil rights analyst at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where he conducted research on voting rights, fair housing, and education policy.

Fauntroy is the author of two books. Republicans and the Black Vote, which analyzed the relationship between African American voters and the Republican Party. The book was a 2007 Foreword Magazine book of the year finalist in political science. He also authored Home Rule or House Rule? Congress and the Erosion of Local Governance in the District of Columbia. A third book, More Than Just Partisanship: Conservatism and Black Voter Suppression, is under contract with New York University Press. He has also published chapters in edited volumes and academic journals at the intersection of race and politics.

His essays and commentary have been published in the Huffington Post, the Washington Times, New York Daily News, the Black Commentator, and the Chicago Defender, among others. He is a widely cited scholar, having been quoted in the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, Newsday, USA Today, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe, among others. He is a regular television, radio, and podcast presence having appeared on virtually every major American national broadcast network. He is also an in-demand analyst on local television and radio outlets. He currently serves as U.S. politics analyst for CTV News in Canada and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

Fauntroy earned a BA in political science from Hampton University, and a master's in public administration and a PhD in political science from Howard University.

View Michael K. Fauntroy's CV

Areas of Research

African American Political Behavior
Political Parties
Social Policy
The Presidency
U.S. Politics and Legal Studies
Voting Rights Policy

Robert L. Deitz

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 21:38:19 +0000

Robert L. Deitz Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/06/2020 - 17:38

Professor of Public Policy

Contact Information

rdeitz@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-3480
Fax: 703-993-8215
Mason Square, Van Metre Hall, Room 674
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
MSN: 3B1

Biography

Robert L. Deitz is a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. Previously, he served as senior Councilor to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 until February 2009. From September 1998 to September 2006, Deitz was the general counsel at the National Security Agency where he represented the NSA in all legal matters. He has also held positions as acting general counsel at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and as acting deputy general counsel, intelligence, at the Department of Defense.

Deitz began his career as a law clerk to the Honorable Justices Douglas, Stewart, and White of the United States Supreme Court. He has also been in private practice and was special assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano during the Carter Administration.

He is the author of Congratulations – You Just Got Hired: Don’t Screw It Up, which is intended to assist newly hired professionals excel in the workplace.

Deitz received his JD (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School, where he was the Supreme Court Note and Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He received an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he studied international politics and economics. He majored in English literature at Middlebury College, where he received a BA (cum laude) and became a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

View Robert L. Deitz's CV

James N. Burroughs

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 20:35:52 +0000

James N. Burroughs Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/06/2020 - 16:35

Associate Professor

Contact Information

jburroug@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-2956
Fairfax Campus, Aquia Building, Room 312
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
MSN: 3F4

Biography

Public management, public administration ethics, administrative law, judicial process, and organization theory

Jim Burroughs came to ��AV after 15 years in the government and nonprofit sectors. In the federal government, he served as a legislative assistant to two members of Congress and as legal counsel in the Office of the Federal Register at the National Archives. He served seven years as general counsel and head of government relations for the National Propane Gas Association.

From 1995-2000, Burroughs was an adjunct instructor at Mason and at Virginia Tech. He served as Acting Master of Public Administration (MPA) Director in 2000 and 2001, and has been a regular faculty member since then. He is a founder of the Master of Public Administration Cohort partnership with local government in Northern Virginia. He currently serves as a Judge Advocate in the Virginia Defense Force which is part of the Virginia Department of Military Affairs.

He earned his law degree at William & Mary, his Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Mason, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech.

Areas of Research

Public Management
Public Administration Ethics
Administrative Law
Judicial Process
Organization Theory

Christopher D. Berk

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 20:21:17 +0000

Christopher D. Berk Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/06/2020 - 16:21

Assistant Professor

Contact Information

cberk@gmu.edu
Fairfax Campus, Aquia Building, Room 331
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
MSN: 3F4

Biography

Christopher D. Berk is an assistant professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. His research and teaching interests span the law, politics, and philosophy of punishment, with a particular concern for the relationship between democratic politics and penal law.

