Political Science

What is ‘woke’? Who knows?

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 19 May 2025 13:30:00 +0000

What is ‘woke’? Who knows? Rachel Sauer Mon, 05/19/2025 - 07:30

Bradley Worrell

ɫ��ֱ�� PhD candidate Benjamin VanDreew’s search for an answer to that question finds that Barbie is, book banning isn’t, and that female Democrats are more likely than male Democrats to be seen as ‘woke’

Is Chick-fil-A “woke”?

Seeing that question posted on Twitter (now X.com) back in 2023 made Benjamin VanDreew ponder: Who decides what qualifies as “woke”?

“I was on Twitter, and for whatever reason, trending that day was the question: Had Chick-fil-A gone woke?” says VanDreew, then an undergraduate at Utah Valley University and now a ɫ��ֱ�� PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science studying American politics. “Seeing that post made me question: Is there a cohesive definition for woke? Or is it just kind of an anything-and-everything term?

ɫ��ֱ�� PhD candidate Benjamin VanDreew was inspired to research wokeness after seeing a post on X and wondering, "Is there a cohesive definition for woke? Or is it just kind of an anything-and-everything term?"

“I really wanted to put the term to the test, because I think having specific definitions—especially in politics, when people are throwing around buzzwords—is incredibly important,” he adds.

“The term woke seems like it’s taken on a life of its own, so I don’t think anybody has felt the need to elaborate on it or explain it themselves. And if everything can just be tossed onto the pile of what the word means (definitionally), to me it makes the word have less meaning.”

In the absence of any widely recognized definition for woke, VanDreew says he was inspired to investigate how average Americans determine what constitutes “woke.” To do so, he and his coauthors commissioned a polling firm to query a demographic sampling of people nationwide about their own definitions of woke by asking them to choose between a series of two lists, with each list containing one political party, one sexual orientation, one gender group, one religious group, one political figure, one historical event, one profession, one higher education institution, one political movement and one political policy.

Those responses were then coded by whether the respondents self-identified as Republican, Democrat or independent and conservative, moderate or progressive.

The authors detailed their findings in the article “What’s woke? Ordinary Americans’ understandings of wokeness,” recently published in the journal Research and Politics.

Who (and what) made the ‘woke’ list

Politicians who appeared on the selection lists for survey respondents to consider included President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, former congressman Matt Gaetz, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Specific groups included Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the Ku Klux Klan, Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys, while specific policies included affirmative action, book bans, pro-life, pro-choice, aid for Ukraine, aid for Israel and admitting fewer immigrants.

“We tried to pick people and things that our survey respondents would be aware of by keeping choices as modern as possible,” VanDreew explains of the survey list selections.

He says forced choices resulted in some interesting decisions when survey respondents had to decide what constituted woke. For example, Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi were deemed woke by respondents, while Biden and Schumer were not—even though all four are Democrats who share similar politics. That’s likely because Republicans, in particular, tend to associate gender (particularly female) with wokeness, he adds.

Meanwhile, survey respondents placed Trump firmly in the anti-woke camp, but not Desantis—even though he made crusading against woke a part of his failed presidential campaign (famously stating that his home state of Florida is “where woke goes to die.”) VanDreew says while it’s not clear why Desantis did not score higher as anti-woke, it may be that part of his messaging did not resonate with survey respondents.

Left: Protestors at a Jan. 20, 2018, march in Calgary, Canada (Photo: Joslyn MacPherson/Wikimedia Commons); right: President Donald Trump speaks during the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Photo: Hermann Tertsch and Victor Gonzalez/Wikimedia Commons)

When it came to evaluating groups and policies, respondents deemed the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter, lesbians and being pro-choice as being woke, while Republicans, Proud Boys, the KKK, book bans, aid to Israel and admitting fewer immigrants were judged as being anti-woke.

“We were able to see that partisanship does show up across a lot of these things as far as, if something more associated with the Democratic Party, it’s more likely to be viewed as woke, and if it was Republican-associated it would be viewed as less woke. Also, things that are associated with feminism or LGBTQ are more likely to be considered woke, and things that are conservative related to gender and race were seen more as anti-woke,” VanDreew says.

Reviewing the survey results, VanDreew says there was actually a fair amount of agreement between Republicans and Democrats on specific areas of what was deemed woke, as Democrats joined Republicans and independents in identifying certain individuals, groups and causes as woke.

“What was different was the connotation as to whether they viewed woke as a negative or a positive. It’s an interesting thing that they agreed but also completely disagreed on certain subjects,” he says.

Meanwhile, independents as a whole had much less consistent views, tracking more closely with Democrats when it comes to some considerations, while more closely aligning with Republicans on others, he adds. In particular, independents were generally in agreement with Republicans regarding gender issues, which suggests that the political right has been especially successful in reframing gender progressivism as woke, the authors state in their paper.

Other survey responses showed that those polled generally don’t generally consider the religions, careers or products/companies listed in the survey as especially woke or anti-woke—with one major exception: Barbie.

In late 2023, around the same time respondents were surveyed, the movie Barbie debuted and was recognized for addressing gender and stereotyping issues, which may account for the fact that Barbie placed in the woke category, VanDreew says.

Today’s ‘woke’ is different than yesterday’s ‘woke’

"For the sake of voters, we need politicians on both sides to do a better job about transparency when it comes to woke or other buzzwords, and what they’re platforming."

Based upon the survey results, VanDreew says there are some conclusions that can be drawn about woke. First, the term has undergone a radical transformation in recent years.

“Woke is typically attributed to coming about during the Civil Rights movement, as kind of a discrete way for people to show support for the struggle. It may not have been just the word woke by itself, but it could be terms like ‘stay woke,’” he says.

“That’s where it started, and I would say that definition stuck until more modern times, when we’ve seen it take on a completely different context, which is a confusing and not well-organized context.”

