Political Science | Penn Today

President Gerald Ford and two others are see from behind walking down a White House outdoor walkway in 1975

Presidential pardons, explained

Law expert Kermit Roosevelt discusses how the pardon process works and why it exists in the first place.

A young child smiles at the camera standing in green grass holding a small American flag next to his head as a pickup truck passes on the street behind him with a passenger waving an American flag.

Latino voters and lessons from the 2020 election

Political scientist Michael Jones-Correa, historian Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, and demographer Emilio Parrado share their thoughts on the election results and what both parties might take away from looking at how Latinos voted.

The 80-million-vote man has a very fragile coalition

Yphtach Lelkes of the Annenberg School for Communication spoke about the appeal of centrism to suburban voters. “With Trump out of the White House, and with it, his bombastic rhetoric, I expect Republicans will have an easier time with suburban voters than they had over the past four years,” he said.

A Thanksgiving myth debunked: People aren’t fighting about politics

Matthew Levendusky of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about how communication can bridge the divide between polarized political positions. In his 2016 study on the matter, Levendusky’s team “asked people where their position was, and where they thought the average Republican and Democratic positions were,” he said. “Basically, they thought the parties were twice as far apart as they are in reality, on a wide variety of issues.”

A faded wooden sign reading "save America vote Republican" stands amid scrubby plants on a Texas roadside.

The party of Lincoln? GOP’s future after the 2020 election

As part of the Andrea Mitchell Center’s Race and Politics series, political scientist Rogers Smith spoke with former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer about the election’s impact on the identity of the Republican Party.

A close-up image of a hand holding a mobile phone, with the words "News," "Business," Politics" and "Sports" visible on the screen. Next to the phone is a cup of coffee. In the background are blurred open books.

Q&A

How did echo chambers influence the 2020 election?

Research from the Annenberg School for Communication shows that people are consuming news from more diverse sources, but many don’t consume any news at all. It’s too soon to tell what role that played in the recent race for president.

Scott L. Bok to become chair of Penn Board of Trustees

The alumnus will succeed David L. Cohen on July 1, 2021. He has been a Penn trustee since 2005, and currently serves as vice chair of the Board.

GOP’s post-election tactics are causing more concern about suppressing the Black vote, even after it happened

Ebony Thomas of the Graduate School of Education said that Michigan Republicans’ effort to disqualify the votes of Black voters is part of a long history of disenfranchisement. “One of the reasons Detroit is so negatively stigmatized and why the city of Detroit is always used as a boogeyman by the far right and by white supremacists is because it was a city that wasn’t just majority Black but under Black political control.”

Judy Shelton, Trump fed nominee, fails to advance to final vote

Peter Conti-Brown of the Wharton School said the nomination of Judy Shelton is the first time a political party has tried to pack the Federal Reserve after losing a presidential election. “There wasn’t the same sense of stacking the Fed on the way out,” he said.

Op-ed: Why it’s wrong to assume race should dictate voting patterns

Dean John L. Jackson Jr. of the Annenberg School for Communication wrote about how social categories like race are used as “shortcuts” for understanding how people vote and why. “Our assumptions about the link between race and electoral politics underpin broader connections we need to examine between culture and power, between identity and action,” he wrote.

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