Research Opportunities
Undergraduates can take advantage of opportunities to participate in the latest research happening in the world of political science. Gov92r allows you to conduct research in the Government department for academic credit. It is graded SAT/UNSAT. If you are interested in any of these projects, please contact the supervisors directly. You will need to submit the Gov 92r form (available here) to Karen Kaletka before you can register for the course on my.harvard.
Spring 2025
Prof. Jennifer Hochschild
Protesting Expert Authorities: Autonomy and the Democratic Challenge to Evidence-Based Policy
Using two new surveys (one completed, one to be developed during the winter of 2025), Elizabeth Suhay (American University) and I are examining reasons for hesitation or rejection of several instances of generally accepted science — e.g. vaccines and masks for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the role of peaceful uses of nuclear power for climate control, etc. We theorize that claims to personal or group autonomy are reasons for resisting some forms of evidence-based policy. Our particular focus is on whether such claims cross partisan and ideological lines in the US (“my body, my choice”), whether autonomy claimants see themselves as rejecting science in the way that many observers do, and why the public or segments thereof grant more authority to some evidence-based claims than to others.
Prerequisities (courses and/or methodological skills): A course on survey research, or a course on science politics and policy, would be valuable but not essential. Needed skills include use of databases to identify appropriate scholarly research (ideally experience with nexis-uni, Roper Center public opinion database) — but those can be learned if the student is adept at finding material online.
Contact: If you’re interested, send a CV and a short paragraph on why this project interests you to: hochschild@gov.harvard.edu
Prof. Christoph Mikulaschek
United Nations: How does it work and what is its impact?
I am looking for an RA to support my ongoing research on the UN Security Council and General Assembly. Specifically, I work on a book that examines UN decision-making, compliance with its resolutions, and its effect on media coverage and public opinion in the U.S. and other countries. The RA would be asked to conduct independent research under my supervision on these topics. Potential tasks would include gathering and analyzing news media coverage data from online databases, evaluating and summarizing archival evidence that I have compiled, surveying and summarizing scholarly literatures, and conducting original research to update my data set on UN missions in conflict theaters. The specific tasks will depend on your qualifications. Interest in international relations and in learning how to conduct social science research is a precondition. Some familiarity with the statistical software program R is a plus, but not required. German and/or Turkish language skills would also be a plus.
Prerequisities (courses and/or methodological skills): Interest in international relations and in learning how to conduct social science research
Contact: If you’re interested, send a CV and a short paragraph on why this project interests you to: mikulaschek@gov.harvard.edu