Ken Kollman has always been fascinated by politics. But he never wanted to work in it — he just wanted to study it.

Initially, he believed that meant a career path in journalism, so he majored in English and government while he was an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame. But while working on his senior thesis, he became enthralled with the possibilities of diving into research.

“I realized how much I liked getting really deep into something and devoting a lot of time and attention to something to try to get it right,” he said. “Research has a way of being incremental — you find questions you're interested in, and you pursue them.”

Throughout his career, Kollman has followed the winding road of his interests through both American and comparative politics. Along the way, he became a leading scholar in both subfields, fundamentally reshaping how scholars think about party systems and interest group politics.

After 32 years at the University of Michigan — where he served in leadership roles including associate department chair, director of graduate admissions, acting vice provost for international affairs, and director of the Center for Political Studies — Kollman joined Notre Dame this semester as the Dr. William M. Scholl Professor of Politics in the Department of Political Science and the Keough School for Global Affairs.

“One of my colleagues at Michigan said that Notre Dame just seems like it’s on fire — in a good way,” Kollman said. “And it’s fun to join something like that.”

The author of ‘classics’

A recurring theme throughout Kollman’s research has been the relationship between citizens and their governments — specifically, what they want their governments to do and what their governments actually do.

Early in his career, he examined American political organizations’ work in elections and lobbying and how that ultimately pressures the government. This led to his first book Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies (Princeton University Press, 1998), and several journal articles that tackle how public opinion shapes political parties, which then shape governments. Eleven years after its publication, the book was recognized by a Southern Political Science Association panel as one of the “classics” in the field of interest group politics.

Later, Kollman turned his attention to federalism, examining which levels of government are more or less responsive to people and how different levels of government do or don’t work together. This time, he looked beyond the U.S., incorporating perspectives from the European Union, Canada, and India, as well.

“If you don't study other countries, you don't see the great variety and the way that countries structure their governments and their elections and their constitutional processes,” he said.

Kollman wrote several books and articles on the subject, with The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States (Princeton University Press, 2004) being his most prominent. In it, Kollman challenges longstanding theories of party system size and nationalization.

One external reviewer described the work as “a classic, widely read and cited text that is a milestone in the study of party systems.” It won the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Award from the Political Organizations and Parties Section in 2005, and also won the 2024 Martha Derthick Best Book Award from the APSA’s Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations section, which is given to the best book published 10 or more years ago that made a lasting contribution to the study of federalism and intergovernmental relations.

“This book exhibits why Kollman is the rare scholar who has excelled in both the American and comparative politics subfields of political science,” said Geoffrey Layman, a Notre Dame professor of political science and chair of the department. “Here, Kollman displays a deep understanding of American politics — but by examining the U.S. in the context of a comparative analysis of the American, Canadian, British, and Indian party systems, he not only provides keen insights into party politics in countries outside the U.S., but uncovers insights into American politics that would not have been possible by focusing solely on the U.S.”

Hard work for the public good

Now, Kollman has focused his work on the fundamentals of global election operations and political parties. In his research, he links socially driven issues such as climate change, vaccinations, and crime rates to election data. He recently co-authored Dynamic Partisanship: How and Why Voter Loyalties Change (University of Chicago Press, 2021), which includes a detailed analysis of data from the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.K on how and why voters’ allegiances to political parties shift.

To help him compile and understand these vast topics, Kollman relies on massive data sets, including the Constituency-Level Election Archive, the world’s largest repository of election results data, which he cofounded.

“From tiny Caribbean countries all the way up to India, we have all the data on pretty much almost every country that's ever had an election,” he said.

Kollman has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking work, including the 2024 Samuel Eldersveld Career Achievement Award from the APSA’s Political Organizations and Parties Section.

And he’s far from being done.

Outside of the four books he’s published, Kollman has also written 24 refereed journal articles, 11 edited volume chapters, and six editions of a single-authored textbook on American politics. He is also the editor of multiple editions of a reader for American government classes and co-editor of a book on computational models in political economy research and a book on area studies in American social science.

Kollman has also been involved in securing significant external grant funding, receiving more than $47 million in external grants as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator. And he’s been a key contributor to the compiling and archiving of several major publicly available datasets, including the Constituency-Level Election Archive, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the Subnational Geospatial Data Archive, and the National Neighborhood Data Archive.

“Developing publicly available datasets is generally underappreciated in terms of scholarly visibility,” Layman said. “But it is very hard work, and it provides very important public goods to the scholarly community.”

The opportunity to explore and expand that cultivation of data assets, plus the University’s commitment to tackling pressing political issues through the Democracy Initiative, ultimately drew Kollman to Notre Dame.

“I'm interested in being part of a process of institutional development and building new infrastructure that will help students, faculty, and other constituents of Notre Dame do their work better,” he said. “Notre Dame’s approach to higher education, the approach to the role of the university in society, has always resonated with me. And what Notre Dame offers to students, faculty, alums, the community, and the people who benefit from their research is very, very attractive to me.”

Originally published by Mary Kinney at al.nd.edu on April 01, 2026.

To commemorate the upcoming 250th anniversary of both the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government (CCCG) has partnered with the Mendoza College of Business to launch an inaugural one-credit course: “1776: The Ideas that Made the Modern World.”

The course, open to all Notre Dame students, alumni, and the general public, represents a unique collaboration between two of the University’s leading scholars: Vincent Philip Muñoz, Professor of Political Science and Director of the CCCG, and James Otteson, Professor of Business Ethics and Concurrent Professor of Political Science. Their vision is rooted in a simple but profound philosophy: students should engage directly with foundational texts rather than hearing about them second-hand. By following the successful "foundational" model of popular Notre Dame courses on St. Augustine or C.S. Lewis, Muñoz and Otteson aim to provide a semester-long deep dive into the pillars of Western thought.

This commitment to primary sources allows the professors to challenge modern misconceptions. For instance, while many view Adam Smith solely as the “father of capitalism,” Professor Otteson emphasizes that Smith’s motivations were deeply moral, focused on the "least among us" and the imperative to lift people out of poverty. By pairing Smith’s moral philosophy with a rigorous study of the Declaration of Independence—and later contrasting both with the writings of Karl Marx—the course explores diverse approaches to political economy. Ultimately, the goal is to show how these foundational thinkers, though different in method, all aimed to help individuals lead lives of dignity and prosperity. As Muñoz notes, “Everyone who wants to learn about the Declaration of Independence should have the opportunity to do so,” a sentiment that underscores the University’s decision to welcome the public into this academic conversation.