Second, research suggests some on the political right have co-opted the term and used it to include anything deemed politically correct, liberal or “anti-American,” VanDreew says. Despite this conceptual stretching, however, the term remains linked to social justice, he adds.

At the same time, research shows that how ordinary Americans view woke as a whole remains unclear. Given that the research paper determined there are implied meanings and associations with woke—but not a clearly spelled-out definition—VanDreew says it reinforces his belief that politicians on either side of the woke issue owe it to their constituents to explain exactly what they mean when they use the word.

“For the sake of voters, we need politicians on both sides to do a better job about transparency when it comes to woke or other buzzwords, and what they’re platforming,” he says. “I think a better understanding of the word (woke) as it’s used by people in power would only help us as a country. That was my only intention here. I didn’t come at this (topic) trying to be polarizing in any direction; I just came at it with a question and the data led to the published results.”

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ɫ��ֱ�� PhD candidate Benjamin VanDreew’s search for an answer to that question finds that Barbie is, book banning isn’t, and that female Democrats are more likely than male Democrats to be seen as ‘woke.'

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Trouble in the developing world? Call the IMF

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 19:49:07 +0000

Trouble in the developing world? Call the IMF Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/29/2025 - 13:49

Bradley Worrell

In a recently published paper, ɫ��ֱ�� political science Professor Jaroslav Tir highlights how intergovernmental organizations help end civil wars

There’s trouble in Africa, where a protracted civil war between government forces and rebels in the countryside threatens to undo years of hard work to raise the country’s standard of living and its prospects for future economic growth.

This is a job for the IMF.

No, not the Impossible Missions Force—the fictional U.S. covert government agency tasked with successfully completing next-to-impossible missions, as popularized by the Mission: Impossible film franchise helmed by Tom Cruise.

ɫ��ֱ�� researcher Jaroslav Tir, a professor of political science, studies armed conflicts and how to stop them.

The other IMF—the International Money Fund. Yes, really, that IMF.

The role the IMF, the World Bank and other intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have played in recent years to help broker peace agreements is highlighted in the research paper “Civil War Mediation in the Shadow of IGOs: the Path to Comprehensive Peace Agreements,” published earlier this year in the Journal of Peace Research, which was coauthored by Jaroslav Tir, ɫ��ֱ�� Department of Political Science professor, and Johannes Karreth, a ɫ��ֱ�� PhD political science major and former Tir graduate student.

Tir, whose research focus includes armed conflicts and how to stop them, recently spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about how IGOs can help resolve conflicts by offering or denying financial incentives to governments and rebels. His responses have been lightly edited for style and condensed.

Question: How did these international government organizations get into the conflict-resolution business?

Tir: That’s a very good question, right? Because the IMF, the World Bank and various regional development banks don’t have mandates to end civil wars.

One thing we do know from the study of international organizations is that they tend to broaden their mandates. They are bureaucracies—and bureaucracies like to grow, generally. They like more resources. They like to do things well, because if they look good, they get some more resources. So, the fact they are going beyond the original mandates is not that surprising.

The more narrow answer is that a lot of these organizations are financial, so they deal with things like development assistance. They’re trying to get these countries more economically developed, and they’re trying to get their economies functioning better to raise the standard of living for the local populations and things like that.

The bad news for all of these economic agendas are civil wars. So, for example, if the World Bank/IMF invests tens of millions of dollars or sometimes even hundreds of millions of dollars in a country, and that country then ends up in a civil war, a lot of this progress and money that’s been invested is put in jeopardy. Therefore, these organizations have a literally vested self-interest to try to see if they can do something about these civil wars in member countries, because they’re interested in protecting their investments.

Question: How does a bank enforce a peace treaty?

Tir: To clarify, these organizations do not do this (enforce treaties), and in the paper we do not claim that they directly partake in the peace process. This is not them sending in peacekeepers. Instead, this is all done through financial incentives—or denial of incentives. So, it’s carrot and stick, but it’s all financial.

General Soumaila Bakayoko, chief of Staff of the Ivorian Armed Forces, reviews the Ivorian troops during the First Ivorian Civil War in 2007. During the conflict, rebels particularly wanted access to voting rolls, notes ɫ��ֱ�� researcher Jaroslav Tir. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

To answer your question more directly, how can they, quote unquote, enforce a peace process? For example, with these conflicting parties, the rebels and the governments, working toward peace, (IGOs) will essentially commit to put X amount of money into the country to deal with issues that are usually connected to economic development, but also maybe of interest to both the rebels and the governments. So, that’s the carrot.

And it’s a bit of a double-edged sword, because the idea is IGOs will give you these resources if you honor the commitments toward making peace. However, these resources will be denied or suspended if you fail to do so. Meaning, if you’re a bad actor or you’re backpedaling or acting in malfeasant ways, there are (financial) consequences.

Question: It seems like the IGO might have an easier time incentivizing a government than a rebel group?

Tir: I think they incentivize both, but I think it is easier for them to incentivize the government because the government is a member of the organization. It’s the government of Country X, for example, that actually has a seat at the IMF/World Bank. So, the contact there is pretty direct.

For the rebels, there is not necessarily direct contact with the IGO because they never have a seat at the organization. But rebellions take place typically because rebels need or want something, and whether these things are financial or not, usually money can help them achieve this.

For instance, in the Ivory Coast during its civil war in the early 2000s, one thing that the rebels really wanted was access to voting rolls, to assure that all citizens could vote in the elections. In a way that’s a political issue, but in other ways it’s a very logistical kind of issue. And money needs to be spent to basically go through the records and see who is eligible to vote, and these administrators who are going to do this need to be paid.

Then the other thing the rebels were really interested in was that they did not have very good health care access—for example, childhood vaccines and standard stuff that has been provided for decades around the world, but the government didn’t offer it in the rebel-held areas. The rebels said, ‘This is something that’s very important to us because our children are dying, and our people are getting sick. So, they said, ‘We want access to vaccinations and access to health care.’

