This spring, two of our PhD students were the recipients of the Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship (AGGRS) from the Graduate School.   Kursat Cinar, a third year student studying Comparative Politics and Nyron Crawford, a fifth year student studying American Politics were recognized at the Graduate School reception on April 16th in Thompson Library. The purpose of this grant is to help fund promising graduate students to do research for their dissertation. 

Thanks to this grant, Cinar will conduct fieldwork in Turkey about his PhD dissertation. His research will focus on the local determinants of the hegemonic party survival. He intends to contribute to the political party literature by underlining the significance of divergent sub-systemic factors in hegemonic polities.

Much has been written about African Americans and their deep political loyalty toward democrats, yet few scholars have interrogated the group-based consequences of partisan crossover among the in-group. Crawford will be using the AGGRS funds will be used to conduct an experiment that investigates how the dual identity of being an African American and a republican, a stigmatized distinction, interact to confer – or deny – the benefits of group membership.

Only twenty nine students throughout the University have won the AGGRS award this year.  It is a fantasitc honor for Cinar and Crawford to be two of recipients.  Congratulations to you both, the Department is proud of the work you are doing!