The 2008 presidential campaign is shaping up as the longest, most expensive, and most complex in history.
Rutgers is a center of original research and teaching about the U.S. political system and its impact on the lives of Americans. 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 upcoming 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.
Ruth B. Mandel, Board of Governors Professor of Politics and director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, teaches and writes about womens political history, focusing on women as candidates and officeholders. Mandel is teaching a first-year seminar entitled
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 Senator Hillary Clinton, including observing the campaign in action in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Contact Mandel at rmandel@rci.rutgers.edu at 732-932-9384, ext. 228.
Richard R. Lau, 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, a professor of public policy and political science at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and a national expert on opinion polling, mass media, and American politics, is a co-author of A New Engagement?: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen.
Contact Zukin at zukin@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-4100 ext. 6205.
WOMEN AND POLITICS
The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) 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 website 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 at walsh@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 227.
Susan J. Carroll is a professor of political science and womens and gender studies as well as senior scholar at CAWP. A nationally recognized expert on womens 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 conducts periodic opinion polls on a wide range of topics and will be polling New Jersey voters throughout the presidential campaign. Tim Vercellotti is an assistant research professor at the Eagleton Institute and director of polling.
Elizabeth T. Matto, a political scientist at the Eagleton Institute, is developing Eagletons Youth Political Participation Program. She is piloting a citizenship training initiative for high school seniors and an online survey that measures the civic engagement of high school students.
Vercellotti and Matto are working on a research project, The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection: The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy.
Contact Vercellotti at tim.vercellotti@rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 285. Contact Matto at ematt@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9384, ext. 256.
THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION
Jane Y. Junn is an associate professor of political science in the School of Arts and Sciences with a joint appointment at the Eagleton Institute. Her primary interests include 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), will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2008. She is at work on a book about race and political participation in the United States, with an emphasis on the dynamics of immigration and racial diversity.
Contact Junn at junn@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-932-9312.
Janice Fine is an assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations 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 Governor Jon Corzines Blue-Ribbon Panel on Immigration Policy.
Contact Fine at jrfine@smlr.rutgers.edu or 732-932-1746.
THE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA
David Greenberg, assistant professor of journalism and media studies and history at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, is an expert on 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, Calvin Coolidge and writes the History Lessons column for Slate.
Contact Greenberg at davidgr@scils.rutgers.edu or 732-932-7500, ext. 8178.
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Contact: Patricia Lamiell
732-932-7084, Ext. 615
E-mail: plamiell@ur.rutgers.edu