Otteson wants students to move past the common suspicions surrounding Smith. “I want people to learn something about that book beyond what they might have heard others say about it before,” he said. Despite being 250 years old, the questions posed in 1776 remain urgent. Otteson argues that Smith saw himself as describing universal and enduring features of human nature. “The human condition has not changed. Human beings are human beings,” Otteson explained. “We still have a scarcity of resources. People still have desires that are not met. And today we are still trying to answer the same questions that Smith posed in 1776.”

The course is a rare offering in the modern university landscape. While the Declaration of Independence is frequently taught, Smith’s foundational arguments for markets, trade, and the rule of law are often absent from modern economics and business curricula. “We are the inheritors of these ideas,” Otteson notes. “We should know where they came from and why they were articulated in the first place.” Looking toward the future, Otteson hopes this course is only the beginning. He envisions a series of eight foundational courses that undergraduates could take over four years, creating a "shared intellectual corpus" among students of all disciplines. He believes faculty should constantly ask what a graduate of the university should know before leaving, focusing on the creation of an "informed soul."

Muñoz emphasizes that the course reflects the deeper mission of the University itself. “At its best, a Notre Dame education invites students to wrestle with the ideas that have shaped our world and to consider their responsibilities as citizens in light of them,” he said. “This course is an opportunity to recover those conversations and to form students not only in knowledge, but in judgment.”

“A place like Notre Dame is exactly the place we should have a class like this,” Otteson concludes. “It may be that if we develop this into a program, we might be able to serve as a model for other universities. We can be leaders.”

The course benefits students on a fundamental level of citizenship, regardless of their background or plan of study. Amanda Pertierra, an Elementary Education instructor at Holy Cross College who has followed along with the course this semester, remarked, “I’ve found that the deeper you go into the Framers’ texts, the more nuanced your grasp of our current moment becomes.” Pertierra continued, “The past refracts into the present and generally leaves me with a sense of awe towards the American experiment, even as it remains a work in progress.”

First-year Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering student and Tocqueville Fellow Arav Fernandes reflected on how the course informs his commitments as an Air Force ROTC cadet: “1776 has been important for me to understand what it is I will be fighting for, both in the military and civilian life.” Fernandes says, "While it is challenging to encapsulate the vastly pluralistic histories of the American people, the course is intentionally and skillfully nuanced in tying them together and presenting them as undeniably American.”

Learn more about "1776" on the CCCG website.

Originally published by Jonah Tran at constudies.nd.edu on March 31, 2026.

Franco Institute’s large grants support scholarship in three specific areas: the creative and performing arts, conferences and lectures, and research assistance.

Large Creative and Performing Arts:

The Notre Dame Arts Initiative and the Franco Institute award the Large Creative and Performing Arts Grants twice annually to support arts and creative practice projects in any medium that are directed by faculty in the College of Arts & Letters. The Arts Initiative and Franco Institute give special consideration to projects that align with one or more of the Arts Initiative’s current creative practice priorities.

David Bird, assistant professor of music, for the Hinterlands album release.

Roy Scranton, associate professor of English, for Popeye: An American Odyssey.

Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, assistant professor of art, for a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis.

Lida Zeitlin-Wu, assistant professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, for “How Color Became a Technology: The Making of Chromatic Capitalism.”

Large Henkels:

The Large Henkels Grant program can cover the costs of an academic conference on campus or in one of the University’s Global Gateways; a series of lectures or performances; or a single, significant visiting lecturer or performer. Departments, institutes, and interdisciplinary groups can bring scholars to Notre Dame for two or more days of public events including a lecture, colloquium, panel, or performance. While all events may not result in a publication, the Institute expects that proposals will be designed with the goal of having a lasting effect beyond a series of lectures or performances.

Kimberly Belcher, associate professor of theology, for “The Work of Human Hands: Timely and Timeless” (April 15-17, 2027).

Jennie Grillo, associate professor of theology, for “Embodiment and Affect in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity” (May 9-13, 2027).

Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, associate professor of political science, for “The Rise and Fall–and Resilience–of Christian Churches and Civil Society in Hong Kong and in Exile” (May 2027).

Mary Celeste Kearney, professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, for “100 Years Strong But Forever 16: Reclaiming and Expanding Teen Entertainment History” (April 2-3, 2027).

Gabriel Radvansky, professor of psychology, for “Event Cognition Conference” (March 22-24, 2027).

Large Research:

The Franco Institute awards Large Research Grants of up to $25,000 twice annually to support faculty research projects in any department or discipline in Arts & Letters. Large Research Grants can help fund travel to research sites, research assistance, and other expenses associated with data collection and analysis.

Muna Adem, assistant professor of sociology, for “When Is Catastrophic Harm Publicly Recognized? Immigration Enforcement and (Non)Eventfulness.”

Kaylin Hill, assistant professor of psychology, for “Neuroscience for the Public Good: Supporting First-Time Parents.”

Originally published by Jacob Schepers at franco.nd.edu on March 30, 2026.

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Originally published by Rooney Democracy Institute at rooneyinstitute.nd.edu on March 27, 2026.

On Thursday evening (March 26), Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, presided and preached at a Mass for peace at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The Mass was held in light of ongoing global conflicts and in the spirit of Pope Leo XIV’s prayer for disarmament and peace earlier this month.

Father Dowd began his homily by encouraging those in attendance to consider the immense suffering caused by the wars that rage in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere — particularly as the Church approaches Holy Week and prepares to commemorate the Lord’s Passion.

“In a sense, the Lord’s Passion is being played out on a daily basis as people are killed, disfigured, orphaned, widowed, rendered homeless or displaced,” Father Dowd said. “We all know that the suffering is immense.”

Father Dowd stated that as Christians and members of the Notre Dame community, “we are compelled to ask ourselves what God is calling us to do in the face of all this pain.”

“We are so privileged here on this campus to have the opportunities we have to conduct research, to study and to learn together. However, this Catholic university must never exist in a bubble,” he said. “And we must make sure that we are never indifferent to the suffering that goes on in the world around us.”

Referencing the Mass’s readings from the Gospel of Matthew 5:1-12, Father Dowd noted that Jesus calls on his disciples to be peacemakers.

“Let me propose that all of us, regardless of our discipline, our major or minor, regardless of our research agenda or our career goals, all of us in one way or another are called to be peacemakers and peacebuilders,” Father Dowd said.

