A Look at the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs

Limited Space Still Available for Summer and Fall Use

Planning a research trip to Washington, D.C. this summer? The Centennial Center may prove a valuable resource. The Center, which is housed in the APSA headquarters near Dupont Circle, provides a great base of operations for scholars researching in the D.C. metro area. The Center offers Visiting Scholars furnished work space, telephone, fax, computers, Internet access, conference space, a reference library, and access to George Washington University's Gelman Library.

Visiting Scholar stays may range from a few days to 12 months, but are limited to APSA members. Space is available for faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, and advanced graduate students from the U.S. and abroad. Scholars are expected to cover their own expenses and a modest facilities fee for the use of the Center.

Prospective Visiting Scholars may apply at any time. Positions are awarded on a space-available basis. Full details on the Center and the Visiting Scholars Program, including an application form, can be found online www.apsanet.org/section_224.cfm.

Martin Sweet

Research Funding Available

The APSA sponsors a number of funds to help fi nance research. Many of these funds can support your stay at the Centennial Center or elsewhere.

Warren E. Miller Fellowship in Electoral Politics

Provides supplemental support for research residencies in national and comparative electoral politics.

The Presidency Research Fund

Provides supplemental support for examination of the presidency.

Paul Volcker Endowment

Provides support in research and theory building on public administration issues affecting governance in the U.S. and abroad.

Special Fund for the Study of Women and Politics

Provides supplemental support for the study of women and politics.

For more on these and other funds, visit www.apsanet.org/content_3471.cfm

In The News

Centennial Center Visiting Scholar Patrick Roberts and the Nathan Hale Foreign Policy Society hosted two guests in the Centennial Center's Aaron Wildavsky Conference room this winter. The Nathan Hale Society is a group of academics and young professionals interested in foreign policy and international relations. The group met with Steve Clemons, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, to discuss the foreign policy of the new Bush administration. Tim Naftali, a historian at the University of Virginia, also met with the group to talk about the history of counterterrorism pre-9-11.

In Profile Martin Sweet

As a scholar of public law and American government, Dickinson College Assistant Professor Martin Sweet's research chiefly focuses on the political causes and consequences of law-making. Sweet's dissertation, Supreme Policymaking: Coping with the Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Policies, examined the impact of Supreme Court decisions specifically focusing on how the legislative and executive branches react to judicial decisions. Sweet's next major research project examines both judicial and legislative decision-making in the realm of constitutional rights. This project, entitled, Rights Politics: The Creation, Rejection, and Disintegration of American Rights, aims to explain why the U.S. government grants rights, and creates a model to predict which other rights will be created or dissolved by the government in the future.

Sweet intends to narrow the typical scope of judicial decision-making research projects by focusing solely on cases involving constitutional rights, including gay marriage, suicide, and education, but expanding judicial decision-making into legal decision-making by incorporating the Constitutional amendment process. In the next few years, gay marriage could either be restricted or protected by the Supreme Court or via constitutional amendment. Without a recognized right of gay marriage or a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, states and the federal government are free either to grant or reject gay marriage in whole or in part. Yet by granting a right or providing an amendment banning the practice, the government limits itself from making judicial or legislative choices. This may make some intuitive sense in times of divided government, but historically this practice still occurs under unified governments as well. This decision, whether to create or reject such a right, may stem from several similar political factors, including: party advantage in Congress and state legislatures, interest group activation, litigation, and international practice.

Sweet is collecting data for this project during his stay at the Centennial Center, which lasted through February 2005. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. He is completing revisions on one book manuscript and intends to publish a book from the new project as well.