Corder, Kevin. Chairperson, Professor
j.kevin.corder@wmich.edu
URL: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~corder
Curriculum Vitae [pdf]

Kevin Corder received his PhD from Washington University - St. Louis in 1993. His major research areas are American electoral politics and public policy. He recently completed an NSF-funded data collection effort to advance understanding of the early voting behavior of women in the United States. He has recently published work on the federal credit programs and monetary policy. Working papers, as well as course-related material, are located on his web page. Dr. Corder teaches courses on American politics and political methodology (econometrics, bayesisan statistics, and mathematical modeling).

Jim Butterfield received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 1989. His research interests focus on the role civil society, including community-based organizations, play in development, especially rural and community development in Africa. He also has interests in democratization and land reform. Twice Visiting Associate at the University of Cape Town's Centre for African Studies, he has been working on a project that examines how development NGOs engage in policy advocacy since 2002. More recent projects examine the role of municipal-community partnerships in providing services and developing livelihoods in South Africa, as well as social mobilization for poverty alleviation in poor communities.  Numerous prior research trips to the former Soviet Union (mostly Russia) resulted in publications in Comparative Politics, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Comparative Economic Studies and Nationalities Papers, in addition to a co-edited volume (with Judith Sedaitis) on social movements in the former Soviet Union. Dr. Butterfield has also served as consultant to numerous projects on decollectivization, rural development, land reform and local government reform in Russia and Uzbekistan. Dr. Butterfield's teaching interests include courses on Russian and Central Asian politics, poverty, democratization and institutional design, and other themes in comparative politics.

John A. Clark received his PhD from Ohio State University in 1992. He previously taught at the University of Georgia. Dr. Clark's research deals with American politics generally, with an emphasis on political parties and southern politics. He is co-editor of Southern Political Party Activists (2005) and Party Organization and Activism in the American South (1998), which won the 1999 V.O. Key Award as the best book on southern politics. He has authored or coauthored more than twenty book chapters and articles in scholarly journals including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and Political Research Quarterly. Dr. Clark's teaching interests include courses on political parties, political behavior in the U.S., and legislative politics.

Paul Clements received his PhD in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 1996. His dissertation was entitled Development as if Impact Mattered: A Comparative Organizational Analysis of USAID, the World Bank and CARE based on case studies of projects in Africa. He has three articles in World Development on the organization of foreign aid, most recently “Informational Standards in Development Agency Management.” His article on “Monitoring and Evaluation for Cost-Effectiveness in Development Management” appeared in the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation in 2005. He consults regularly for domestic and international organizations on the design of monitoring and evaluation systems. Recently he designed an evaluation quality assurance system for the United Nations Development Programme, evaluated the Tanzania operations of Heifer International, and developed a monitoring and evaluation system for a project to bring water and sewage services to a million people in the northeast part of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. From 2000 to 2002 he carried out the annual reviews of evaluations for the United Nations Capital Development Fund. He developed the methodology for the Success Measures Project, a three-year effort by U.S. community development professionals to design standards and indicators for their field, and he authored the Success Measures Guide Book that this project produced. NeighborWorks, a national, federally funded agency, has adopted an online implementation of these indicators. He is working on Rawlsian or Kantian microfoundations for political analysis as an alternative to rational choice theory. An article co-authored by Dr. Emily Hauptmann (also in this department) entitled “The Reasonable and the Rational Capacities in Political Analysis” appeared in Politics & Society in 2002, and Dr. Clements’ paper, “A Rawlsian Analysis of the Plight of Bihar,” appeared in Studies in Comparative International Development in 2005. Dr. Clements teaches on political development and development administration and he is on the faculty of Western Michigan University’s doctoral program in evaluation. His research interests include development administration, the evaluation of foreign aid, social science methodology, and African politics.

Suhashni (Sushi) Datta-Sandhu received her PhD from the University of Nairobi in 1979. She is interested in African political systems, gender and development, gender and international environmental politics, and democratization. Her most research led to "Urban Development and the Built Environment: The Struggle to Maintain Nairobi as the Green City in the Sun," Shaping the Urban Future: International Perspectives and Exchanges, Vol. 3 Conference Papers, University of Bristol, 1994. Dr. Datta-Sandhu teaches courses on African political systems, women in developing societies, and gender and development. Women in Developing Societies is a course that that critically investigates the complex ways in which gender relations shape history, ideology, economy, and polity in developing societies. Her Gender and Development Seminar is a graduate course designed to introduce theories of gender and development. Women's contributions to development in various societies are analyzed, taking into account ethnicity, class, colonial domination, capitalist penetration, modernization, and development policies.