The World Bank and the IMF essentially said, ‘If these are kinds of things that are meaningful to you, these things are good for the World Bank/IMF as well.’ And that makes sense, because if people are healthier, they’re more economically productive, right? So, there is your economic incentive, and once this leads to stability, stability is good for economic growth and development.

This is a way in which international organizations can incentivize rebels to come to the negotiating table. That’s the carrot for them.

Question: From reading the paper, it sounds like not all IGOs are created equal.

Tir: Definitely, they are not all created equal. But we’re not just looking at the issue of size of the IGO or how many countries belong to the IGO. We’re basically looking at a different kind of variance that occurs among international organizations, and that is how much leverage they have over member countries.

"(Syria) is a country that’s been internationally isolated for decades under the Assad regime, and part of that isolation is not having memberships in these (IGOs)," notes ɫ��ֱ�� researcher Jaroslav Tir. "So, when the civil war broke out, there was not a lot of incentive-type influence from the international community that could bring the (factions) in Syria to the negotiating table." (Photo: Mahmoud Sulaiman/Unsplash)

Some organizations have very little leverage over member countries—meaning that the member countries tell the organization what to do and not the other way around. So, it’s a question of who is the boss. Is it the member country, or is it the organization that’s the boss? That’s one source of variation.

The other source is how many resources (IGOs) have. And this is very important in the context of civil wars, because the resources can then be used as carrots to basically get the governments and the rebels to work toward peace.

You have to have both: the institutional leverage that the organization can tell member countries what to do, and that has to be coupled with these material resources. So, it’s not just these organizations telling countries and rebels what to do, it’s actually incentivizing them to work toward peace.

Question: Are there cases in which IGOs are less effective in incentivizing peace? What do those look like?

Tir: One example would be Syria. This is a country that’s been internationally isolated for decades under the Assad regime, and part of that isolation is not having memberships in these (IGOs). So, when the civil war broke out, there was not a lot of incentive-type influence from the international community that could bring the (factions) in Syria to the negotiating table. …

Another example would be Uganda, which had a civil war and there’s been no peace agreement. And the reason there has been no peace agreement is the rebel group. The Lord’s Resistance Army was simply not interested in making any kinds of concessions. It seems like they’re more interested in having a rebellion than advancing any kind of policy or political objectives.

That was a case where international organizations were involved, where they observed the Ugandan government was willing to do its part, but the Lord’s Resistance Army was not serious about negotiating. So, what ended up happening there is that international organizations are just working with the Ugandan government and the LRA is cut out of the whole process.

Question: Your paper talks about IGOs in relation to comprehensive peace agreements. What, specifically, is a comprehensive peace agreement and how is it different from other types of peace agreements?

Tir: It is exactly what it sounds like: It’s a peace agreement that’s comprehensive—that tackles a multitude of issues, whereas partial peace agreements only resolve a subset of the contentious issues.

Civil wars are very complex, with disagreements over a variety of different issues, such as police reform, access to government power, representation, access to health care and who gets to serve in the military. In some countries, military service is ethnically based, depending upon if you are a member of a certain ethnic group.

"The two big benefits of these comprehensive peace agreements are: first, because they do tackle a multitude of issues, they’re much more likely to resolve a civil war; and second, they help ensure that the resolutions the rebels and the government make actually stick."

The two big benefits of these comprehensive peace agreements are: first, because they do tackle a multitude of issues, they’re much more likely to resolve a civil war; and second, they help ensure that the resolutions the rebels and the government make actually stick, which is important, because civil wars are notorious for recidivism. Once a country has a civil war, there’s a much higher likelihood of having a civil war recurrence down the road.

As we highlighted in the article, fewer than one in five conflicts are resolved by comprehensive peace agreements. So, they’re great, but they’re rare.

Question: It sounds like CPAs, or any peace agreements, require an extended commitment of time and resources by the IGOs if they are going to be successful.

Tir: (IGOs) have to write substantial checks … and these resources need to be provided over time. They are committing themselves to be involved in a country for many years. So, it’s not just offering a carrot (financial incentive) today but also in the future. The technical term for it is shadow of the future.

Basically, the idea is: We (the government and rebels, separately) want these future resources and because we want them, that essentially makes us think twice about reneging on the peace agreement. And if we (as a party to the peace process) are in a situation where we believe the other side has an incentive to abide by the agreement, we’re likely to uphold our end as well.

It’s kind of a puzzle, a Rubik’s Cube, how the pieces of the peace process come together, and if they do, we find the chances of these agreements being reached and maintained are substantially higher.

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In a recently published paper, ɫ��ֱ�� political science Professor Jaroslav Tir highlights how intergovernmental organizations help end civil wars.

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College of Arts and Sciences faculty win 2025 Best Should Teach Awards

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:30:00 +0000

College of Arts and Sciences faculty win 2025 Best Should Teach Awards Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/22/2025 - 07:30

Peter Hunt, Warren Sconiers and Josh Strayhorn will be honored during an awards ceremony May 1

Three College of Arts and Sciences faculty members have been recognized as 2025 Best Should Teach Award winners.

Peter Hunt, a professor of classics; Warren Sconiers, an associate teaching professor of ecology and evolutionary biology; and Josh Strayhorn, an associate professor of political science, will be recognized for their excellence in teaching and academic leadership at an awards ceremony from 6 to 9 p.m. May 1 in the CASE Chancellors Hall and Auditorium.

Peter Hunt (left), Warren Sconiers (center) and Josh Strayhorn (right) have been recognized as 2025 Best Should Teach Award winners.

The Best Should Teach Initiative was established in 1996 by Lindley and Marguerite Stiles to support the idea that “the best should teach.” It celebrates excellence in teaching at primary, secondary and higher education levels and supports the preparation of college and university faculty, as well as public school teachers, in their disciplinary fields.

