Roper Center Speaker Series

Shana Kushner GadarianProfessor and Chair, Political Science DepartmentSyracuse UniversityApril 27th, 2023, 10 AM ESTThe seminar was held in person at 401 Physical Sciences Building on the main Cornell Ithaca campus. Light refreshments were served. This Roper Center Speaker Series event was presented in conjunction with the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.About Pandemic Politics, by Shana Kushner Gadarian, Sara Wallace Goodman, and Thomas B. Pepinsky:"COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president’s political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health, with disastrous consequences for all of us.Health is not an inherently polarizing issue, but the Trump administration’s partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their “team” rather than what was good for their country. Democrats, in turn, viewed the crisis as evidence of Trump’s indifference to public well-being. At a time when solidarity and bipartisan unity were sorely needed, Americans came to see the pandemic in partisan terms, adopting behaviors and attitudes that continue to divide us today. This book draws on a wealth of new data on public opinion to show how pandemic politics has touched all aspects of our lives—from the economy to race and immigration—and puts America’s COVID-19 response in global perspective.An in-depth account of a uniquely American tragedy, Pandemic Politics reveals how the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has profound and troubling implications for public health and the future of democracy itself."  

(Affective) Polarization in America: When It Matters Politically and What It Means for Democracy Affective polarization—where partisans come to see those from the other party as the enemy, not just the opposition—has increased markedly over time. This raises the possibility that parties have become a sort of perverse faction, leading many to worry about harmful political consequences. 

Does Corruption Corrupt? The Behavioral Effects of Mediated Exposure to Corruption Corruption is a complex, widespread phenomenon with harmful economic and societal effects. Drawing upon theories in social psychology, political science, and communication, this study examines the direct and joint effects of mediated exposure to grand corruption and the presence of monetary incentives on people’s likelihood to engage in dishonest behavior. 

Juan Bogliaccini and Rosario Queirolo, Universidad Católica del Uruguay spoke on October 13th, 2021 on “Electoral Outcomes, Ideology & Policy Mood in Uruguay.” The event was an outgrowth of a grant to the Universidad Católica del Uruguay (UCU), where Roper Center provided preservation and access for data recovered in a research project led by  Bogliaccini and Queirolo.

Dr. Erika Franklin Fowler is Associate Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, as well as the Director of Wesleyan Media Project. 

At Penn she holds the Samuel A. Stouffer Chair in Political Science and Communication, and also serves as Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics.

Professor of Communication, Political Science, & Psychology Stanford University

Hal R. Varian Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Chairperson of the Board of the Center for Open Science and Chair of National Research Council's Roundtable on the Application of Behavioral and Social Science.

The Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt Presidential Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

An economist at Microsoft Research in New York City, a fellow at the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia and the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies

Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Journalism and she directs the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.