Hauptmann, Emily. Associate Professor
emily.hauptmann@wmich.edu
Curriculum Vitae [pdf]

Emily Hauptmann received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. Her primary interests are in contemporary democratic theory (including deliberative democratic theory and rational choice theory) and in the history of political science as a discipline. She is currently working on a book about the changing meaning of “political theory” in the U.S. during the postwar period. An on-line report about her research at the Rockefeller Archive Center is forthcoming at http://archive.rockefeller.edu. Among her publications are: Putting Choice Before Democracy: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory (SUNY, 1996); “Can Less be More? Leftist Deliberative Democrats’ Critique of Participatory Democracy,” Polity (2001); “The Reasonable and the Rational Capacities in Political Analysis,” Paul Clements, co-author, Politics and Society (2002); “A Local History of 'the Political',” Political Theory (2004), and “Defining ‘Theory’ in Postwar Political Science,” in G. Steinmetz, ed., The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epistemological Others (Duke University Press, 2005). She is currently serving as Executive Co-Director of the Association for Political Theory, a professional association for political theorists and philosophers. Dr. Hauptmann regularly teaches the following undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of political thought and contemporary political theory: PSCI 3600, 3610, 6620, 6630 and 6650.

Gunther M. Hega received his Ph. D. from Washington University-St. Louis in 1992. His major research areas are the comparative public policies and welfare state institutions of the advanced industrial societies in Europe. His recent publications include a book on "Consensus Democracy" in Switzerland with Peter Lang Publishers (1998) and several articles on the welfare state, education policy, and federalism in journals such as German Policy Studies/Politikfeldanalyse, Regional & Federal Studies, Compare--A Journal of Comparative Education, and the Journal of Studies in International Education. Dr. Hega is currently writing a book about the reform of the education systems in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Current research projects on German federalism, the welfare state and education reform, as well as course-related material, are available at his web page. Dr. Hega, who also holds an appointment at the University of Tübingen, Germany, teaches courses on Comparative Public Policy, Comparative and European Politics, and International Relations.

Susan Hoffmann received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998 and a Masters degree in Urban Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1978. She studies and teaches the policy process, public administration and urban politics. Publications include Politics and Banking: Ideas, Public Policy and the Creation of Financial Institutions (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and articles in Public Budgeting and Finance and Public Administration Review. Her current research is on government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) generally and the transformation underway in the Federal Home Loan Bank System in particular. As a former practicing city planner, Dr. Hoffmann has held positions in capital budgeting, neighborhood planning, housing rehabilitation, and economic development.

Houghton, David G. Associate Professor
david.houghton@wmich.edu

David Houghton received his PhD from the University of Colorado - Boulder in 1974. research interests focus on various forms of citizen participation at the local level and the factors that hinder or facilitate that participation. Citizen advisory boards, citizen slating organizations, and nonpartisan and partisan elections are among some of the participation modes studied. Field observation and surveys are frequently employed to gather data. Other research interests include metropolitan reorganization, regional forms of government, and state constitutions. Dr. Houghton's teaching interests include courses in state and local government, intergovernmental relations, grants, and urban politics.

Hurwitz, Mark. Assistant Professor
mark.hurwitz@wmich.edu
URL: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mhurwitz/
Curriculum vitae [pdf]

Mark S. Hurwitz received his PhD from Michigan State University in 1998 and his JD from Brooklyn Law School in 1987.  He previously taught at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and University of Utah.  He focuses his research on judicial politics, judicial behavior, law and courts, and congressional politics.  He has published his research in various academic journals, including American Political Science Review, Judicature, Justice System Journal, Law & Policy, Mercer Law Review, Political Research Quarterly, Review of Policy Research, and State Politics & Policy Quarterly.  He recently served as Reporter for the American Bar Association’s State Court Assessment Project.  Dr. Hurwitz practiced law in New York City for a number of years before earning his PhD in political science.  Dr. Hurwitz teaches courses on constitutional law, civil liberties, judicial process and behavior, and analysis of political choices and behavior.

Lambert, Priscilla. Assistant Professor
priscilla.lambert@wmich.edu
URL: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~plambert/
Curriculum Vitae [html]

Priscilla Lambert received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego in 2004. Her research interests include Japanese employment and family policy, comparative social policy, and the policy-making process. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her dissertation which examines the political processes leading up to key changes in Japanese family policy. She has an article forthcoming in the Journal of Japanese Studies and a co-authored article in the Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics. She teaches Japanese Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Political Economy, and Women and Politics.

