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2021-2022 Visiting Scholars
John Owens
John Owens is a professor of United States government and politics in the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster and a faculty fellow in the AU Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas at University College, London. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts. Author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals and book chapters as well as the co-author or co-editor of books on relations between congress and the president, the United States Congress, and comparative legislative politics, he has published widely in leading journals, including Asian Politics and Policy, the Australian Journal of International Relations, British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Political Studies, Politics & Policy, and Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines.
His books include The "War on Terror" and The Growth of Executive Power? A Comparative Perspective (Routledge 2010/2012) coedited with Riccardo Pelizzo; America's "War on Terrorism": New Dimensions in US Government and National Security (Lexington 2008) coedited with John W. Dumbrell; Leadership in Context (Rowman & Littlefield 2003), coedited with Erwin C. Hargrove; The Republican Takeover of Congress (Palgrave), coedited with Dean McSweeney; Congress and the Presidency: Institutional Politics in a Separated System (Manchester University Press 1996) co-authored with Michael Foley; and After Full Employment (Hutchinson University Press) coauthored with John Keane. He is a member of the editorial boards of Congress and the Presidency, The Journal of Legislative Studies, and Politics and Policy (also Associate Editor), and a past member of the board of Presidential Studies Quarterly.
He is also an executive committee member of the International Political Science Association's Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, a former chair and vice-chair of the American Politics Group of the UK Political Studies Association, former chair of the Political Studies Association's Richard Neustadt Prize Committee, and former chair of the Southern Political Science Association's Phi Sigma Alpha Best Paper award committee. He is a frequent commentator in the media on modern United States government and politics, a past visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, the Centennial Center of the American Political Science Association, the University of Essex, Texas A&M University, and a visitor to numerous universities throughout the world. He has also received awards from the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation, The Everett McKinley Dirksen Congressional Leadership Center, USIS, and the LBJ Foundation.
Zinaida Taranenko
Zinaida Taranenko is a PhD candidate at Moscow State University. Her research is focused on the influence of the Internet on electoral behavior in the US. During her time as a graduate student, Ms. Taranenko has led undergraduate courses and seminars at her university. She currently has one article, “Internet resources as a weapon of modern electoral campaigns,” under review for publication.
2017-2018 Visiting Scholars
Christopher Carman
Dr. Carman is the Stevenson Professor of Citizenship at the University of Glasgow and previously served as the Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences and Dean of the Glasgow-Nankai (China) Joint Graduate School.
Dr. Carman is the co-author of Representing Red and Blue: How the Culture Wars Change the Way Citizens Speak and Politicians Listen (OUP, 2012) and More Scottish than British? The 2011 Scottish Parliament Election (Routledge, 2014) as well as other academic books and journal publications. He is a member, and former director/PI of the Scottish Election Studies team. He has also consulted extensively for the Scottish Parliament, conducting research and drafting several reports on the parliament’s public petitions system and citizen engagement. His research has been supported by several grants from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. He is currently the lead academic in the John Smith Centre for Public Service and coordinates the activities of the Stevenson Trust for Citizenship.
John Owens
Julian Zarifian
Julien Zarifian is Senior Lecturer in American Civilization and researcher at the Agora Laboratory at the University of Cergy-Pontoise. He earned his PhD in geopolitics, from the French Institute of Geopolitics, University Paris 8. His doctoral dissertation, defended in 2010, focused on US foreign policy in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) since the fall of the USSR. His current research focuses on American foreign policy in Eurasia, as well as the place of "ethnic" lobbies and memory issues in American politics. He is the author of the book Choc d'Empires? US-Iran relations, from the 19th century to today, published in 2018 at Hemisphere Editions / Maisonneuve & Larose New Editions. He is a member of the editorial board of the journals American Politics and Contemporary Armenian Studies.
During the 2017/2018 academic year, he was a Fulbright researcher at the Shoah Foundation's Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles.