Political Science and Public Policy

A majority of North Carolinians opposes making permanent a one percentage point increase in the state sales tax that was implemented two years ago, even as the state faces a $3 billion budget shortfall, according to the latest Elon University Poll.

Sometimes, for some people, it’s not clinging to a job or an idea that requires strength - it’s knowing when to let go. For former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts, that meant knowing when to leave Washington. In a Wednesday morning question-and-answer event, Watts reflected on his political life and shared with students the things he learned about himself through a career of public service.

America has “squandered” opportunities afforded it by the World War II generation, a prominent former congressman said Tuesday, and current lawmakers on both sides of the political divide need to put aside partisanship to solve national problems. J.C. Watts, the 2010-2011 Isabella Cannon Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership, offered those observations in an evening lecture attended by hundreds of people inside McCrary Theatre.

Kerstin Sorensen, an assistant professor of political science, authored an article to be published in the March 2011 issue of Scandinavian Political Studies, the official journal of the Nordic Political Science Association.

George Taylor, professor of political science, was an invited participant in a roundtable discussion at the Southern Political Science Association conference in New Orleans, January 5-9, 2011.

When it comes to engaged learning, students in the fall semester public administration senior seminar on food and agriculture public policies learned that it doesn’t get any more hands-on than processing chickens themselves, from the final clucks to the customer sales on a small Orange County organic farm.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the latest Elon University Poll disagree with the idea of using school vouchers to help parents pay for their children to attend private or religious schools instead of public schools, and nearly the same number believes doing so would weaken public schools.

When the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994, its goal was to increase trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States by eliminating tariffs and encouraging investment. Seventeen years later, as part of International Education Week 2010 at Elon University, representatives from the three nations met to offer thoughts on the future of the agreement.

When it comes to closing a nearly $3 billion state budget shortfall for the next fiscal year, more than 6 in 10 North Carolinians support an increase in the sales tax by 1 cent per dollar spent, according to the latest Elon University Poll. More than half of respondents – 56 percent – said they would oppose the elimination of state jobs to address the gap.

Elon University professors Laura Roselle and Joel Karty have been selected as Senior Faculty Research Fellows for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.