MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95
In the 1994-95 academic year, the Department of Political Science continued its
distinguished programs in undergraduate and graduate education and research.
The Department's major new initiative was in the area of undergraduate
education. The MIT Washington Internship Program was established to educate
technologically sophisticated students about national public policy. Ten
students were selected for the inaugural group in 1995 and were placed in
government agencies, advocacy groups, and think tanks in Washington, DC. Each
student enrolls in political science subjects designed to help him/her explore
the intersection of science and engineering with national politics and
policymaking. Associate Professor Charles H. Stewart, III is the Program
Director.
With the support of the Provost's office, Professor Richard A. Joseph was named
the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor. He will join the Department for
two years from The Carter Center and Emory University in Atlanta. Professor
Joseph's teaching interests are African politics, comparative democratization,
political theory, social and political thought, and politics and literature:
Africa and the Caribbean. The Department was again successful in hiring new
faculty. Assistant Professor David Woodruff was recruited from the University
of California, Berkeley. His fields are comparative politics, comparative
political economy, and comparative methods.
The faculty produced books and many articles. Here we can mention only a few.
Assistant Professor Stephen Ansolabehere co-authored Going Negative: How
Attack Advertising Polarizes and Alienates the American Public, The Free
Press; he also wrote "The Effectiveness of Campaign Advertising: Its All in the
Context," a chapter in Campaigns and Elections, Westview Press; and "The
Science of Political Advertising," Political Persuasion and Attitude
Change, University of Michigan Press. Professor Suzanne Berger wrote "The
Coming Protectionism: Trade and Identity in France," a chapter in Remaking
the Hexagon: The New France in the New Europe, Westview Press. Professor
Nazli Choucri authored Population and Political Economy in Egypt: Dilemmas
of Security, London: Routledge. She was guest editor, special issue of
Business & the Contemporary World on "Global Environmental Accords:
Implications for Technology, Industry and International Relations." Assistant
Professor Zhiyuan Cui wrote "Universal. Particular and Infinite: Transcending
Western Centrism and Cultural Relativism in the Third World," in Leo Marx and
Bruce Mazlish, eds., Idea of Progress Revisited, University of Michigan
Press. He has also written Institutional Innovation and the Second "Thought
Liberation" Movement: Collective Essays (in Chinese), Oxford University
Press, Hong Kong; and co-authored Sustainable Democracy, Cambridge
University Press. Assistant Professor Daniel T. Kryder authored "The American
State and the Management of Race Conflict in the Workplace and in the Army,
1941-1945," Polity. Professor Stephen M. Meyer wrote "The Economic
Impact of Environmental Regulation," Environmental Law and Practice, and
"Russia's Military," Current History. Associate Professor Kenneth A.
Oye wrote the chapter "Explaining the End of the Cold War: Behavioral and
Morphological Adaptations to the Nuclear Peace," End of the Cold War &
International Relations Theory, Columbia University Press. Professor Barry
R. Posen wrote several chapters; among them are "Military Lessons of the Gulf
War--Implications for Middle East Arms Control," in Arms Control and the New
Middle East Security Environment, Westview Press; "Nationalism, the Mass
Army and Military Power," reprinted in Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions
of International Security, and International Security Reader; and
co-author of "Competing U.S. Grand Strategies," in Strategy & Force
Planning, U.S. Naval War College Press. Professor George W. Rathjens wrote
"Rethinking Nuclear Proliferation," The Washington Quarterly. Professor
Charles F. Sabel authored "Bootstrapping Reform: Rebuilding Firms, the Welfare
State and Unions," in Politics and Society. Professor Richard J.
Samuels had published Japanese and Korean versions of his book, "Rich
Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of
Japan, originally published by Cornell University Press. Professor Stewart
authored "Let's Go Fly a Kite: Correlates of Involvement in the House Bank
Scandal," Legislative Studies Quarterly. Professor Myron Weiner
authored The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and to Human
Rights, Harper Collins; and was co-editor of The New Geopolitics of
Central Asia and its Borderlands, London: I.B. Taurus, and Bloomington:
Indiana University Press. His article, "Security, Stability and International
Migration" appeared in Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions of International
Security, MIT Press.
