Political science

The power of perceptions

Study shows how information sources affect voters.

February 28, 2017

MIT grad student Dean Knox wrote an Android app to track the location of Iraqis as they participated in a treasure-hunt activity in a mixed-sect neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq.

Strength in numbers

PhD student Dean Knox studies social networks and how individuals use them to access government goods and services.

February 17, 2017

Christian Soura, director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, speaks at MIT.

Government leaders gather at MIT to advance evidence-based policymaking

State and local policymakers joined with leading researchers to share experiences overcoming challenges to evaluating government programs.

February 9, 2017

"My own work has drawn heavily on a number of normally distant disciplines," says Richard Nielsen, MIT assistant professor of political science. "I’m convinced that ... despite the tendency for scholars to remain in our own disciplinary silos, the big breakthroughs on complex issues will come at the intersections of fields, from researchers and teams that are willing to bridge disciplinary divid...

3 Questions with Richard Nielsen: How political science helps combat terrorism

Assistant Professor Richard Nielsen explores why some Muslim clerics adopt the ideology of militant jihad while most do not.

February 3, 2017

"At a fundamental level, the conduct of elections affects the experience of voters and people’s trust in American democracy," writes the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in a press release announcing their funding of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. "It’s imperative that we, as a nation, get this right and we believe that this lab, under Professor [Charles] Stewart’s leadership, ca...

MIT Election Data and Science Lab launches

Founded by political scientist Charles Stewart III, the Election Lab focuses on non-partisan research, data, and analysis to improve elections.

January 25, 2017

Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science, found that in a number of states where voters experienced some of the longest waiting times in the 2012 presidential election — including South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland — there was notable improvement in 2016.

Evaluating voter experience

Wait times at polls in 2016 election improved in several key states, new survey results show.

December 8, 2016

MIT senior Rasheed Auguste’s parents emigrated from Haiti to Boston as teenagers and completed master’s degrees in the U.S. “When I was born, the standard was, ‘we have master’s degrees; a PhD is the next step for this next generation.’ That was always the bar,” says Auguste. “It just so happens I got lucky. I actually do want this PhD that was prescribed from birth.”

Nuclear engineering student advocates for change on campus and Capitol Hill

Senior Rasheed Auguste is fueled by passions for science, policy, and creating a more inclusive MIT.

December 7, 2016

Mongolian anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger’s career path took shape when she received a Fulbright scholarship to study in the U.S. This allowed her to start graduate school at Harvard, where scholars such as Nicola di Cosmo and Michael Herzfeld took note of her remarkable linguistic range — Buyandelger could then do research in traditional and contemporary Mongolian, Russian, English, and a...

Steppe by steppe

Mongolian anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger studies a society in transition.

November 30, 2016

On Nov. 17, the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, led by Fred Harris, delivered Mark Harvey’s composition “No Walls,” an anthem to inclusiveness inspired by Duke Ellington’s credo of living and making music “beyond category.”

“Uniting through Voice and Song” event celebrates values that connect the MIT community

November 22, 2016

Rothschild’s great-grandfather, David (standing, third from left), is pictured here before the war with his siblings and father Joseph. During the Holocaust, David was imprisoned at Buchenwald, and several siblings were killed or imprisoned, including Joseph, who was murdered at Auschwitz.

The courage to dissent

For graduate student Amanda Rothschild, political science meets personal history in her studies of how the United States responds to genocide.

November 17, 2016

“State and local governments can serve as laboratories of innovation and test out new approaches to tackling challenging social problems,” says Mary Ann Bates, deputy director of J-PAL North America.

State and local governments invited to apply for funding, support on pressing policy challenges

Selected governments will partner with MIT's J-PAL North America to test which programs work, which work best, and why.

November 15, 2016

Top row: Sana Aiyar, Catherine Clark, Sasha Costanza-Chock. Middle row, Amy Finkelstein, Deborah Fitzgerald, Daniel Hidalgo. Bottom row: Justin Khoo, Bradford Skow, Craig Wilder

Nine SHASS faculty members awarded named professorships

Honored positions afford faculty additional support for research.

November 10, 2016

William Bonvillian, Director of the MIT Washington Office.

3Q: William Bonvillian on connecting Cambridge and Capitol Hill

Through its Washington Office, MIT continues its long history of engagement on national science and technology policy.

November 3, 2016

First Row: (left to right) Alberto Abadie, Isaiah Andrews, Dwaipayan Banerjee, Claire Conceison. Second Row: (left to right) Drew Fudenberg, Paul Roquet, Tamar Schapiro, Ariel White.

New faculty in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

SHASS welcomes eight new faculty members for 2016.

November 2, 2016

“I don't think you can hack the election,” says MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III. The distributed nature of America's voting system is a key reason why rigging the election is not really possible. But also, observers are stationed in every polling place; ballots are counted in public, post-election audits spot-check results; and machines that record and count ballots are all offline...

How healthy is the U.S. voting system?

Professor Charles Stewart III explains why the U.S. electoral system is strong and how MIT research is making the voting process even more seamless.

October 20, 2016

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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