Berk received his PhD in 2016 from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, along with a joint degree, an MLS, from the University of Chicago Law School. Before coming to Mason, he was a postdoctoral fellow in political philosophy, policy, and law at the University of Virginia.

View Christopher D. Berk's CV

Areas of Research

Politics of Punishment
Penal Law
Law and Society
Democratic Theory

James Pfiffner

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 16:24:34 +0000

James Pfiffner Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/06/2020 - 12:24

Professor Emeritus, Schar School of Policy and Government

Contact Information

pfiffner@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-1417
Fax: 703-993-2284
Mason Square, Van Metre Hall
3351 Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, Virginia 22201
MS 3B1

Personal Websites

http://pfiffner.gmu.edu

Biography

James P. Pfiffner is University Professor emeritus in the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. His major areas of expertise are the Presidency, American national government, public management, and the national security policy process. He has lectured on these topics at universities in Europe and throughout the United States as well as at the Federal Executive Institute, the National War College, the U.S. Military Academy, and the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense.

He has written or edited 16 books on the Presidency and American national government, including The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running (2nd edition, 1996), The Character Factor: How We Judge Our Presidents, (2004), Power Play: The Bush Administration and the Constitution (Brookings 2008), and Torture as Public Policy (2010). He has also published more than 100 chapters and articles in books and scholarly journals.

His professional experience includes service in the Director’s Office of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1980-81), and he has been a member of the faculty at the University of California, Riverside and California State University, Fullerton. He has testified about the presidency before both Houses of Congress.

In 2007, he was S.T. Lee Professorial fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of London, and in 2013 he was visiting professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration, and he has been a panel member or on project staffs of the Volcker Commission, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency. He received the Distinguished Faculty Award at Mason (1990) and the College of Arts and Sciences Award for Scholarship (1999). He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.

While serving with the 25th Infantry Division (1/8 Artillery) in 1970, he received the Army Commendation Medal for Heroism (with “V” device) in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Areas of Research

Presidency and Executive Branch
Public Administration
Public Management
National Security Policy Process
White House – Cabinet Relations
Political Appointee – Civil Service Relations

View CV

Robert L. Dudley

Kelly Hansen — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 15:39:57 +0000

Robert L. Dudley Kelly Hansen Tue, 10/06/2020 - 11:39

Professor Emeritus, Schar School of Policy and Government
rdudley@gmu.edu

Contact Information

rdudley@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-1412
Fairfax Campus, Robinson Hall A 231
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
MSN: 3F4

Biography

Robert Dudley received a PhD in political science from Northern Illinois University. His interests are generally in American government and politics.

He has published work on American elections and judicial decision-making. His articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, PS, and American Political Quarterly. He has also authored or been the co-author of five books; one, a textbook, on American government is in the 11th edition.

Areas of Research:

Judicial Behavior
American Elections

View CV

Janine R. Wedel

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 19:37:33 +0000

Janine R. Wedel Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/05/2020 - 15:37

Distinguished University Professor

Contact Information

jwedel@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-3567
Fax: 703-993-8215
Mason Square, Van Metre Hall, Room 638
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
MSN: 3B1

Personal Websites

http://janinewedel.info

Biography

Janine R. Wedel is a Distinguished University Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. She is a pioneer in applying anthropological insights to topics dominated by political scientists, economists, or sociologists.

Wedel presently writes about elite influencers, power networks, and shadow elites in the United States, Europe, and Russia; governance transformations over the past half-century; and the Kremlin’s weaponized corruption—all through the lens of a social anthropologist. She has an internationally recognized record of innovative scholarly research and commentary on current intellectual issues. She has been named a Global Policy Chair at the University of Bath in the U.K.; a fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin; the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor in Sweden; and a New America Foundation senior fellow. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm; and a Faculty Associate of the Petrach Program on Ukraine. Wedel is the first anthropologist to win the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, an honor typically reserved for political scientists (previous recipients include Samuel Huntington and Mikhail Gorbachev).

Wedel is cofounder and past president of the Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP), a section of the American Anthropological Association.