Hunt, who has been a faculty member at the ɫ��ֱ�� since 2000, is a classical Greek historian who studies warfare and society, slavery, historiography and oratory.

Sconiers trained as an insect ecologist, studying the effects of drought stress and changes in nutritional plant physiology and insect species composition. He also researches how to increase student engagement and learning in large classroom settings, focusing on peer-to-peer collaboration, self-efficacy, bridging biology teaching and research experiences and building instructor approachability.

Strayhorn, who joined the ɫ��ֱ�� faculty in 2013, specializes in formal theory, political institutions and judicial politics. His research applies game-theoretic models in a variety of contexts. His work examines the implications of delegation, oversight and accountability mechanisms for outcomes within political and judicial hierarchies and for democratic governance.

The Best Should Teach Award ceremony is free and open to the public. The keynote speaker will be Alphonse Keasley, former associate vice chancellor in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement at ɫ��ֱ�� who has more than 30 years of experience as a faculty member, staff and administrator.

Best Should Teach events and awards are co-funded by the Ira and Ineva Baldwin Fund in the CU Foundation and Brian Good's private Best Should Teach Fund, with additional support from the Center for Teaching and Learning, the School of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Peter Hunt, Warren Sconiers and Josh Strayhorn will be honored during an awards ceremony May 1.

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Exploring the changing politics of science

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:50:58 +0000

Exploring the changing politics of science Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/15/2025 - 08:50

Students invited to enjoy a slice and discuss interaction of science policy and politics at Pizza & Politics event April 21

A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in October 2024 found that 76% of Americans express “a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.” That’s the good news. The not-do-good news is that number is down from 86% in January 2019.

Also, the same study found that 48% of respondents feel scientists should “focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of public policy debates.”

So, these are interesting times at the nexus of science policy and politics. This will be the theme of the Politics & Pizza discussion from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, in HUMN 250.

If you go

What: Politics & Pizza, "Science Policy and Politics"

When: 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21

Where: HUMN 250

Free Cosmo's pizza!

The aim of the Politics & Pizza discussion series—which was initiated and will be moderated by Glen Krutz, a professor of political science—is to “encourage productive, substantive deliberation of specific topics, rather than rancorous and ideological macro-thoughts.”

Politics & Pizza, which includes free Cosmo’s pizza, is modeled on similar sessions offered in Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Each session features expert speakers who give a few introductory thoughts about the session’s topic and then open the session to a question-and-answer with students.

In the sessions, which are designed to be highly interactive with the student audience, the panel of experts individually make initial comments on the session topic.

“However, the majority of the time is spent in questions and answers in a lively, interactive format that often induces nice interaction between the experts as well,” Krutz says. “The panelists can also ask questions of one another and feel free to banter as they wish.”

The expert panel for the Science Policy and Politics discussion will be Michael Detamore, alumnus of ɫ��ֱ�� College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and director of the Translational Medicine Institute and professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Colorado State University; Lori Hunter, director of the ɫ��ֱ�� Institute of Behavioral Science and professor of sociology; Keith Molenaar, dean of the ɫ��ֱ�� College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and K. Stanton Lewis Professor of Construction Engineering and Management; and Massimo Ruzzene, ɫ��ֱ�� senior vice chancellor for Research & Innovation (RIO), dean of the Institutes and Slade Professor of Engineering.

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Students invited to enjoy a slice and discuss interaction of science policy and politics at Pizza & Politics event April 21.

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Come for the cheese and pepperoni, stay for the lively political discussion

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 19:38:10 +0000

Come for the cheese and pepperoni, stay for the lively political discussion Rachel Sauer Wed, 03/05/2025 - 12:38

Politics & Pizza event March 17 will let students and experts discuss the relationship between business and politics

Many noteworthy images of the current political moment have included titans of business—in the Oval Office, speaking at a recent Cabinet meeting, gathered around the U.S. president during Inaugural events.

The relationship between business and politics has long been a fraught topic of discussion and, sometimes, contention—perhaps never more so than now.

If you go

What: Politics & Pizza, "The Business of Politics"

When: 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. March 17

Where: Muenzinger E0046

Free Cosmo's pizza!

Learn more

This will be the topic of the first Politics & Pizza event this semester from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. March 17 in Muenzinger E0046. The discussion will explore the proper relationship of business leaders and organizations to politics and the political system.

“These events are meant to help CU students sink their minds into key, specific political issues while they are sinking their teeth into delicious pizza!” Krutz says. “The other main goal is to have experts get the discussion started, but then to very much have a discussion between the students and one another and the students and the experts. The interaction piece is central, rather than a one-way information flow that sometimes we see at talks on university campuses.”

Politics & Pizza, which includes free Cosmo’s pizza, is modeled on similar sessions offered in Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Each session will feature expert speakers who give a few introductory thoughts about the session’s topic and then open the session to a question-and-answer with students.

The theme of the Pizza & Politics event March 17 is “The Business of Politics,” with panelists Scott Flanders, a former CEO of eHealth, Playboy Enterprises Inc., Freedom Communications Inc. and Columbia House Company and board member for Fathom Holdings Inc., Fellow Health and 890 5^th Avenue; Paula Hildebrandt, former vice president for corporate development and integration planning with FedEx Corp. and former economic research associate with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; Taylor Jaworski, ɫ��ֱ�� associate professor of economics; Midge Korczak, former executive director of the ɫ��ֱ�� County Bar Association; and Brian Morgan, founder and CEO of Ranch Bucket Brands.

Upcoming Politics & Pizza events will focus on current topics including science and politics.

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Politics & Pizza event March 17 will let students and experts discuss the relationship between business and politics.