Being a peacemaker or peacebuilder, he continued, does not mean being naive to the dangers in the world, being oblivious to the affronts to human rights and human dignity, or giving way to bullies or aggressors who seek to dominate, exploit or destroy.

Rather, Father Dowd said that in order to be peacemakers in the pattern of Jesus, “we must deepen our understanding of these realities and take them seriously.”

“Jesus immersed himself in the violence that afflicted the people of his day, especially those on the margins of society, who are so often those who pay the highest price for war,” Father Dowd said. “In fact, his redemptive mission demanded such immersion, and he himself was a victim of such violence.

“Being a peacemaker means, among other things, doing everything we can to seek nonviolent solutions. Being a peacebuilder means doing everything we can to create conditions that make war less likely in the future. Both peacemaking and peacebuilding require hard work — the hard work of building bridges.”

Father Dowd concluded his homily by noting that Pope Leo has been clear and persistent in calling for a ceasefire and for renewed dialogue as the war with Iran and in the Middle East “intensifies, causing immense suffering and possibly making us all less secure.”

He exhorted those present to join their prayers to the prayers of Pope Leo, to pray for peace, that every person might become the peacemaker that our society and world need.

Father Dowd also prayed for governmental leaders, that they might be guided by wisdom in decisions that bring an immediate end to bloodshed, for the safety of the men and women in the armed forces and their families, and for all victims of war.

“Even as we take the violence and threats of violence in our world seriously, let us never grow cynical or fatalistic,” he said. “Let us not lose heart and instead cultivate hope through all that we say and all that we do. As we commemorate the Lord’s Passion soon, let us not forget the end of the story: The Lord Jesus, who was put to death in a most humiliating way, was raised from the dead.

“There is no killing the power of love. There is no killing the Prince of Peace, in whom a new day always dawns. Let us pray that we might cooperate with the crucified and risen Lord, who is mysteriously in our midst, to be the peacemakers and peacebuilders the world needs.”

Father Dowd’s full homily is available at president.nd.edu.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu, 574-993-9220

Originally published by Carrie Gates at news.nd.edu on March 27, 2026.

The CCCG hosted the 2026 True Lectures the week of March 18, 2026, featuring speaker Jud Campbell, professor at Stanford Law School and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, and drawing a diverse crowd of students, staff, and faculty from across disciplines.

The True Lectures are an endowed lecture series made possible by the generosity of Tad and Jennifer True. They aim to showcase new and cutting-edge scholarship on American constitutionalism and engage the Notre Dame community in conversation about American legal and philosophical principles. In opening remarks on Wednesday, CCCG Director Vincent Phillip Muñoz stated that in inaugurating the True Lectures two years ago, he “actually had Jud Campbell in mind,” and was “just thrilled” about hosting him at Notre Dame.

Campbell’s Wednesday lecture in Eck Visitors Center was entitled “Natural Rights at the Founding," and built on James Madison’s hesitancy relating to the Bill of Rights and the often-forgotten text of the 9th Amendment. Throughout his lecture, Campbell discussed whether the rights of Americans are limited merely to the text of the Constitution based on the Founders’ view of natural rights. This lecture was followed by a reception for all attendees and a private dinner for Campbell and Notre Dame graduate students to participate in further conversation.

Campbell offered a second lecture on Thursday on “Federalism and the Decline of Natural Rights,” during which he traced constitutional interpretation throughout “intellectual shifts” of the 19th and 20th centuries that “radically upended the ideas that rules of morality were natural and existed across society” and instead understood law as “socially constructed.” Like Wednesday’s evening activities, this lecture was followed by a reception and a dinner where law, philosophy, and political science faculty members continued conversation with Campbell and his Friday lecture interlocutors.

Campbell closed the 2026 True Lectures on Friday afternoon in a discussion on “The Legacy of Natural Rights,” joined by Professors Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School and Tom West of Hillsdale College. Campbell reiterated the central arguments of his previous lectures, explaining that though “parts of the Constitution's text identify certain general fundamental rights by name,” it is also true that “enumeration did not legally freeze those rights or necessarily spell out their content. Back when rights came before government, it was second nature to think fundamental rights could be grounded in natural and customary law. And when those laws were underdeterminate, the people themselves retained the power of ‘determining’ those rights.”

Campbell continued that the “written constitution,” however, “helped inculcate a more positivist attitude toward fundamental law,” and that for “much of our constitutional history,” both a “social contractarian paradigm and an enumerationist paradigm” existed. Campbell put forward that understanding the Founders’ thoughts “about the nature of rights and different modes of enumeration” helps “better uncover the content of their original law or more accurately appraise the original meaning of the text that they produced.”

Campbell’s remarks were followed by those of both Tom West and Philip Hamburger. West explained his own view that “the privilege, the idea of natural rights and natural law and the Founding … has to be understood in light of the big picture – how government secures our rights, and then secondly consent, but consent subordinated to security of natural rights.” West also spoke of citizenship as being “grounded in natural law fundamentally … only making use of tradition and customs from the past in a subordinate role.”

Hamburger argued against Campbell, noting that though he “is surely correct that natural rights were central to the Founders,” his claim that “natural rights were not as enforceable” by the judiciary is an “extraordinary” one that “completely revises early American history” and the “generality and legitimacy of judicial review.” Hamburger said that he was “not sure [he could] find any such statement” from “the Founding generation” that “declarations of natural rights, more than other rights, were traditionally unenforceable.” He concluded that “evidence does not really support … Campbell’s views that declared natural rights were somehow exceptions from judicial enforcement.”

These lectures bolstered a rigorous discussion on natural rights in American law, and were well-attended by Notre Dame undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and community members, drawing 260 attendees over the three-day event. The lectures were also part of the programming of the undergraduate course “1776: The Ideas that Made the Modern World,” launched in January of this year. Campbell’s lectures mark an integral part of the course for students to connect the Founding principles they are learning into the classroom with Campbell’s scholarship on natural rights.

Ella Yates '27, a Tocqueville Fellow majoring in Philosophy and Political Science and minoring in Theology and the Glynn Family Honors Program, is one of the many undergraduates enrolled in the 1776 course. She attended all three lectures, and “appreciated Campbell’s assessment of the Founders’ belief in the necessity and impact of the natural rights tradition and the teleological view of history,” noting that it is “[o]nly with these ideas in mind” that we can “begin to unpack the fullness of the Founding documents and address the growing gap in our justice system caused by the decline of these beliefs in modern society.”