Lawoti, Mahendra. Assistant Professor
mahendra.lawoti@wmich.edu
URL: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mlawoti
Curriculum Vitae

Mahendra Lawoti is an assistant professor of political science at Western Michigan University, president of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, and an Associate Fellow (non-resident) of the Asia Society, New York. His teaching and research interests cover democratization, political institutions, ethnic politics, violent and non-violent conflict, international development and South Asian politics. Professor Lawoti is the author of Towards a Democratic Nepal: Inclusive Political Institutions for a Multicultural Society (SAGE 2005; translation in Nepali, 2007), Samabesi Sambidhan Sabha ra Rajyako Punarsamrachana (in Nepali) (Inclusive Constituent Assembly and the Restructuring of the State) (NISP 2007), and Looking Back, Looking Forward: Centralization, Multiple Conflicts, and Democratic State Building in Nepal (East-West Center 2007), editor and author of Contentious Politics and Democratization in Nepal (SAGE 2007), and co-author of Government and Politics in South Asia, sixth edition (Westview Press, forthcoming). He has published articles in Democratization, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and Studies in Nepali History and Society and others, and frequently contributes op-ed pieces in English and Nepali. Dr. Lawoti is currently working on two book projects. He is co-editing The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Dynamics and Growth in the Twenty-First Century (under contract with Routledge) and revising and expanding his dissertation as Democracy, Exclusion, and Conflict: Nepal in a Comparative Perspective. Dr. Lawoti has previously taught at the University of Pittsburgh and Wake Forest University.

Jacinda Swanson received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 2003. Her research and teaching interests center on contemporary, feminist, and democratic theory, and on issues of political economy within both political theory and American politics. She is currently working on a book manuscript that investigates the relationship between political-economic discourses and existing economic relations in the U.S. Dr. Swanson is a member of the editorial board of the journal Rethinking Marxism and has written articles on the political consequences of academic and popular economic discourses (forthcoming in Political Research Quarterly); feminist philosopher Judith Butler’s concept of reiteration (Contemporary Political Theory); Robert Dahl’s conceptualization of economic practices (Polity); feminist theorist Nancy Fraser’s redistribution and recognition framework (Theory, Culture & Society); Clinton's rhetoric of “personal responsibility” (Radical Philosophy); and human rights (Rethinking Marxism). Dr. Swanson teaches American political thought and other courses on the history of political theory.

Wielhouwer, Pete. Assistant Professor
peter.wielhouwer@wmich.edu
Curriculum Vitae [pdf]

After earning the Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1994, Pete Wielhouwer taught at Spelman College and Regent University’s School of Government, where he directed the graduate program in campaign management and the university’s nonpartisan Center for Grassroots Politics. Most recently he was the speechwriter to the two-star general in charge of coordinating operational experiments for the U.S. military at United States Joint Forces Command’s Joint Experimentation directorate, through General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. His teaching and research areas include campaigns and elections, political behavior, faith and politics, and racial politics. He has also been a campaign ethics consultant for (among others) American University’s Campaign Management Institute, the American Association of Political Consultants, the Leadership Institute, and several Virginia election campaigns. Dr. Wielhouwer’s research has appeared in such journals as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and American Politics Research; recent research currently appears in Politics in the New South: Representation of African-Americans in State Legislatures (SUNY Press, 2005) and The Electoral Challenge: Theory Meets Practice (CQ Press, 2006). He is currently co-authoring a campaigns and voting behavior textbook. During 2004-05 he was the Program Chair and Vice President for the Southwestern Political Science Association, and in 2005 was elected Conference Director for the Southwestern Social Science Association. He and his wife Deborah home school their five children.

Thomas Kostrzewa. Adjunct Professor
Faculty Supervisor for Study Abroad Programs in Cuba and Tibet
tkostrzewa@yahoo.com

Thomas Kostrzewa received his PhD from Notre Dame University and has been with the Department of Political Science for over ten years. He has taught a wide range of comparative courses for the department including Russian, Chinese, African, Latin American, and U.S. political systems. Such broad coverage reflects his years of travel and work particular in developing states. More recently, Dr. Kostrzewa has been associated with the Honors College at WMU teaching courses on comparative genocide. Traditional research interests have focused on Chinese minority policy and nationalism and have recently expanded to the field of genocide studies. He also continues to work with the Office of Study Abroad where he is offering study tours to Cuba and Tibet. Dr. Kostrzewa is a life long carpenter and is also active in local politics in the city of Kalamazoo where he chairs the Housing Board of Appeals.