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CU foreign policy expert not optimistic on Syria’s outlook

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 17:03:19 +0000

CU foreign policy expert not optimistic on Syria’s outlook Rachel Sauer Mon, 01/27/2025 - 10:03

Bradley Worrell

Political science Professor Federiga Bindi says the new, Islamic rebel-led government is telling the West what it wants to hear but that the situation on the ground is concerning

In May, ɫ��ֱ�� Department of Political Science professor and foreign policy expert Federiga Bindi was asked to spearhead the creation of a conference sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee regarding the future of Syria. The Middle Eastern country had been mired in a grinding civil war for 13 years with no end in sight, and AFSC was concerned the world had largely forgotten about the conflict and its resulting humanitarian crisis.

By the time the two-day conference, titled Reframing the Conversation Around Syria in Europe, convened in early December at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, the Assad regime that had governed the country for more than 70 years collapsed spectacularly as Muslim rebels swept through the country and seized the capital of Damascus.

“Everybody was surprised—even that the rebel attack took place,” says Bindi, noting the war had essentially settled into a stalemate for some time. “That’s the interesting thing, because to prepare for this conference, I talked to a lot of experts. I went to Brussels several times—and nobody expected something like this. So, everybody was taken by surprise, and everyone was surprised how quickly things happened.”

In past years, the Assad regime had been able to successfully battle insurgents with support from Russia and Iran. However, with Russia bogged down in its war in Ukraine and Iran on the defensive after Israel’s attacks on it, as well as allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon—following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel—the situation on the ground in the Middle East is very different today, Bindi says.

“Also, there are indications that they (the rebels) were not alone—the U.S., Israel and Turkey directly or indirectly supported them, because Syria was an ally of Iran, and if you take away Syria as an ally of Iran, then Iran can’t resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon,” she says. “So, the change (in leadership in Syria) is bad for the Russians, but I think it’s even worse for Iran.”

Meanwhile, Israel and Turkey can be considered the winners resulting from the outcome and the new major regional power in the Middle East, she adds.

What next for Syria?

At the December conference in Brussels, attendees—including foreign policy experts and Syrian activists—were “clearly happy that Assad was gone, but they were also very wary,” Bindi says. “Their first message was, ‘We shouldn’t just say this is great, because we don’t know what happens next.’”

While many Syrians at home and abroad—and many in the West—hope for peace and healing in Syria, Bindi says there are too many variables to know if that’s possible. One particular concern is whether the new government, composed of leaders from the Islamic rebel group Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), will show tolerance for the country’s religious and ethnic minorities and support basic human rights.

While noting that Ahmed al-Sharaa, the charismatic leader of HTS, has swapped his combat fatigues for business suits, dropped his wartime pseudonym for his real name, and downplayed his past jihadist views for a more moderate form of Syrian nationalism in interviews with Western media, Bindi says the news that has been coming out of Syria is not encouraging.

“The way he (Sharaa) presents himself, dressed in a suit and speaking with western media, he’s been very conciliatory. For example, he just met with the custodian of religious sites in Jerusalem. He said, ‘Christians are going to be allowed to live in peace. Don’t worry. I’m a big supporter of the Pope.’ So, the rhetoric is very conciliatory, very Western, but the acts are not. The little news we have out of Syria is that Alawi (members of a religious minority to which previous President Bashar al-Assad belongs and drew power from) have been beaten and even killed.”

Separately, when the German foreign minister, who is a woman, recently visited Syria with a European delegation, HTS leaders declined to shake hands with her but did shake hands with male delegation members. Bindi says that could suggest HTS endorses strict Muslim prohibitions regarding interactions between men and women, in contrast with Syria’s recent past as a Muslim but largely secular country that allowed women many of the freedoms found in the West.

“At the moment, there is no territorial integrity in Syria,” says ɫ��ֱ�� political scientist Federiga Bindi. (Photo: Umayyad Mosque and surrounding neighborhood in Damascus, Syria; Bernard Gagnon/Wikimedia Commons)

“So, that may suggest they (HTS) are not that liberal after all,” she says. “A former envoy to Syria, who I know very well, told me he’s convinced Syria is going to be a theocracy-style government like in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Bindi says rightwing leaders in Europe are using the change in leadership in Syria to say that the roughly 2 million Syrian refugees can safely return home, but it’s her view that “Syria is not safe by any means.”

Foreign troops occupy Syria

Currently, several foreign governments have military troops occupying portions of Syria, and Bindi says the potential for clashes with Syrian forces and with each other remains ever-present, noting that those foreign powers have sometimes competing objectives. Israel has occupied the Golan Heights and nearby areas in Syria for what it says are security reasons, the United States has occupied portions of the country with the stated objective of fighting ISIS while also supporting the Kurds, and Turkish armed forces have occupied the northern portion of Syria to support rebel forces and to potentially combat what it calls Kurdish terrorists. Meanwhile, Russia, which maintained naval and air bases in Syria during Assad’s regime, still has some troops in the country.

“At the moment, there is no territorial integrity in Syria,” Bindi says. “I don’t see the Kurds giving up their territory in Syria. I don’t see the Turks giving up their territory. I don’t see the Russians leaving, if they can keep their bases. And I don’t see the Americans and the Israelis withdrawing. Nobody wants to give up their territories, so it’s a big mess.”

The new leadership in Syria likely isn’t happy that portions of the country are occupied by foreign powers, but it’s not in a position to demand their withdrawal, and it may grudgingly accept the status quo if it is allowed to implement a theocracy, she says.

Given the situation in Syria today, it’s hard to predict what comes next, Bindi says. Still, one scenario that Bindi says is very unlikely is that Bashar Assad, who fled to Moscow as the rebels closed in on Damascus, will ever return to power.

“I think he’s gone, just like the Shah in Persia,” she says. “He’s going to have a golden exile in Russia, and that will be it. He should be happy he saved his skin, unlike Saddam Hussein (in Iraq) and unlike Muammar Gaddafi (in Libya).”

