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Project Descriptions
Fall 2026

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Showing 15 projects out of 15 found. On page 1 out of 1.
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Superpower competition; middle powers in a world of superpowers

Vinod Aggarwal - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The Berkeley Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) brings together scholars from Berkeley and around the world to conduct interdisciplinary research on U.S.–China strategic competition and the changing political economy of the Asia-Pacific. Our work focuses on high-tech competition—including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technologies, and...

 Social Sciences

International Trade, Technical Standards, and Product Classification

Vinod Aggarwal - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

This project examines how international trade and geopolitical pressures influence the development of technical standards in China. Technical standards establish requirements for product quality, safety, compatibility, testing, and production processes. Although standards are often presented as technical rules, they can also affect which firms and products are able to enter...

 Social Sciences

Global Companies in an Age of Geopolitical Rivalry

Vinod Aggarwal - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

For three decades after the Cold War, the United States championed open markets. Foreign companies were welcomed to invest, build, and hire, and capital moved across borders with little political friction. That consensus has unraveled. Politicians now compete to sound tough on foreign business, Congress introduces a growing stream of...

 Social Sciences

Tracing the History of Polarization in Congress

David Broockman - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Scholars and commentators argue that Congress is broken because both parties' politicians take increasingly extreme positions on issues, failing to listen to voters. However, these claims are based on assuming that politicians of both parties don't adjust which proposals they make as voters' demands and the world change. In other...

Local Governance and Descriptive Representation

David Broockman - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Scholars and commentators have long taken for granted that electing minorities to local government matters, but we know surprisingly little about what changes when local governments become more diverse. Do cities spend more money, or do their spending priorities shift? Do the issues discussed in city council meetings changed? Or...

The Politics of What We Wear

Jennifer Bussell - Professor, Political Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project explores the intersection of politics and clothing, across time and space. In particular, we are interested in the ways that clothing has been, and is, used to solve political "problems," including those related to economic development, geographic expansion, the projection of power, social movements, and individual or group...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Social Sciences

Threat Perception and National Security (Book Revisions)

Marika Landau-Wells - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Threat perception has always played a major role in foreign and domestic policy-making. From Covid to climate change to terrorism, policy-makers have made decisions about which potential threats to address and which to ignore. My book investigates how policy-makers in the U.S. and in other countries determine...

 Social Sciences

Party building in China

Xiaobo Lü - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

How do political parties mobilize citizens when elections are not the primary means of allocating political power? This project addresses this question by examining CCP party building from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Focusing on subnational variation, the project seeks to uncover the mechanisms underlying the CCP’s uneven organizational development...

 Arts & Humanities   Social Sciences

The Life Cycle of International Reconciliation: Building an Original Dataset of Rapprochement Episodes

Michaela Mattes - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

How do countries move from rivalry and conflict toward more cooperative relations? Why do some attempts at rapprochement succeed, while others stall or collapse? Consider a few examples. France and Germany transformed from “hereditary enemies” to close partners at the heart of European integration. The United States and Vietnam fought...

 Social Sciences

Who Wants to Work in Government? Mapping Career Pathways into and out of Public Service

Hunter Rendleman - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Public service is under strain. Government agencies today face unprecedented political attacks and mounting challenges in attracting and retaining skilled workers. Yet the strength of the state depends on its people: without committed professionals, government cannot carry out its core functions. From public health to law, education, and regulation, a...

 Social Sciences

Lawyers in America: A Historical Study of Entry, Practice, and Professional Power

Hunter Rendleman - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Note: This project is co-mentored by Cailin Slattery, Assistant Professor in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business (cailin.slattery@berkeley.edu), and Hunter Rendleman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science (hrendleman@berkeley.edu) Project Description Lawyers perform an indispensable role in modern democratic societies...

 Social Sciences

State Party Platform Archive Project

Eric Schickler - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

State parties regularly produce platforms that outline their positions on major issues facing the state and nation. These platforms have been used by scholars to understand the development of party polarization, changes in party positions on major issues, and dynamics of accountability and responsiveness in the U.S. political system. They...

 Social Sciences

Cycles of Mass Atrocity: Evidence from Sudan

Scott Straus - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

A consistent finding in genocide and mass atrocity literature is that prior episodes predict future onsets, yet the causal mechanisms explaining why violence recurs remain theoretically underspecified. This project addresses that gap by developing four interlocking hypotheses: (1) accountability absence, where impunity enables recurrence; (2) armed group persistence, where perpetrating...

 Social Sciences

A) GEN Global Citizens Forum and B) Market Governance and Inequality in the US, Europe, and Japan.

Steven Vogel - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

I will be focusing primarily on the GEN Global Citizens Forum project in Fall 2026. The Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) in Tokyo and its partners around the world have launched the GEN Forum to inspire the younger generation and to address the most pressing social, economic, and environmental...

 Social Sciences

The Origins of Africa’s Opposition Strongholds

Martha Wilfahrt - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In an era of democratic instability and electoral autocracy, understanding when and where viable opposition parties emerge is critical. This question is particularly pressing in sub-Saharan Africa, where opposition parties vary in their capacity to contest elections. This project seeks to a) develop a descriptive dataset of the region’s...

 Social Sciences

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