Wilf Family Department of Politics

A warm welcome to the Wilf Family Department of Politics at New York University. We are a thriving intellectual community devoted to the systematic analysis of political phenomena. The Department has almost 40 faculty spanning the frontiers of research in the field of Political Science. We serve over 550 students enrolled in our two undergraduate majors (Politics and International Relations), making us one of the largest undergraduate programs in the College of Arts and Science. Our graduate program produces outstanding scholars who go on to prestigious academic and private sector careers (you can find our Ph.D. placement record here). Our goal is to create an inclusive and diverse community that excels in advancing our understanding of politics, through both pathbreaking research and instruction. 

Sanford C. Gordon
Professor and Chair 

The Politics Department and International relations major are proud to announce that Victoir Legrand  (International Relations) has been named the recipient of the Albert Borgman/Phi Beta Kappa Prize for best thesis in the Social Sciences.

Eline Munster's thesis explored the performance of populist parties in Europe in European parliamentary elections. Eline convincingly deonstrated that members of the Eurozone were more affected by populism than European countries that were not and that the rise of populism was caused by the Eurozone crisis of 2010. 

Isabel Rudie used sophisticated quantitative methods and conducted her own survey experiment to show that the discourse surrounding Confederate statue removal in the United States increased citizens' sympathy for racial justice and reduced Republican vote share in presidential elections from 2000 to 2020.

Cyrus Samii’s book with Elisabeth King, Diversity, Violence, and Recognition won the 2022 International Studies Association (ISA) Best Book Award.

Lucia Motolinia (Ph.D., 2022) has been awarded a 2022 NYU Outstanding Dissertation Award for her dissertation, "Trading Pork for Unity: How Parties Respond to Electoral Reforms in Party-Centered Systems."

Tara Slough won the award for best article in AJPS in 2021 for her paper, “Misgovernance and Human Rights: The Case of Illegal Detention without Intent,” co-authored with Chris Fariss.

Peter Rosendorff will be joining the new editorial team of International Organization as an associate editor. 

Twenty (!) Politics and IR Honors students received Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund Grants from CAS. Congratulations to Tzivia Appleton, Julia Bails, Leah Bahramipour, Christian Caballero, Catherine Chen, Mariah Hulbert, Taylor Hvidsten, Fabiha Khan, Zachary Lee, Victoire Legrand, Alice Li, Miao Li, Senniah Mason, Tomas Rios, Bojana Starcevic, Jorge Tagle, Ebony Williams, Jeremy Willians, Luopeiwen Yi, and Kelly Zhang!

Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita was given the 2021 Distinguished Scholar Award of the International Studies Association's Scientific Study of International Relations section.

Professor Amy Catalinac and Politics PhD candidate Lucia Motolinia received the Leon Weaver Award from the Representation and Electoral Systems Section of the American Political Science Association, for their paper, “Geographically-Targeted Spending in Mixed-Member Majoritarian Electoral Systems,” presented at last year’s APSA meeting. 

Professor Rebecca Morton was awarded (posthumously) the Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Political Methodology Section of the American Political Science Association.

Professor Anna Harvey has been awarded an Emergent Ventures Grant from the Mercatus Center.

Professor Adam Przeworski has been elected a corresponding member of the British Academy.

Professor Anna Harvey was named president of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC).

Professor Adam Przeworski was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.