The other scenario that Bindi finds very unlikely is that the United States and Europe will commit major military forces to Syria to attempt to promote nation-building and democracy, like they attempted with Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The strategy of exporting democracy to the Middle East has failed miserably, because our understanding of the region was faulty and the Middle East is such a kaleidoscopically complex region,” she says. “So, I don’t think we will put boots on the ground in Syria. That, I think, is fairly certain. The more plausible is that we just let them be, like we ultimately did in Afghanistan.”

Risks remain for the West, as well as Syria

Bindi says such a scenario does not automatically mean that the risks to the West are minimized, however, with the new Republican U.S. administration and Congress.

“To be frank, the most important variable is what will happen in Washington, D.C., after Jan. 20. That’s the true reality,” she says. “Syria is definitely not a priority for Trump, but the neighboring states are. The loss of (Assad) was a blow to Iran, and we know that for Trump, Iran is a foe, so what might the (new administration) allow Israel to do? I say that because Israel can only attack with the support of the U.S. It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Meanwhile, with so much recent conflict in the Middle East, Bindi says she is concerned that people in the West have become numb to all the fighting.

“I think we’ve gotten way too used to violence,” she says. “The images don’t touch us anymore. Kids die. We’ve become accustomed to the horror. We’ve lost our humanity, and I think that’s very scary.”

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Political science Professor Federiga Bindi says the new, Islamic rebel-led government is telling the West what it wants to hear but that the situation on the ground is concerning.

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Talking politics with a side of pizza

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:08:46 +0000

Talking politics with a side of pizza Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/10/2024 - 06:08

New Politics & Pizza sessions give students and experts and space for productive and lively discussion of timely political topics

Today’s elections bear little resemblance to elections 50 or even 20 years ago. One key change: Digital and social media have become more central to how voters receive information—or misinformation—about candidates and issues.

For example, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that of those ages 18 to 29 surveyed, 48% use TikTok to keep up with politics or political news and 52% use TikTok to get news. Another recent Pew survey found that 54% of U.S. adults surveyed often or sometimes get local political news from social media.

If you go

What: Politics & Pizza, “The Role of Digital/Social Media in U.S. Elections”

When: 5:30-6:45 p.m., Monday, Oct.14

Where: Bruce Curtis Building (MCOL), W100 – CC

Free Cosmo’s pizza!

Learn more

The role of these new media will be the focus of the inaugural Politics & Pizza session, set for 5:30-6:45 p.m. Oct. 14. The aim of Pizza & Politics—which is being initiated by Glen Krutz, a professor of political science—is to “encourage productive, substantive deliberation of specific topics, rather than rancorous and ideological macro-thoughts.”

Politics & Pizza, which includes free Cosmo’s pizza, is modeled on similar sessions offered in Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Each session will feature expert speakers who give a few introductory thoughts about the session’s topic, and then open the session to a question-and-answer with students.

The theme of the first Pizza & Politics event Oct. 14 is “The Role of Digital/Social Media in U.S. Elections” with speakers Stephen Frost, an assistant professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information Department of Media Studies; Vivek Krishnamurthy, an associate professor in the CU Law School and director of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law and Policy Clinic; and Alexandra Siegel, an associate professor of political science.

The second Politics & Pizza is scheduled for Oct. 28 and will focus on the Electoral College and institutional reform. A third date is set for Nov. 18 and will offer an analysis of the election outcome and the upcoming transition.

Spring 2025 sessions will focus on the new U.S. Congress, business and politics, and state universities in America.

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New Politics & Pizza sessions give students and experts and space for productive and lively discussion of timely political topics.

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Getting out the vote and hashing out the issues

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:14:17 +0000

Getting out the vote and hashing out the issues Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/09/2024 - 14:14

Rachel Sauer

Nonpartisan, campuswide initiative aims to help students get registered and vote, as well as learn about the candidates and issues

A significant and growing body of research shows that whether people vote in their first two elections can significantly alter their voting behavior for the rest of their lives.

“We know that voting and civic participation habits get set in your 20s—so basically, people who are college age and just a little bit older,” explains Janet Donavan, a teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies in the ɫ��ֱ�� Department of Political Science. “If we can get people voting in their first or second election, it helps set the habits of a lifetime for them. If they miss those first two elections, they’re unlikely to vote throughout their lives.”

Any challenges associated with voting can be compounded for college students—from learning about eligibility and how to register to figuring out how to request a ballot if they live outside their home counties or states.

If you go

What: Presidential Debate Watch Party

When: 6:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10

Where: Center for Teaching and Learning, CASE Building, E390

Who: All CU students are invited

Learn more

However, a campuswide initiative between now and election day, Nov. 5, aims not only to help eligible students get registered to vote and to the polls, but to offer information and opportunities for discussion as they become lifelong participants in civic and political process.

One of the first events will be a non-partisan presidential debate watch party from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday with faculty moderators Regina Bateson, Carol Conzelman, Leah Sprain and Donavan, who also is Higher Education and Democracy Fellow with the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship.

“One of the things that we’re excited about, doing this debate watch—and we also have one planned for Oct. 1 for the vice-presidential debate—is we haven’t had organized debate watches of any large scale since 2012,” Donavan says.

“In 2016, people were afraid, which was a new thing for us to have such a polarized campus, and in 2020 it was COVID. But I and some of the other people who are part of this, we have decided that if we do live in this contentious political world, we do need to find ways to move forward and talk about it, even if it’s hard.”

Fostering civic culture

The voter registration events scheduled for the next two months dovetail with ɫ��ֱ��’s participation in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which aims to “foster civic culture and institutionalize democratic engagement activities and programs at colleges and universities, making them a defining feature of campus life.” The initiative also works to close voting gaps based on age and race.