Charlie Stalzer, a current graduate student in the Constitutional Studies program, commented on the success of the lecture series, noting that “[f]or graduate students studying constitutional law and political philosophy, the True Lectures offer a unique opportunity to engage with leading scholars. These lectures are a fantastic complement to Notre Dame’s courses and show aspiring academics what scholarly excellence looks like.”

All True Lectures were recorded via livestream and can be found on the CCCG’s YouTube channel here.

To stay up to date with the CCCG’s programming, subscribe to our email list.

Originally published by Helena Drake at constudies.nd.edu on March 25, 2026.

Over the past year, the Institute awarded nineteen Annual Research Theme grants to faculty and graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters. With the Franco Institute’s support, scholars in anthropology; art, art history, and design; English; peace studies; political science; psychology; Romance Languages and Literatures; sociology; the Technology and Digital Studies Program; and theology are researching diverse locales—including Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Turkey, and Nepal—as well as South Bend.

Six projects deal directly with the so-called “attention economy” and how digital technologies affect and monetize human attention. These projects examine how technology—from TikTok and AI to social media algorithms—actively reshapes, fragments, or undermines attention. Abigail Hemmen, a doctoral candidate in political science, examines how intermingling news headlines with non-news content on social media feeds can trivialize politics. Taking a global perspective, political science and peace studies graduate student Ali Altiok studies how Kenyan youth confront AI-generated political disinformation and deepfakes in order to assess the efficacy of targeted digital literacy education. In a similar vein, Gessica de Freitas, another graduate student in political science, studies how informational overload in Brazil’s complex electoral systems undermines voters’ democratic focus and memory. From a psychological lens, graduate student Lauren Garner investigates the extent to which TikTok may be negatively influencing sustained attention and contrasts those effects with guided meditation practices. Alexi Orchard, an assistant teaching professor in the Technology and Digital Studies Program, proposes that people could seek to emulate generative AI’s capability of processing long text sequences while preserving context. For Orchard, humanities-led expertise can help to develop deep context and evidence-based reasoning rather than accepting superficial or misleading information without much scrutiny. Putting these concerns into practice, associate professor of studio art Jason Lahr translates the “mire of memes” and the experience of “doomscrolling” into the slow, contemplative practice of painting. Lahr is preparing this work for upcoming exhibitions.

Three grantees in psychology focus on the internal mechanics of attention: how it is controlled, how it fails, and how its dysregulation leads to adverse psychological outcomes. Psychology professor Brad Gibson researches whether chronic boredom reflects an impaired voluntary “internal attention” and is developing a model to measure this untested hypothesis. The question of what happens from too much attention is the question that Ryan Carpenter, assistant professor of psychology, seeks to answer. Carpenter explores how an “over-focus on reward” may act as a common link between addiction and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Psychology graduate student Aurora Roghair investigates the link between environmental lead exposure and ADHD in South Bend-area children. Her study will provide home lead-testing kits to caregivers and her findings can inform community-based screening and early detection.

A few scholars cast attention in terms of its implications for power, justice, and institutions. Their projects treat attention as a political resource and investigate who is granted "regard" and whose suffering is systematically ignored or silenced. The “moral economy of care” within Nepal’s medical system is the focus of anthropology graduate student Prakash B K’s research into clinical attention through twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork. Collective memory and media depictions feature heavily in graduate research from Giulia Maria Gliozzi in Italian Studies and Fabían Díaz Maldonado in sociology. Gliozzi examines how postwar institutions in Italy directed public attention away from specific Holocaust testimonies. Maldonado considers attention within the context of media portrayals, asking how partisan media frame certain social movements to be deemed “worthy” of public attention. Through this work, Gliozzi and Maldonado advance our understanding of attention’s role in conditioning public responses to public memory and collective action.

Other scholars pick up on these themes and investigate attention in relation to memory, resilience, and cultural witness. They focus on how marginalized or threatened communities "attend" to their history, community, language, and shared identity to survive erasure or crisis. Diasporas are the focal point for both Insha Bint Bashir, a graduate student in anthropology, and Jorge Manuel Arredondo Sevilla in theology. Bashir examines how Kashmiri communities in the United States sustain collective attention to ongoing events in Kashmir when digital platforms are withheld in India and community initiatives face surveillance. Sevilla is working on a novel which explores how Indigenous Mexican communities have resisted cultural erasure. Anthropology graduate student Melis Gemalmaz envisions attention as a form of solidarity and a spiritual and ethical practice as it emerged in Antakya, Turkey, after the 2023 earthquakes. She studies how the act of attending to another’s suffering and welfare acquired renewed significance within a crisis.

Some projects consider the narrative potential of attention by examining how attention to objects, art, and storytelling can create meaning and therapeutic outcomes. Tirna Chandra, a graduate student in English, examines attention to objects and materials in narratives by First World War female medical caregivers as a therapeutic tool for trauma. For anthropology graduate student Jeremi Panganiban, physical objects and activities also tell the story of attention. Using photographs, storytelling walks, and community mapping, Panganiban studies how coastal residents in the Philippines use “noticing” to document and navigate ecological and economic transitions from fishing to tourism.

Shifting to visual arts more explicitly, art historian Elyse Speaks researches how sculptors in the 1970s and 1980s combined organic, found, and industrial materials; she argues that these artists use such materials specifically to direct attention to the resulting “entanglements.” In the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, assistant professor Johannes Ruhland looks at the use of medieval “exempla” in thirteenth-century texts. By analyzing these illustrative anecdotes, Ruhland asks whether the era’s French historians acted as “attention seekers” to teach their audiences how to lead moral lives. Ultimately, these studies demonstrate that such modes of attention are not only about seeing but also about caring, remembering, and acting.

A few notable insights emerged out of these varied research projects. Almost every discipline explicitly viewed attention not only as a mental faculty but also as a finite resource claimed by various platforms and social structures. The scholars draw clear distinctions between “fast” attention (TikTok, deepfakes, and doomscrolling) and “slow” attention (ethnographies, painting, archival research, and meditation). Ultimately, this research suggests that the simple act of “paying attention” to another human is, in itself, a political and ethical act. The Franco Institute is proud to support this work demonstrating the innovative research in the College of Arts & Letters.

Originally published by Jacob Schepers at franco.nd.edu on March 24, 2026.