Professor Ansolabehere and Associate Professor James T. Snyder, Jr. organized
the 1995 Summer Workshop in Mathematics and Computers for incoming and current
graduate students in the Department, with support from the National Science
Foundation. Professor Berger created a new subject, "Domestic Politics of
Trade and Integration." She also organized and directs the new MIT
International Science and Technology Initiative. Professor Choucri's new
subject is Sustainable Development: Theory and Public Policy; Professor Kryder
offered two new subjects: American Political Development, and The President.
Professor Meyer organized and directed twelve undergraduate students in a new
UROP project on Endangered Species, combining politics/survey research and
field biology (habitat assessment). Assistant Professor Melissa Nobles' new
subjects are Comparative Politics of Race and Ethnicity, Ethnicity and Race in
World Politics, Race and Science, and Nationalism. Professor Harvey M.
Sapolsky organized a joint Harvard-MIT seminar on the Future of War, a monthly
seminar series open to faculty, students, and visitors. Assistant Professor
Frederic C. Schaffer prepared four new subjects: Language and Politics,
Categories and Concepts in Political Science, Political Culture, and Democracy
in Comparative Perspective. Assistant Professor Stephen Van Evera has added a
new subject, Causes of War: Theory and Method. Professor Weiner introduced a
new freshman seminar, Migrants and Their Children.
Undergraduate enrollments went up from 738 in 1993-94 to 756 in 1994-95.
Undergraduate majors also increased from 38 to 40, and minors increased from 24
to 29. The Department enrolled 14 new doctoral students and 3 masters
students. One hundred twenty two students were registered in the Political
Science graduate program.
Professor Weiner received the School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London Edgar Graham Book Prize for The Child and the State in
India, Princeton University Press, 1991. This prize is awarded every two
years for a work of original scholarship on agricultural and/or industrial
development in Asia and/or Africa. Professor Berger was awarded the Raphael
Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professorship, and received refunding for three years
from the Sloan Foundation for the Industrial Performance Center. Professor
Choucri received funding from the United Nations Population Fund; from the
United Nations Environment Programme, Consortium on Technology, Environment,
and Sustainable Development Professors Oye and Eugene B. Skolnikoff were
funded by the Power Nuclear and Fuel Development Corporation of Japan for a
research project on International Responses to Japanese Plutonium Policies.
Professor Samuels received a grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific
Research for his project on Japan's China Strategy as part of larger
programatic support for the MIT Japan Program, which he directs. Professors
Sapolsky, Posen, Meyer, etc (DACS) received a two-year renewal grant from the
Carnegie Corporation for the Defense and Arms Control Studies (DACS) Program.
Professor Schaffer received a Rozance Memorial Fellowship in Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley; and a National Endowment for the Humanities
Dissertation Fellowship.
Professor Berger is a board member, SSRC-ACLS Joint Committee International
Programs; board member, German-American Academic Council; co-organizer,
Conference on the Future of Industry in Advanced Societies. She is also on the
editorial boards of Political Science Quarterly, Political
Studies, and West European Politics. She is senior research
associate, Center for European Studies, Harvard University. Professor Choucri
served as special advisor to Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and
Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. Professor
Willard R. Johnson served on the Board of Directors of the Overseas Development
Council, as well as on TransAfrica. Professor Kryder co-chaired a
Harvard-based, Boston/Cambridge "Seminar in American Political Development," a
bi-weekly forum for the presentation of work-in-progress by scholars of U.S.
political history. Professor Meyer served on the editorial boards of
International Security, and International Studies Quarterly.
Professor Oye was a member of the editorial board for World Politics.
