CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DIVERSITY AND DEMOCRACY

"Fights over racial justice go back a very long time. As Alvin B. Tillery told TMC readers, many of America’s founding politicians were racist, while the celebrated 19th-century conservative commentator on American politics, Alexis de Tocqueville, said systemic racism was baked into American society. Alan Coffee explained how Frederick Douglass captured America’s political factionalism in a book written 150 years ago; it has always been easier to dominate the Black population than to address the root causes of deep disagreement."

“The last several years in American politics have unfortunately introduced concern about political violence,” said study author James N. Druckman, the Payson S. Wild Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and author of “Experimental Thinking: A Primer on Social Science Experiments.” “At the same time, the pandemic exacerbated rates of depressive symptoms such that roughly 30% of the population reported such symptoms. We were interested in understanding whether there were conditions under which the two relate to one another – with a very strong conviction that any such relationship is conditional and nuanced.” “Put another way, we are very sensitive to not stigmatizing those who suffer from depression,” Druckman explained. “We thus developed a theory that suggests the relationship depends on conspiratorial thinking and/or a participatory disposition/efficacy.”

As it steers toward a post-pandemic future, Northwestern University faces a set of challenges that would be familiar to the president of any prestigious academic institution in the nation. But Northwestern's new chief, Michael Schill, has a few unique problems on his hands—and how well he deals with them will largely depend on his ability to navigate changes that could fundamentally alter the academic landscape. 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of responsive institutions: governments and communities coordinating policy changes; media, social networks, and officials swiftly and accurately conveying information; and an engaged public. This special issue explores social and political factors that both shaped initial response to the pandemic, and were altered by it. Institutional inequalities and variations in government response created significant differences in health outcomes even as the contagious nature of the pandemic linked spaces and people. Thus COVID-19 created new crises, exacerbated inequalities, and led to broad social changes. Social scientists will spend decades unraveling the consequences of COVID-19. This issue challenges scholars to apply existing theories and frameworks, but also to see the pandemic as an event that stimulates us to reevaluate settled paradigms.

Every year, over 1,000 public schools are permanently closed across the United States. And yet, little is known about their impacts on American democracy. Closed for Democracy is the ?rst book to systematically study the political causes and democratic consequences of mass public school closures in the United States. The book investigates the declining presence of public schools in large cities and their impacts on the Americans most directly affected – poor Black citizens. It documents how these mass school closure policies target minority communities, making them feel excluded from the public goods afforded to equal citizens. In response, targeted communities become superlative participators to make their voices heard. Nevertheless, the high costs and low responsiveness associated with the policy process undermines their faith in the power of political participation. Ultimately, the bo

Candidates for this year’s list were evaluated by a panel of expert judges, including Euan Blair, founder of the apprenticeship platform Multiverse; Sally Nuamah, a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, 30 Under 30 list alum and founder of the TWII Foundation; and Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University.

The action on Tuesday is in Illinois, where Amendment 1, the Illinois Right to Collective Bargaining Measure, is on the ballot. One of dozens of important ballot measures this midterm cycle—on issues ranging from abortion rights to marijuana legalization to Medicaid expansion—Amendment 1 is a bold proposal to lock in union rights that could serve as a model for other states going forward. “A big important state like Illinois enshrining this right to their constitution sends a signal across the country that the right to bargain collectively is a fundamental right,” explains Daniel Galvin, a political scientist and faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

But the proliferation of these congressional-Republican proposals to write the red-state rules into federal law suggests that this reassertion of states’ rights was just a way station toward restoring common national standards of civil rights and liberties—only in a much more restrictive and conservative direction. “All of these things have been building for years,” Alvin Tillery, the director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, told me. “It’s just that Mr. Trump gave them the idea they can succeed being more [aggressive] in the advocacy of these policies.”

Interestingly, neither Biden nor Harris, who have low approval ratings, were invited by candidates. The visits instead have been driven by the White House. "The White House wants to pitch in areas where they do have a positive impact and I do think the sixth is one of those areas, because every seat's going to matter," said Alvin Tillery, political science professor at Northwestern University. In a statement, the Illinois Republican Party said, "With historic inflation levels fueling rising gas and grocery costs, Democrats in toss-up seats across the country don't want to campaign with President Biden. Forced to defend once reliably safe Democrat seats in the Chicago suburbs, he will see voters' frustrations with his spending agenda firsthand."

Coming out of the pandemic, union support is at a record high. More than 70% of Americans approve of labor unions, a Gallup poll recently found. The outcome of a ballot measure during the midterm election could accelerate that growth: Voters in Illinois will decide whether or not to provide workers with the fundamental right to organize and bargain collectively. If the provision becomes law, “it will demonstrate strong popular support for labor rights in a big, important state,” said Daniel Galvin, an associate professor at Northwestern University whose research areas include workers’ rights and labor politics. “It would also signal to the rest of the country that the right to bargain collectively ought to be seen as a fundamental right worthy of constitutional protection.”