News and Highlights
Spotlight Spring 2008 Newsletter
Robert Shapiro Appointed Next Director of ISERP
Renowned political scientist and public opinion expert Robert Shapiro has agreed to serve as Acting Director of ISERP. Since joining Columbia faculty in 1982, Shapiro has been a leading figure in the charge to reinvigorate the social sciences at the University. From his position as Chair of the Political Science department, as a leader and founder of multiple interdisciplinary initiatives, and through service on numerous University committees, he has facilitated key improvements to research, teaching, and overall quality of life for faculty and students at Columbia. Few people could match the record of leadership, deep institutional knowledge, and intellectual contributions that Shapiro will bring to ISERP when he assumes the post of Acting Director in summer 2008.
Spotlight People
Charles Tilly Remembered
The Columbia University community mourns the loss of one of its beloved members, Charles Tilly, the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, who passed away on April 29 after a long battle with cancer. He was 78. Tilly, who had a joint appointment with the University's Departments of Sociology and Political Science, is widely considered the leading scholar of his generation on contentious politics and its relationship with military, economic, urban and demographic social change.
Spotlight ISERP Fellows in the News
Frederick Harris discusses Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Fredrick Harris, Director of the Center on African American Politics and Society, speaks to NPR about the announcement of Barack Obama's former preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as the Detroit NAACP's keynote speaker for their 53rd annual fundraiser. Harris speaks with Renee Montagne about the generational shift among black political leaders, and the significance and controversy surrounding Rev. Wright. Listen here
Spotlight Program
Joseph Stiglitz on the "Three Trillion Dollar War"
The cost of war in Iraq reaches far beyond the tab for bullets and bombs, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of the new book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.
Current Research
Income Inequality and Partisan Polarization
Recent studies have started to outline a new consensus on politics and inequality in the United States. These studies analyze outcomes at a high level, relating partisan control of government to economic outcomes. Epstein, Fowler, and O'Halloran, with support from the Russell Sage Foundation, will extend this work into the legislature, at the level of individual votes, coalition formation, and the passage of legislation.
Featured Working Paper
On Social Networks and Social Protest
How do large-scale protest events differ across nation-states? Do social networks play different roles in different places and, if so, how do they matter? This paper compares the roles that social networks play in mobilizing participants in large-scale domestic protest.
Featured Seed Grant
Foreign Economic Policy Preferences in the United States
Given the strong economic arguments in support of openness to trade and investment, the mass public's resistance to free trade policies and economic integration presents a puzzle for social science. This project aims to explore this puzzle by identifying the determinants of mass support for free trade and foreign investment in the United States.
Spotlight Program
Request for Proposals on Global Health
The Columbia University Global Health Research Center in Central Asia is pleased to issue a request for seed grant proposals. Seed grants support proposal development, pilot research, and other activities that address HIV, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and related issues that have relevance for the global health challenges facing Central Asia.
Announcements
The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) is the research arm of the social sciences at Columbia University in the City of New York. We work to produce pioneering social science research and to shape public policy by integrating knowledge and methods across the social scientific disciplines. Our fellowship is drawn from faculty of the departments of Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics, as well as of Barnard College, the Earth Institute, Teachers College, the Mailman School of Public Health and the Schools of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Business, International and Public Affairs, Law, and Social Work.