Professor Posen was a member of the editorial boards of International
Security, Security Studies, and Orbis; and academic associate of
Atlantic Council. Professor Samuels is a member of the Abe Program
Fellowship Committee of the Social Science Research Council; he served on the
US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Study Group on Multinational
Firms and the U.S. Technology Base; the Advisory Commission, the Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment, Defense Technology Base; and the U.S.-Japan
Scientific and Technical Exchange Group, National Academy of Sciences. He is
vice-chairman, Committee on Japan of the National Research Council. Professor
Sapolsky is a member of the Energy Advisory Task Force on Alternative Futures
for the Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboraties; and the dissertation
award committee, National Academy of Social Insurance. He is the American
Political Science Association representative to the American Association for
the Advancement of Science; and a reviewer, Institute of Medicine, National
Academy of Sciences. Professor Skolnikoff serves on the Humphrey Award
Committee of the American Political Science Association, and on several
National Academy of Sciences panels and committees. He was keynote speaker for
the 75th Anniversary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
Professor Snyder served on the editorial board of Economics and
Politics. Professor Stewart served on the editorial boards of Political
Science Quarterly, and Congress and the Presidency. Professor Van
Evera served on the editorial boards of International Security,
Security Studies, and Orbis. Professor Weiner is Director,
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, German-American Migration and Refugee
Policies Project, funded by the German-American Academic Council, 1994-1996;
and member, External Advisory Committee for The State of World's Refugees
1995, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva; International
Interdisciplinary Scientific Council, UNESCO Chair, Refugees Studies Programme,
University of Oxford; Board of Trustees, The Fund for Peace; and on the
editorial boards of Asia Survey, Third World Quarterly,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and Journal of commonwealth
Studies.
Professor Berger directs the Provost's new MIT International Science and
Technology Initiative (MISTI), serves on the operating committee, MIT
Industrial Performance Center, and is a member of the Industrial Linkages
Committee. Professor Choucri is a member of the MIT Council on Global
Environment, the MIT Committee for ETH-MIT-Tokyo University alliance, and the
MIT Faculty Committee for the World Industry Congress. She is also chair,
Policy Committee, Technology and Development Program; associate director,
Technology and Development Program; and head of the Middle East Program. She
chaired the Committee on MIT Faculty Seminar on Global Environment and
Sustainable Development; and is director of the MIT-led Consortium on Global
Environment and Sustainable Development. Professor Johnson supervised a summer
UROP project on reforms in Uganda, and on African American organizational
activity and consciousness regarding Africa. He served on the Provost's
advisory committee on the Dean of the Graduate School search, and on the
advisory board for the MIT-based Africa Technology Forum. Professor Oye
is a member of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Committee on
Regional Studies Minors; the MIT Council on Global Environment; and the
Provost's Advisory Committee on the Dean for Undergraduate Education and
Student Affairs. He is the director of the Center for International Studies;
and co-organizer of the Harvard-MIT Joint Seminars on International
Institutions and Political Economy. Professors Oye, Posen, and Weiner are
co-directors of Seminar XXI, Foreign Politics and the National Interest.
Professor Posen and Professor Rathjens are members of the Committee on ROTC.
Professor Samuels is director of the MIT Japan Program. Professor Sapolsky is
director of DACS. Professor Skolnikoff was chair, special committee for the
Provost; and co-chair, MIT Seminar for Senior Congressional Staff. Professor
Stewart served on the MacVicar Fellow selection advisory committee, and the
Truman Scholarship selection committee. He was faculty advisor to Nightline,
and Housemaster of McCormick Hall. He is on the supervisory committee of
Boston/Cambridge Ministry in Higher Education which employs MIT's Protestant
chaplain.
Our graduating doctoral students were positioned at leading universities and
government. Among them are Smith College, Holy Cross, Columbia University,
Regis College, the University of Rochester, Princeton University, Boston
College, McGill University, and Sogang University in Seoul, Korea; and the
Congressional Budget Office, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Professor Hayward R. Alker retired from the faculty. Professor Charles F.
Sabel joined the faculty at Columbia University, but remains in the Department
as Visiting Professor. Other departures include Professors Uday Mehta, and
Jonathan Fox.
MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95