An element of ALL IN is that participating colleges and universities can compete with each other for highest voter turnout “and the idea there is that it will be motivating for students if it’s a little bit of a competition,” Donavan says.

The events and initiatives that Donavan and her colleagues in departments and offices throughout the university are planning focus not only on voting, but on education about candidates and issues.

A significant body of research demonstrates that an individual's lifetime voting habits are established in young adulthood. (Photo: iStock)

“For example, with the debate watch party, a big part is going to be just learning what the different candidates think,” Donavan says. “Because it’s a non-partisan event, it’s going to be a little different environment than if you were watching with your friends, because your friends might all have similar partisan commitments. This is for students who are supportive of Harris, who are supportive of Trump and those who just don’t know yet.

“We’re also emphasizing that it’s not just focused on political science. There are so many people who care about politics who are business majors or engineering majors or any other major and just want to learn more about the candidates and issues. We hope this is an opportunity for people to get more involved in the CU community while learning more about each other.”

A lifetime habit

Donavan and her colleagues, as well as campus and community partners, also are coordinating classroom visits to present information about registering to vote and voting. For example, in partnerships with the Byron White Law Centerand the American Indian Law Clinic, law students trained in voting law will have tables at various events to help students who might be having trouble registering to vote.

“It all goes back to the fact that if people don’t vote in their first or second elections, they might not vote for the rest of their lives,” Donavan says, adding that an aspect of the educational efforts will be the importance of non-presidential elections and down-ballot issues.

“If you’re voting in Colorado, the presidential race probably not going to be tightly competitive race, but we have two hot House races and issues on the ballot that are going to matter to students a lot.

“How many people were kicking themselves was over that they could have voted for if only they’d voted? We want help students make voting a lifetime habit.”

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Nonpartisan, campuswide initiative aims to help students get registered and vote, as well as learn about the candidates and issues.

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Scholar learns that ‘language links us all’

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 16:46:45 +0000

Scholar learns that ‘language links us all’ Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/05/2024 - 10:46

Doug McPherson

Political science undergrad Cooper Baldwin wins prestigious U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to learn ‘one of the most critical languages for future United States policy’

Cooper Baldwin, a junior from San Antonio, Texas, majoring in political science and journalism, has been named a recipient of the 2024 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) from the U.S. Department of State.

The scholarship allows American college and university students to learn languages that are key to America's engagement with the world.

Baldwin is the only ɫ��ֱ�� student to receive the CLS in the last two years. Just 500 undergraduate and graduate students in the United States are chosen each year from an application pool of more than 5,000 students, according to the Department of State.

Cooper Baldwin, a junior majoring in political science and journalism, received a 2024 Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State and studied Russian over the summer.

As a CLS recipient, Baldwin chose to study Russian (over Arabic and Chinese) and spent the summer learning the basics of the language online from what he calls “an awesome instructional team” based in Chișinău, Moldova. Russian was the language he’s most interested in learning, he says, and he wanted to get the basics down before he applied to go to a Russian-speaking country next summer and study the language in more detail.

“In my opinion, Russian is one of the most critical languages for future United States policy facilitators, executors and diplomats to learn,” Baldwin says. “Not only is it primarily spoken in many Eastern European countries, it’s the cornerstone of many languages and dialects worldwide. So, with such a broad reach, the choice seemed obvious to me.”

He says his initial curiosity about Russian stems, in part, from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: “The invasion … stoked a connection to that part of the world. To be honest, the invasion seemed entirely surreal to me, and the onset of a full, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country rattled the conceptions I had about the relative peaceful nature of nations worldwide. I’ve never lived in a world without Russian aggression and a tense atmosphere from the Kremlin toward the United States.”

'A patriot above all'

Baldwin—who is interested in international relations, geopolitical relations, history and national security—calls himself “a patriot above all” who wants to give back to the United States.

“I believe the CLS program is the perfect way to do that. To learn a language critical to the U.S.'s national security and economic interests nationwide will allow me to pursue this commitment and philosophy fervently, which I intend to do.”

He calls his career goals “big and numerous” and says that working on political campaigns boosted his interest in politics and government.

“To those who know me, it's no secret that I’m thoroughly committed to entering the field of politics, campaigns or government when I graduate from CU. I intend on using my studies and experiences to seek a role in the federal government.”

He hopes to work in the Department of State, Homeland Security, intelligence services, civil military service or policy administration.

I want to live a life of service to the country that has given me so much. I know it is my birthright to be an American, but I see it as an incredible and awe-inspiring privilege to say I am.”

“I want to live a life of service to the country that has given me so much. I know it is my birthright to be an American, but I see it as an incredible and awe-inspiring privilege to say I am.”

Baldwin says that for as long as he can remember, he’s had a “deep interest” in language and linguistics.

“They’ve been an intellectual love of mine,” he says. “I taught myself to read at age 4 because I was so deeply invested in language and its capability for beautiful, complex expression. I find it incredibly interesting that people worldwide have such different ways of expressing themselves. Language links us all.”

He credits his middle school Spanish teacher in San Antonio for bolstering his interest in languages, and adds that she encouraged him to excel in class.

“My teacher never told me to slow down, to stay on pace with the class, to stop answering all the questions she asked,” he says. “She always gave me more material to push my studies further and took time … to give me additional practice with the language. The CLS program was the perfect opportunity to pursue language at the rapid pace I’m capable of, and it challenged me every day. I absolutely loved that.”

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Political science undergrad Cooper Baldwin wins prestigious U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to learn ‘one of the most critical languages for future United States policy.'

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From harmony to civil war: when language turns deadly

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 19:40:40 +0000

From harmony to civil war: when language turns deadly Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/26/2024 - 13:40

Bradley Worrell

ɫ��ֱ�� political scientist Jaroslav Tir argues it’s not just what a government says about its ethnic minorities, but also the language it uses that can be threatening

For years, Jaroslav Tir has been pondering a perplexing mystery: Why do some countries where a multi-ethnic populace once lived together in harmony devolve into civil war, slaughter and ethnic cleansing?