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The endowed lectures, made possible by the generosity of Tad and Jennifer True, are designed to both showcase leading scholarship on American constitutionalism, and to bring that scholarship into public life. The series has already led to the publication of a forthcoming book through the University of Notre Dame Press.

Following the inaugural 2024 lectures, John Witte, Jr. of Emory University School of Law has published a major volume with Andrea Pin, The Legal Foundations of Religious Freedom: Human Rights in the United States and Europe. The book traces the evolving relationship between human rights and religious freedom in contemporary law and culture, and speaks to increasing cultural division in the Western world.

“Professor Witte’s new book is exactly what we hoped to accomplish with the True Lectures,” said Professor Vincent Phillip Muñoz, director of the CCCG. “These lectures are designed to foster serious and sustained reflection on fundamental questions of American constitutionalism, and have already generated new scholarship that is shaping our academic debate and intellectual culture.” Now available for pre-order through University of Notre Dame Press, the book brings the conversation started at the 2024 True Lectures to the wider public.

The first 2026 True Lecture will begin on Wednesday, March 18, at 3:45 p.m. in the Eck Visitors Center Auditorium, and will cover “Natural Rights at the Founding.” Thursday’s lecture on “Federalism and the Decline of Natural Rights” will take place in the 1842 Club, accessible via the Duncan Student Center at 3:30 p.m. The final lecture – on Friday, March 20 – will take place in 200 Main Building and will begin at 12:30 p.m.

To stay up to date with the CCCG’s programming, subscribe to our email list.

Originally published by Helena Drake at constudies.nd.edu on March 18, 2026.

Titled “Endowed by Their Creator: Catholicism, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Experiment at 250,” the symposium will take place Thursday, April 9, 2026, on CUA’s campus in Washington, D.C. The gathering is intended to serve as a premier scholarly forum during the semiquincentennial year, convening leading academics, jurists, and public intellectuals to consider the philosophical and theological foundations of the American experiment in constitutional self-government.

“This anniversary provides an opportunity not merely for celebration, but for serious intellectual examination,” said Phillip Muñoz, director of the CCCG. “The Declaration advances claims about human equality, rights ,and moral accountability that remain foundational to our political life. The Catholic intellectual tradition has long engaged these same questions. Our hope is to foster a careful and rigorous conversation about their relationship and their continued significance for constitutional government.”

Joel Alicea, a professor at CUA and the director of CIT, underscored the importance of hosting the symposium in the nation’s capital.

“At 250 years, we are called to reflect more deeply on the principles that have shaped the American experiment,” Alicea said. “By bringing scholars of Catholic thought into dialogue with the Declaration’s arguments, this symposium aims to clarify the moral and philosophical foundations of our constitutional order and to explore the resources available for its renewal.”

The daylong program will begin with Mass at 9:15 a.m. in St. Vincent Chapel, followed by three academic panels and two keynote conversations.

The first panel, “The Declaration and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition,” will feature Bradley Lewis of CUA; Vincent Phillip Muñoz of Notre Dame; and D. C. Schindler of the John Paul II Institute, moderated by Michael Promisel of CUA.

A lunch keynote and fireside chat will follow, featuring Robert P. George of Princeton University in conversation with his former student, Fr. Henry Stephan, O.P. of Notre Dame.

The second panel, “The Declaration and Constitutional Interpretation,” will include Kevin Walsh of CUA; Judge Whitney Hermandorfer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and Charlie Capps of Arizona State University, moderated by Alicea.

The third panel, “Catholic Social Thought and the American Experiment,” will feature Russell Hittinger of CUA; Kenneth Grasso of Texas State University; and Ryan T. Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, moderated by CUA’s Sarah Gustafson.

All sessions will be recorded and made available for later viewing to ensure broad access for those unable to attend in person.

Launched in 2021, the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at Notre Dame seeks to cultivate thoughtful and educated citizens by supporting scholarship and education concerning the ideas and institutions of constitutional government. For additional details, including registration information, visit constudies.nd.edu/america250.

Contact: Anna Bradley, CCCG Assistant Director, 574-631-8050 or abradle4@nd.edu

Originally published by Anna Bradley at constudies.nd.edu on March 05, 2026.

Natalie Magura is determined to make the most of her undergraduate years.

Right now, that means the junior is soaking up all she can from the city of London. She’s exploring British museums in her art history class and learning causes and effects of Brexit in her political science class, then roaming the city streets in her free time.

But when she was a first-year, Magura’s appetite for edification didn’t take her across an ocean — just across disciplines. She started out as just a sociology major, learning how to scientifically study social structures and relationships.

“But then I recognized there were more pieces to the puzzle,” she said.

Adding majors in economics and political science gave Magura a more complete view of critical issues — take incarceration, for example. Through sociology, she learned about inequalities within the prison system and the effects of mass incarceration. Through economics, she learned how disparities in wealth translate into disproportionate incarceration rates. Through political science, she learned about the public policy environment behind the prison system.

To finish the puzzle, Magura just needed a career plan that could interlock with her wide-ranging interests. It took her a few semesters — and deep engagement with career development opportunities through the Beyond the Dome and Consulting Connect programs — to figure it out, but she started with the confidence that the skills she’d learn would make her successful in any field.

“Fitting all of those pieces together solidified my decision to move forward with three majors,” she said. “I’m constantly exposed to different lenses in my learning, no matter what the subject may be.”

Finding a career fit with three majors

To find her professional path, Magura began with the same strategy she used with her majors — more is more. She joined every club that sounded interesting and attended as many career discernment events as her schedule allowed. That brought her to Beyond the Dome, which would become a main character in her Notre Dame story.

A career development program exclusively for undergraduates in the College of Arts & Letters, Beyond the Dome empowers students to explore career paths while giving them opportunities to break into their desired industry. As a first-year, Magura took advantage of the program’s employer interaction events, one of which introduced her to the host of her upcoming summer internship: Bain & Company, one of the country’s top consulting firms.

“In high school, I had no idea what consulting was,” Magura said. “Beyond the Dome introduced me to the industry and matched it with the skills I had as an Arts & Letters student.”

Networking with a Bain employee at a Beyond the Dome workshop was the first step in Magura’s journey to an internship with Bain, but it wasn’t what sealed the deal. Along the way were more career workshops, resume refinement, interview coaching, and connections with upperclassmen.