Barbara McCrea received her PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 1992. She previously taught in Western Michigan's Department of Political Science and College of General Studies from 1971-81 and 1982-85. Her major research areas are politics and nationalism in Eastern Europe and, more recently, issues of peace and conflict management in the post-communist world. She was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame 1991-93 and since 1994 has held appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. Dr. McCrea has been a Short-term Research Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1990), and is the recipient of two Fulbright professorships, at the University of Zagreb, Croatia (1993-94) and the University of Tartu, Estonia (1999). She has published several articles and has co-authored three books, the most recent being Struggling with the Communist Legacy: Studies of Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland (Columbia University Press, East European Monograph Series, 1999). Her current research interests center on issues of development and democratization in post-communist states.

Neil Pinney received his PhD from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1992. His research and teaching interests are in public policy and political behavior. Research along this line of inquiry extends the traditional views of American government and political behavior through the use of recent theoretical and empirical advances in the cognitive sciences. Additionally, while the study of political behavior has focused primarily on citizens as voters, citizens' adherence to policy offers a political arena that involves more direct participation and presents a rich opportunity for both applied and basic research. Other research interests of his include the structural and ideological influences on executive and legislative decision-making. His publications have appeared in Party Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, and the American Journal of Political Science. A former Congressional Fellow, Dr.Pinney now works for the General Accounting Office in Washington, DC.

Emeriti

Dahlberg, Kenneth A. Professor Emeritus
dahlberg@wmich.edu

Kenneth Dahlberg received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1966. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many of his research interests are captured in the titles of the books he has written and edited: Beyond the Green Revolution: The Ecology and Politics of Global Agricultural Development; Environment and the Global Arena; Natural Resources and People: Conceptual Issues in Interdisciplinary Research; and New Directions for Agriculture and Agricultural Research. In addition to work on the human dimensions of global change and sustainable agriculture, he has also worked on policies to maintain genetic and biological diversity, including serving as Chair of the Advisory Panel for the Office of Technology Assessment's 1986 study on Technologies to Maintain Biological Diversity. In the past decade his research has focused on sustainable agriculture and regenerative food systems. Most recently, he has had grants to examine local food policy councils (NSF) and how to strengthen local food policy efforts (W.K. Kellogg Foundation). In political science, Dr. Dahlberg regularly taught seminars on Rural Development, and on Resources, Environment, and Technology, as well as a course on the United Nations. For the Environmental Studies Program, he taught Political Economy of the Environment and Appropriate Technologies and Sustainability.

Peter Kobrak received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1971. He is a professor of public administration and political science at WMU. From 1980-1988, he served as Director of the School of Public Affairs and Administration. Dr. Kobrak regularly offered courses in public policy, the politics of bureaucracy, and political economy. He has co-chaired the Michigan Public Management Institute and was President of the Michigan Political Science Association. Dr. Kobrak has published roughly two dozen journal articles and papers in conference proceedings, including The American Review of Public Administration, Policy Studies Journal, Public Administration Quarterly, Journal of Negro Education, Public Budgeting & Financial Management, ASPA's Public Integrity Annual, and Administration & Society. In 1994, he edited The Political Environment of Public Management.

Chester B. (Chet) Rogers received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in political science in 1967. He in the department for many years and served as chair from 1992-1997. His research and teaching interests included American national politics, especially Congress, and organizational behavior and leadership. Dr. Rogers is the co-author of The Electoral Politics Dictionary, and has published articles in books and social science journals, including the first two chapters ("The First 60 Days," and "The Contemporary Congress") in Setting Course: A Congressional Management Guide. His most recent published works have focused on the organizational culture and effectiveness of Congress, although early in his career, he taught a course and published an article on the use of science fiction for teaching political science. He has served as a consultant and conducted workshops on conflict management for numerous communities throughout the country.

Larry Ziring received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1962. His present research interests center on the changing character of international relations and organization. He has most recently published on the geopolitical dimensions of international relations in the post Cold War era. Other publications include Pakistan in the Twentieth Century (1997), The International Relations Dictionary (1995), Bangladesh from Mujib to Ershad (1992), and The Middle East: A Political Dictionary (1992). His teaching interests included American Foreign Policy, International Relations, The United Nations, and International Law.

Valerie Ott. Office Coordinator
valerie.ott@wmich.edu

Valerie Ott earned a BS in Communications and MEd in Student Affairs from Grand Valley State University. She started at WMU in 2004. Before moving to the Political Science Department she worked for three years in Residence Life.

Barb Dekoekkoek. Office Associate
barbara.dekoekkoek@wmich.edu

Barb Dekoekkoek moved to the Political Science in late summer 2005. She previously worked for the Department of Computer Science.