“If we look at the former Yugoslavia, where I was born and raised, it’s a big puzzle: why the country went from one of the most ethnically harmonious countries to ethnic cleansing and genocide in a few short years,” says Tir, a professor in the ɫ��ֱ�� Department of Political Science, whose research focus includes armed conflicts and how to stop them.

In Yugoslavia after World War II, “you had multiple ethnic groups that lived in relative harmony. There was evidence that this was real because people intermarried and neighborhoods were ethnically mixed. A lot of people were of mixed ethnic origin,” he says. “And then things took a 180-degree turn that ended up in the 1990s with very brutal conflicts.”

ɫ��ֱ�� political scientist Jaroslav Tir finds in new research that it’s not just what the governing authority says about its ethnic minorities that can be potentially threatening, but also the language in which it communicates about those groups.

While some of the dynamics of ethnic conflicts remain unknown, Tir says, in recent years researchers have come to believe that dehumanizing ethnic “others” can help explain how seemingly ordinary individuals become willing not only to fight but also to commit horrific crimes against their former neighbors. In turn, researchers have suspected that dehumanization stems from perceptions that ethnic others pose a violent threat to one’s own group, he says.

Expanding upon that research, Tir and co-author Shane Singh of the University of Georgia recently authored the paper “Less Human Than Human: Threat, Language and Relative Dehumanization,” published in the British Journal of Political Science, in which they made the case that it’s not just what the governing authority says about its ethnic minorities that can be potentially threatening, but also the language in which it communicates about those groups.

“A government’s choice to communicate [a sense of threat] in a native language, rather than a commonly used and understood non-native tongue, puts the audience on notice that the message is explicitly meant for them to the exclusion of ethnic others,” the authors state, adding that “such messaging can exacerbate us-versus-them perceptions and lead to extreme negative attitudes such as dehumanization.”

Communicated threats

For their study, Tir and Singh specifically looked at India, where a native (Hindi) and non-native (English) language are understood and used by a sizeable portion of the population. In a survey-based experiment, the authors hired an international market research firm to ask Indian respondents about their views toward Muslims and Chinese. Notably, in recent years, both Islamic terrorists and the Chinese military have threatened India’s security.

Bilingual Indian respondents were randomly assigned to take the survey in Hindi or English. They were asked about their perceptions of the humanness of Muslim or Chinese people and the groups to which they belong. Responses to that portion of the survey showed that those receiving the survey in the Hindi language triggered the dehumanization of Muslims, while the dehumanization of Chinese was not affected by survey language assignment.

Tir says those findings are likely due to the fact that the government of Narendra Modi has repeatedly demonized India’s Muslim population in Hindi while remaining comparatively silent about the threat from China.

Survey respondents also were randomly assigned to a control condition (a short article about ship recycling) or one of two recent news briefs about violent events that recently took place: a terrorist attack by an Islamic group or Chinese military aggression. In that case, the threat conveyed in Hindi, rather than English, does the most to prompt dehumanizing attitudes toward Chinese, Tir says.

Conversely, the story about the Islamic terror attack did not have a detectable effect on survey respondents’ attitudes toward Muslims. At first blush, that would seem to be counterintuitive, but Tir says that Modi’s frequent anti-Muslim rhetoric has likely saturated the populace, making respondents insensitive to additional communicated threats.

A man in Jaisalmer, India, reads a Hindi newspaper. (Photo: Ihsan Iqbal/Shutterstock)

Impacts beyond the Indian subcontinent

Tir says the survey findings have implications for political communication beyond India, noting that many countries in Africa and Asia have populations that speak both native and non-native languages, typically French or English, depending on their colonial history.

“Compared to communication in a commonly used and understood non-native tongue, a native language environment exacerbates the effect of threat on dehumanization of a rival ethnicity,” Tir and Singh write, adding that “this suggests that unscrupulous leaders in multilingual countries with identity-based cleavages and a widely understood non-native language can select the language of communication to incite xenophobic attitudes.”

Such was the case with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian strongman who came to power in the late 1980s. Tir says Milosevic broke with the tradition of using the more neutral Serbo-Croatian language blend written in the Latin alphabet and popularized in Yugoslavia after WWII in favor of “pure” Serbian and the Cyrillic alphabet. Milosevic built his political career on demonizing essentially powerless ethnic minorities—initially ethnic Albanians, who he argued posed an existential threat to Serbs.

Tir is quick to note that India is not the former Yugoslavia. Also, he says that just as leaders can use native language to incite xenophobic attitudes, it is possible for more peaceable leaders to communicate in a non-native language to help promote interethnic harmony. He cites India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who chose English as the language in which to deliver his landmark speech celebrating his country’s newfound freedom, which took place against a backdrop of interethnic strife.

However, the risk remains that when the leaders of a country essentially weaponize native language against its ethnic others, it can be very difficult to pull back from the brink, Tir says.

“The traditional ethnic conflict literature highlights the concept called outbidding. When an attention-seeking leader starts to reference the threat to their group by ethnic others, things tend to get more extreme, as opposed to going toward moderation. So essentially, if someone is already delivering an extremist message, the way for someone else to get attention in the political space is with an even more extremist message. It’s radicalization upon radicalization upon radicalization. It’s then very hard to go the other way; moderate voices tend to get ignored and it’s the more extremist voices that get listened to in response to a sense of threat to the group.

“That is, more or less, how things played out in the former Yugoslavia,” he says. “Things got ever more extreme, destroying the original sense of interethnic harmony.”

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ɫ��ֱ�� political scientist Jaroslav Tir argues it’s not just what a government says about its ethnic minorities, but also the language it uses that can be threatening.

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