Magura also joined Consulting Connect, a Meruelo Family Center for Career Development program that prepares students for consulting jobs through resume and interview prep and networking opportunities. What Magura found the most helpful, though, was the case interview training offered by students who had already gone through the recruitment process.

Business consultants provide guidance and solve complex issues on a wide variety of projects. So on top of traditional job interviews, consulting firms use case interviews to assess applicants’ critical thinking abilities with sample business problems, such as “How should I go about opening a new coffee shop?”

To solve a case — usually within a strict time limit — an applicant needs to generate a logical plan of action, requiring knowledge of business principles and a decent portion of math. Consulting Connect helped her learn how to ace a case through mock interviews with feedback from peers and actual consultants.

After she got the basics down, Magura realized the unique strengths that had taken her problem-solving to the next level.

“With practice, anyone is going to be able to solve a case — it’s not calculus,” she said. “But Arts & Letters students have an inherent creativity in the ways they think about problems. You’re not only thinking about it like a business problem; you’re almost thinking about it like a comprehensive essay.”

Focusing on giving back

Now that Magura’s found the right path for her, she wants to help other students do the same. To that end, she’s taken on responsibilities as co-president of Consulting Connect and chief executive officer of Beyond the Dome.

“I’m making sure I’m always a resource and an accessible mentor,” she said. “I’m very proud to be the support that I received as an underclassman.”

“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me. For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”

Magura is excited by the way both programs continue to develop and expand opportunities for students, especially Beyond the Dome’s new LaunchPoint Projects. In an immersive semester-long experience, students work with a company or nonprofit on a real business problem, and their recommendations will help inform senior leaders’ decision-making. The projects give students deep, practical experience, as well as connections to a managing director or senior partner at an influential corporation like McKinsey & Company.

As a certified connoisseur of career programs, Magura knows it can be intimidating to start getting involved, especially for students like her first-year self, who had no prior connections to Notre Dame. But her advice is just to show up — to clubs, to information sessions, to whatever sounds exciting.

“Everyone at these events is someone who’s a little bit lost or confused, and using these resources is definitely a way to get that extra lift if you need it,” she said.

Putting herself out there as much as possible was how Magura found her path and her community on campus. But now that she’s in the latter half of her time at Notre Dame, she’s focusing less on building new things and more on enjoying what she’s already built — taking electives, time for intentional growth, and long walks during golden hour.

And when she graduates next year, Magura knows that what she’s found at Notre Dame isn’t going away.

“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me,” she said. “For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on February 26, 2026.

A newly published guide from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences aims to help higher education institutions prepare young people for engagement in the democratic process. Political scientist David Campbell, who directs the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, led the group of university presidents, faculty, and civic experts who developed the publication, titled Preparing Students for Civic Life: A Guide for Higher Education Leaders.

The publication is released at a time when young people’s distrust in American institutions and democracy is declining. Higher education leaders recognize that this issue must be addressed, as civic engagement improves student success and community well-being. But actually fixing the problem can be difficult.

“To paraphrase the old saying, civic education is like the weather: Everybody talks about it, but hardly anybody does anything about it,” Campbell said. “Now education leaders know what to do.”

“Notre Dame can be a national leader in democratic education for our students. Let us demonstrate that it is possible to disagree agreeably, and to be engaged without being polarized.”

The report outlines concrete ways colleges and universities can embed democratic values into every part of their campuses, from curriculum to culture. Key strategies — like building community partnerships and connecting civics to every major — show institutions how to turn their students into active, engaged, and informed citizens. The publication’s team of experts illustrate the effectiveness of these strategies with case studies from a variety of institutions, including Stanford University and The Ohio State University.

Campbell, who is the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in the Department of Political Science, came to the project already an expert on civic and political engagement among young people. Last year, he co-wrote a book with Christina Wolbrecht on the subject titled See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People. His work also appears in various scholarly journals, including the American Political Science Review and Journal of Politics, and his book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us won the American Political Science Association’s award for the Best Book on Government, Politics, or International Affairs.

Through his leadership in both the Academy publication and the Democracy Initiative, Campbell amplifies Notre Dame’s voice in nationwide conversations about the future of the United States.

“Notre Dame can be a national leader in democratic education for our students,” Campbell said. “Let us demonstrate that it is possible to disagree agreeably, and to be engaged without being polarized.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on February 18, 2026.

A Political Science and Latino Studies major from East Chicago, Indiana, Grecia has expanded Sueños sin Fronteras across the state, supported research on Latino political representation, and pursued legal advocacy rooted in community, resilience, and service.

If you ask Grecia Natalia Alcantar how she would title her senior year, she answers with: “Love Yourz.” It is simple, honest, and a reminder to stay grounded in gratitude while still pushing forward with purpose. As a member of the Institute for Latino Studies through the Latino Studies Scholars Program and her academic work, she has spent her Notre Dame years building the kind of impact that reaches beyond campus.

Grecia is a Political Science and Latino Studies major from East Chicago, Indiana, and she credits the Institute for Latino Studies for turning her interests into a true sense of belonging. “Political Science has been my major, but Latino Studies has been my community,” she said, describing ILS as the place that gave her friendships, meaningful work, and people who believed in her. That community also strengthened her confidence. In one early ILS moment, she was encouraged by Associate Director Paloma Garcia-Lopez to stop shrinking herself and start naming what she wanted with clarity, a lesson that stayed with her as her responsibilities and leadership grew.

One of Grecia’s proudest contributions is Sueños sin Fronteras, a program that introduces students to Notre Dame and the possibility of college. Drawing on her own experience in East Chicago public schools, she helped push Sueños beyond South Bend, expanding the program to welcome students from seven Indiana cities by her junior year. The growth of Sueños reflects the kind of leadership Grecia brings to every space she enters: practical, people-centered, and focused on opening doors for others.

Her academics reflect that same commitment. Grecia has worked as a research assistant for political scientist and previous ILS director Dr. Luis Fraga, including research connected to the Voting Rights Act 1975 extension and Latino political representation. She also points to her class “Latino Chicago” with Professor Emiliano Aguilar as a turning point in her time at Notre Dame. “As a Mexican American woman growing up in northwest Indiana, this class was the first time that I saw my community reflected. It gave me the skillset to identify the ongoing political and social issues from a historical context,” she said. For Grecia, this is what ILS does at its best: it connects rigorous learning to real communities and helps students recognize themselves, and their futures, in the work.

