A female student holding a microphone towards another female student to ask questions at a political debate.

Department of Political Science News

The Department of Political Science is dedicated to excellence in research, teaching, and service. Our students learn and receive mentorship from faculty members who specialize in various subjects including American politics, comparative politics, international politics, political theory, public law, and public policy.

Current Political Science News

UNLV banner with a plane flying in background
People |

The program will help Alejandro Rios prepare for career in immigrant and refugee advocacy.

student displays vegan product on table during market
Business and Community |

Leya Dagher knew she wanted to start a business and with the help of UNLV resources, she established Swalty Mediterranean.

Members of the UNLV Runway Rebels student fashion club pose on the steps of the Carol C. Harter Classroom Building complex
Campus News |

Group offers opportunities for exploration and growth of Las Vegas fashion industry — and themselves.

man sitting on stone partition on UNLV campus
People |

He was named the 2024 Junior Administrative Faculty of the Year.

Madison Montellano
People |

Madison Montellano knows what it means to take the road less traveled, embracing each twist and turn through her academic adventure.

commencement profile (josh hawkins/unlv)
People |

President Keith E. Whitfield honors six graduates who have shown exemplary commitment to both the community and their studies.

Political Science In The News

Deseret News

As Utahns head to the polls Tuesday, they’re not the only Westerners facing a big decision. But while Utah has been a reliably red state for decades — a Democrat has not represented Utah in the Senate since the 1970s — other nearby Senate seats are up for grabs, making the West crucial in the battle over control of the Senate.

Cancer Health

Angling to tap into strong support for the sweeping health law he helped pass 14 years ago, one of President Joe Biden’s latest reelection strategies is to remind voters that former President Donald Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Nevada Independent

Turnout in last week’s state primaries dropped significantly from the 2020 and 2022 primaries, with fewer Nevadans participating across almost all counties. As of Friday morning, about 380,000 votes had been counted in the primary, a decrease of roughly 20 percent from the past two cycles. Despite the dropoff, voting by mail continued to dominate, as a greater share of Democrats and Republicans chose to vote by mail than two years ago, while the share of in-person voting decreased.

Nevada Independent

Drew Johnson’s victory in the Congressional District 3 Republican primary was a surprise to onlookers in Washington, D.C. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had language ready for two of his opponents but had not bothered to draft a press release for Johnson winning in advance, two sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed. (The NRCC denied that they did not have a release prepared.)

Las Vegas Review Journal

With the June 11 primary over, all eyes are looking to Nevada as more than just a swing state in the presidential election. Its congressional races could play a major role in determining the balance of power in the U.S. Congress — particularly in what is expected to be a competitive Senate race.

KSNV-TV: News 3

The Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns and was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history: The 1 October attack in Las Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in 2017.

Political Science Experts

An expert on environmental security, economic development, and political violence.
An expert on politics, elections, and the American party system. 
An expert on judges, judicial selection, and race and gender bias.
An expert in political philosophy, and the intersection of politics and religion.
An expert in foreign policy and international security.
An expert on American politics, campaigns and elections and public policy.

Recent Political Science Accomplishments

A co-authored paper by Andrew Lugg (Political Science), "The Politics of International Peace and Security: Introducing a New Dataset on the Creation of United Nations Security Council Subsidiary Bodies," was recently published in International Studies Quarterly. The paper examines newly collected data on the creation of "subsidiary bodies" by…
Andrew Lugg (Political Science) recently presented his co-authored paper, "Connecting Regimes: Preferential Trade Agreements and the Management of the Intellectual Property Rights Regime," at the plenary session of the 16th Annual Political Economy of International Organizations (PEIO) conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The paper develops a theory…
Austin Horng-En Wang (Political Science) was invited by the Academia Sinica in Taiwan to have a talk on June 21, titled "How the Large Language Model (LLM) may help advance quantitative studies" In this talk, Wang shared the recent development of ChatGPT and Copilot and explained the advantage and limitation of their advanced data analysis…
Naseem Benjelloun (Political Science) presented "Disproportionately Unrepresentative: The effects of Proportional Representation on the election of LGBT Parliamentarians" at the Southern Political Science Association Summer Virtual Conference 
Maryam Raja (The Lincy Institute; Brookings Mountain West; Political Science) recently attended the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Western Governors’ Association, representing Nevada as part of the Western Governors' Leadership Institute (WGLI). The WGLI is a prestigious program developed by the Western Governors' Association to…
Nicole Koval and Kenneth Miller (both Political Science) published their article, "Gender and Attack Advertising in U.S. Senate Campaigns," in Sage Open. In this article the authors find that candidates running in for office today are attacked in campaigns based on the issues on which their parties have weaker reputations with voters. But…