A five-time Fulbright fellow, Wedel has also won awards from the National Science Foundation, Swedish Research Council, EU Horizon Europe, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, International Research and Exchanges Board, National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, United States Institute of Peace, German Marshall Fund, Eurasia Foundation, National Institute of Justice, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, among others.

Wedel is currently at work on a book for Oxford University Press on elite influence.

Her previous books have been widely and favorably reviewed (http://janinewedel.info/books.html). Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government and the Free Market (Basic Books 2009) was book of the month for the Huffington Post and received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Contemporary Sociology called it “an example of the cutting edge of the discipline [of anthropology].” Choice writes that “Wedel… presents an arresting theory of power that deserves wide attention….as a thinker she is in the same league as John Kenneth Galbraith and Charles Lindblom.” Her subsequent book, Unaccountable: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom, and Politics and Created an Outsider Class (Pegasus, updated paperback and kindle editions 2016), was named in the Bloomberg survey of 2014 favorite reads.

Wedel’s Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe (Palgrave 2001) sparked considerable controversy and was widely acclaimed. It was named “impressive and informative” by Foreign Affairs. American Ethnologist called it “a tribute to the high caliber of Wedel’s journalistic and anthropological abilities alike and a reminder of the need for a re-envisioned and effective anthropology brought to bear on pressing social issues.”

Her first book, The Private Poland: An Anthropologist’s Look at Everyday Life (1986) which Osteuropa Wirtschaft called “a brilliant account of contemporary Polish society” was likened by the Christian Science Monitor to Hedrick Smith’s The Russians. Wedel has also published the coauthored Confronting Corruption, Building Accountability (2010) and The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism (edited, translated, annotated and introductions 1992), which the British anthropology journal Man called a “pioneering work.”

A public intellectual, Wedel has contributed analysis pieces to more than a dozen major outlets, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, Project Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Politico, Salon, Christian Science Monitor, Nation, Die Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, and others. She contributed a regular featured column to the Huffington Post for more than seven years. She has served as an associate producer of three PBS documentaries. Her television appearances include CNN, MSNBC, BBC, PBS, C-Span, Deutsche Welle, and Al Jazeera, as well as many radio shows, including BBC and both NPR and satellite.

Wedel has testified before congressional subcommittees and written for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and units of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the OECD. Her stops on the university lecture circuit include Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Chicago, Berkeley, Princeton, Oxford, Brown University, University of Toronto, Central European University (Budapest), University of Warsaw, London Business School, Institute of Social Studies (the Hague), University College London, United Nations University/WIDER (Helsinki), and Freie Universität (Berlin). Other audiences have included TEDx (Berlin), OECD (Paris), Bruno Kreisky Institute (Vienna), European Journalism Observatory (Lugano, Switzerland), New America Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, National Press Club, National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, and watchdog NGOs.

Wedel’s work has been favorably reviewed and quoted in the New York Review of Books, Economist, New York Times, Newsweek, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Publishers Weekly, among many others. It has been reviewed or translated into Chinese, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Areas of Research

Elite Influencers & Shadow Elites
Informal Networks and Practices
Professional “Enablers”
Elite Corruption
Central & Eastern Europe
Russia & Ukraine
Anthropology of Public Policy
Foreign Aid
Privatization
Audit Culture
Digital Bureaucracy

Laura Walker

Kelly Hansen — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 19:27:25 +0000

Laura Walker Kelly Hansen Mon, 10/05/2020 - 15:27

Professor Emerita

Contact Information

lwalker1@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-9348
Fairfax Campus, Aquia Building, Room 318
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
MSN: 3F4

Biography

Laura Walker, attorney-at-law, was engaged in the private practice of law in Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Virginia prior to joining the ��AV faculty.

She is the director of Mason's Minor in Legal Studies Program, the head of the Pre-Law Advising Program, and the faculty advisor to Phi Alpha Delta, the pre-law student organization. She is the author of the textbook, Family Law and Public Policy.

She received her Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Toledo College of Law in 1977. She earned her PhD from Mason's School of Public Policy, with dual concentrations in culture, values and social policy and national governance and society in 2012.

Areas of Research

Constitutional Law
Judicial Process
Law and Public Policy