Outside the classroom, Grecia has pursued public service with focus and range, from policy to legal advocacy. She interned in the U.S. House of Representatives and later with Notre Dame Law School’s Exoneration Justice Clinic under the Program for the Defense of Mexican Nationals in Criminal Matters in the United States (PDM). She also gained international experience as a political intern with the Embassy of Mexico in Italy, producing Spanish-language reports on political events and developing research on immigration across regions. Back on campus, she has continued serving the Notre Dame community as a Senior Fellow in the Office of Student Enrichment and as a Moreau Peer Leader.

Grecia is also candid about what it took to sustain all of that. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, she took on a larger role at home, and the experience sharpened her sense of responsibility and perspective. “I came to realize that life is finite, and I have to make sure that while I’m here I can do the best that I can, not just for myself but for the broader Latino community,” she said. She has also shared that her mom is doing better now, and she speaks with deep gratitude for her family’s support and resilience through it all. That resilience shows up in another way she is proud of: learning to care for her own physical and mental wellbeing, something she sees as especially important in Latino communities.

As she looks ahead, Grecia plans to work full-time in Chicago while studying for the LSAT, with a long-term goal of law school. She’s quick to name the people who helped her grow into that vision, including mentors like Professor Emiliano Aguilar, Dr. Ricardo Ramirez, Dr. Luis Fraga, Judge Sheila O’Brien, Paloma Garcia-Lopez, Dr. Karen Richman, along with many other professors & staff who challenged her to lead with confidence. Asked what she would tell first-years stepping into ILS and LSSP spaces, Grecia keeps it direct: “Take advantage of every opportunity, even if it seems scary.” And when she sums up her steady optimism, she chooses a phrase that feels like a promise: “No hay mal que dure cien años.”

The Institute for Latino Studies is proud to celebrate Grecia and the impact she has made through the Latino Studies Scholars Program, Sueños sin Fronteras, her research, and her service. Her work reflects what becomes possible when students are supported by a community that takes them seriously, invests in their leadership, and helps them translate purpose into action.

Originally published by Parker Gaines at latinostudies.nd.edu on February 11, 2026.

His research interests span the constitutionalism of Ancient, Early Modern, and American Political Thought, and his dissertation examines the use of classical pseudonyms in the key debates of the American Founding.

Before coming to Notre Dame, Edward earned a BA with highest honors in political science and classical languages and cultures from Vanderbilt University.

Originally published by Kelli Brown at reviewofpolitics.nd.edu on February 05, 2026.

The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science had long made it a priority to be good at a lot of things — and it had developed core strengths in political theory, comparative politics, and international security.

But in order to become great, it had to get better at one thing — American politics — and bring the subfield up to the standard of other areas of the department.

“Our new position is a reflection of the accumulation of our efforts. We were underranked, and the pressure to rank us higher has been increasing more and more. All of a sudden, people are now taking a closer look.”

— Geoffrey Layman, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science

“Up until now, our American politics field hasn't really been built by hiring the big-name free agent,” said Geoffrey Layman, professor and chair of the department. “It's been building with young, almost fresh-out-of-graduate-school faculty and making the right hires.”

After several external reviews that emphasized the need for improvement in American politics, the department boasts an impressive roster in that core subfield. The 14 faculty members in American politics now include five endowed chairs, five full professors, and four collegiate chairs.

It’s a demonstration of the department's conscious effort to strengthen in one area without sacrificing quality in others — and that improvement is getting noticed. In the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings, the department made a significant jump for the first time in a decade — moving from 37 to 27.

With a slew of recent senior hires bolstering a strong roster of junior faculty; a thriving set of centers and institutes focused on American democracy, international security, and constitutional studies; a University-wide investment in democracy research and student support; and one of the most popular undergraduate programs on campus, the department is stronger than it's ever been — even if it took the rankings a while to catch up.

“Our new position is a reflection of the accumulation of our efforts,” Layman said. “We were underranked, and the pressure to rank us higher has been increasing more and more. All of a sudden, people are now taking a closer look.”

A center of gravity

After its founding 100 years ago, the department initially developed a reputation in political theory and eventually in comparative politics.

“If we wanted to be considered among the top political science departments, it's not that we needed to do other stuff instead of theory, it's that we needed to do other stuff in addition to theory,” said David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy and former department chair.

Political theory had emerged as a strength in the department because of the subfield’s integration of the social sciences with humanities-rooted ways of thinking, a natural intersection with Notre Dame’s longstanding strength in philosophy. In it, faculty and students ask fundamental questions about politics and derive their theories from great thinkers such as Socrates, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas.

As a leader in the subfield, the department is home to the political theory journal The Review of Politics and hosts the biennial Niemeyer Lectures in Political Philosophy.

“At Notre Dame, there's historically been a sense of its Catholic tradition and of thinking about politics in light of the dignity of the human person,” said Mary M. Keys, a professor who joined Notre Dame in 1998 and whose research primarily focuses on Christianity, ethics, and political thought.

The department has also been a strong presence in comparative politics, particularly the study of Latin America, which was accelerated by the establishment of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies in 1982. Notre Dame has long been a convening and catalyzing force in the subfield; Campbell refers to it as “one of the centers of gravity” of comparative politics.

Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, professor of political science and global affairs, said that the central role grew out of the Congregation of Holy Cross’ presence in Chile and the recruitment of Argentine political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell, who became Kellogg’s first academic director.

“With O’Donnell’s arrival, Notre Dame became a prominent hub for the study of Latin American politics and was able to recruit new generations of superb scholars working on the region,” said Pérez-Liñán, who currently serves as director of the Kellogg Institute, housed in the Keough School of Global Affairs. “It took us more than 40 years to build this reputation, and we are called to expand it.”

Strong — and getting better

Now, the department has enhanced its reputation by securing and supporting leading scholars who are doing impactful work across a range of subfields.

Prominent junior hires include Jeff Harden, the Andrew J. McKenna Family College Professor (and now a full professor), who studies legislative institutions; Rachel Porter, the Notre Dame du Lac Assistant Professor of Political Science, is an expert in political methodology with a particular focus on Congress; Erin Rossiter, the Nancy Reeves Dreux Assistant Professor, researches political behavior through quantitative methodology; and assistant professor Richard Clark focuses on globalization, international finance, and climate change.

“Notre Dame is a place where if you're entrepreneurial, the support is there if you can come up with compelling ideas,” said Clark, who returned to his undergraduate alma mater after two years on the faculty at Cornell University. “I really wanted to be a part of a department that was not just really strong, but that wanted to grow and keep getting better.”

Notre Dame has also had significant recent success in recruiting senior scholars. In the most recent hiring cycle, the department added three senior faculty members, strengthening existing areas of excellence and expanding into new territory not covered by current faculty.

Those additions included Saad Gulzar, a joint associate professor of political science and global affairs and leading scholar of South Asia, formerly of Princeton University; and professor James Curry, an expert on U.S. politics and policymaking who moved from the University of Utah. In January, Ken Kollman will join the faculty as the William M. Scholl Professor of Politics and professor of global affairs after 32 years at the University of Michigan.

And, in addition to longtime faculty member Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., being named University president, two new senior leaders also brought political science expertise to Notre Dame — Kenneth Scheve, professor of political science and the I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts & Letters, joined this fall from Yale University, and Mary Gallagher, formerly of the University of Michigan, is now the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs.

“One of my colleagues at Michigan said that Notre Dame just seems like it’s on fire, in a good way,” Kollman said. “And it’s fun to join something like that.”

“As a department, we have worked to ensure that others in the discipline know what's happening at Notre Dame. We have to bring them here in order to show them what we’re doing, and we’ve made a concerted effort to do that.”

— David Campbell, Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy

Notre Dame’s graduate students are also making a strong impression on the job market, with recent tenure-track placements at institutions such as the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arkansas, the University of Tennessee, the University of Arizona, and Oklahoma State University. The strength of the program was evident at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting this year. Three Notre Dame Ph.D. alumni won four dissertation awards — Benjamin Garcia-Holgado ’23 (best dissertation in public law); Josephine Lechartre ’24 (best dissertation in comparative politics); and Natán Skigin’24 (best dissertation in political psychology and best dissertation award from the Experimental Research Section).

Notre Dame faculty continue to be sought out for leadership and receive recognition from major professional associations, as well. Dianne Pinderhughes, the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, has served as the president of the APSA and the International Political Science Association, and professor Christina Wolbrecht recently finished her tenure as president of the Midwest Political Science Association. The department’s roster now also includes three members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — Pinderhughes, Scheve, and Scott Mainwaring, the Eugene and Helen Conley Professor.

In effect, the success reflected in Notre Dame’s rankings jump is not just a credit to the political science department, but to the University as a whole.

“These are people who are not just doing good scholarship,” Campbell said. “But they are also in networks and in leadership positions that reflect well on Notre Dame.”

Earning a closer look

But it’s not all about the rankings and impressing peers. Notre Dame political scientists are playing a significant role in policy-relevant research and convening critical conversations, especially related to democracy, constitutional studies, and national security.

As part of Notre Dame 2033: A Strategic Framework, the University established the Democracy Initiative, which aims to position Notre Dame as a leader in the study of democracy both in the U.S. and worldwide.

The initiative was established after U.S. News and World Report surveys were sent out, so it likely had little effect on the department’s new ranking. But its impact has already been felt. In addition to support that helped recruit significant hires (including Gulzar and Kollman), the initiative has also created research funding opportunities and hosted major public events.

“The Democracy Initiative is an accelerant of all of this,” said Campbell, who directs the initiative. “The strides the department has made, those are going to continue or even get even bigger with the Democracy Initiative’s booster fuel.”

The initiative’s efforts will be furthered by the newly endowed Rooney Democracy Institute, led by Matthew E.K. Hall, the David A. Potenziani Memorial College Professor of Constitutional Studies, which aims to advance Notre Dame’s role as a national and global leader in democracy scholarship.

In addition to the Rooney Institute, the department also houses the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government and the O’Brien Notre Dame International Security Center, which offer support for research, student programs, and events that host esteemed figures in their fields on campus.

“As a department, we have worked to ensure that others in the discipline know what's happening at Notre Dame,” Campbell said. “We have to bring them here in order to show them what we’re doing, and we’ve made a concerted effort to do that.”

Clearly, a lot of momentum is building in political science at Notre Dame — and while the department has made progress toward its goal of strengthening its expertise in American politics, it has also improved across the board. And the field is taking notice.

“I think what rankings do is just lead people to take a closer look at who’s already here, and then they start to see that ‘oh, Notre Dame is a lot better than I thought,” Layman said. “That’s what highly visible projects or splashy hires do — they force people to take a look and say, ‘This is a serious department.’”

Originally published by Mary Kinney at al.nd.edu on February 05, 2026.

Link to Thom Brooks' profile.

Originally published by Kelli Brown at reviewofpolitics.nd.edu on February 03, 2026.

Link to Professor Hunt's profile. 

Originally published by Kelli Brown at reviewofpolitics.nd.edu on January 21, 2026.

"In recent years, conservative actors have decried what they call “gender ideology,” defined as efforts to recognize the complexity of sexuality and gender beyond the simple binary. We first review the recent politics of the anti-gender ideology movement both globally and in the U.S., with a particular focus on the rights of transgender people, a central target of these efforts. We emphasize that many of the attacks on gender ideology are associated with rising anti-democratic forces around the world. Employing a unique national survey with extensive questions regarding both democracy and trans attitudes fielded after Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025, we find that fewer than half of Americans support policies that expand or defend the rights of trans people. However, support varies considerably across specific trans policy issues and between different groups in society. Without making any claims to causal direction, we find support for democracy and attitudes toward right-wing authoritarianism are strongly associated with support for transgender rights. We conclude that the observed link between anti-democratic forces and opposition to trans rights at the elite level is replicated at the mass level."

Read the full article

Originally published by Rooney Institute at rooneyinstitute.nd.edu on January 20, 2026.

"In a recent article (1), we demonstrate—contrary to some research (2)—that brief interventions, drawn from a recent megastudy (3), can reduce Americans’ partisan animosity for up to four weeks after the last treatment. Malka and Druckman (4) suggest future work should account for the possibility that a sizable rollout of citizen-level interventions might prompt elites to mobilize countermessages aimed at preempting or undermining the interventions. We appreciate the value of considering this possibility. Importantly, we clarify that our study already estimates the effects of these interventions in an information environment that includes unintentional countermessages. Further, we expect it is unlikely that substantial amounts of deliberate countermessaging will emerge in response to future depolarization efforts."

Read the full article

Originally published by Rooney Institute at rooneyinstitute.nd.edu on January 20, 2026.

Originally published by Kelli Brown at reviewofpolitics.nd.edu on January 14, 2026.