Newsroom

Professor Omar G. Encarnación for TIME Magazine: “Why Bolsonaro’s Conviction Matters”

For TIME magazine, Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics at Bard College, examines the significance of the recent conviction of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup to stay in power following his defeat in the 2022 Brazilian election.

Omar G. Encarnación Published in the New York Times Opinion Section

Professor Omar G. Encarnación wrote about Spain’s recent innovations in human rights for the New York Times Opinion Section. His essay “Spain Is an Example to the World” argues Spain has taken a “humane and pragmatic approach” to migration by welcoming a large number of immigrants from outside Europe.

Professor Simon Gilhooley Wins an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship

Simon Gilhooley received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The fellowship will support Gilhooley’s book project which focuses on the correspondence of Declaration signers John Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert Treat Paine, and the papers of key political families of the period.

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William Helman ’25 Receives Hudson Institute Fellowship

William Helman ’25 Receives Hudson Institute Fellowship
Bard graduate William Helman ’25 has been announced as a recipient of the Political Studies Summer Fellowship in the Theory and Practice of Politics by the Hudson Institute. Helman’s fellowship will run from June 15 through July 25, during which he will engage in daily seminar classes and policy workshops at the think tank’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Seminars will examine works such as Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, along with selections from the Federalist Papers, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and current scholarship on American foreign policy. “William has a profound engagement with the theory and practice of politics, so I have no doubt this is the start of a very bright future for him,” said Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History and Helman’s advisor. “He has just written an outstanding History and Film Studies senior project on elections and political advertising in the 1980s and 1990s, so this is a chance for him to put some of that history and communication theory to the test somewhere that sits at the intersection between the worlds of politics and ideas.”

Post Date: 06-02-2025

Lucas G. Pinheiro Named a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study

Lucas G. Pinheiro Named a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study

Assistant Professor of Politics Lucas G. Pinheiro has been named a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey, for the 2025-2026 academic year. One of two scholars chosen from liberal arts colleges, he will join 21 colleagues to pursue a year of intense study focused on interdisciplinary exchange. The Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 1930 as a scholarly refuge where members could pursue research without administrative responsibilities.

Pinheiro will use his time at the Institute to work on his book project Factories of Modernity: Political Thought in the Capitalist Epoch. The book imagines the factory as a foundational institution in the histories of modern political thought and global capitalism, using case studies to trace the factory’s evolution across Britain, Africa, and the Americas. Pinheiro’s research focuses on the development of global capitalism, empire, racial slavery, and abolition in the Atlantic world from the late 17th century to today.

Post Date: 05-19-2025

Omar G. Encarnación Reflects on the Legacy of the First Latin American Pope

Omar G. Encarnación Reflects on the Legacy of the First Latin American Pope

For Time magazine, Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics at Bard, considers the legacy of Pope Francis after his passing on Easter Monday. Although Francis did not reverse the decline of Catholicism in Latin America, as the Vatican had hoped, he did transform the Church in the image of Latin America, writes Encarnación. In his first papal announcement, Francis denounced the twin evils of poverty and inequality, citing “idolatry of money” and criticizing “unfettered capitalism as a new tyranny,” ideas drawn from Liberation Theology, a progressive philosophy originating in Latin America that married Marxist critiques of capitalism with traditional Catholic concerns for the poor and marginalized. The Argentine pontiff’s second legacy, informed by an understanding of the devastating impacts of Amazonian deforestation especially on vulnerable populations, was that he “unambiguously aligned the Vatican with the fight against climate change.” Pope Francis’s third and most surprising legacy, asserts Encarnación, was his support of the LGBTQ community’s struggle for dignity and respect, a perspective shaped by the divisive culture war over same-sex marriage in Argentina, the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage in July 2010. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” the Pope once said when asked about homosexuals in the Catholic clergy. Encarnación writes, “he made the Church more progressive at a time when the far-right is ascendant around the globe. Whether that direction continues will be up to the next Pontiff. But one thing is certain: Francis will be a tough act to follow.”

Read in Time

Post Date: 04-23-2025

Ella Walko ’26 Recognized for Voter Registration, Education, and Turnout Efforts

Ella Walko ’26 Recognized for Voter Registration, Education, and Turnout Efforts

Walko ’26 Is One of 232 College Students Nationwide Recognized for Their Nonpartisan Voter Registration and Turnout Successes in 2024
Bard College and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge (ALL IN) honored Ella Walko ’26 as part of the fourth annual ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll. The 2025 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll recognizes college students at participating campuses who have gone above and beyond to advance nonpartisan student voter registration, education and turnout efforts in their communities. Ella Walko ’26 is one of 232 students who mobilized their fellow students to make their voices heard in a historic election cycle. At Bard, Walko is majoring in politics with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. She is actively involved with Election@Bard, a student-led initiative that helps students register to vote, provides information about candidates, hosts forums in which candidates and students can meet, and protects the rights of students to vote and have their votes counted.

“The Bard Center for Civic Engagement chose to honor Ella on the All-In Student Honor Roll because she exemplifies all of the best qualities of a Bard student,” said Sarah deVeer ’17, Bard CCE Outreach Coordinator Special Events Administrator. “Ella is a dynamic and consistently hardworking leader, who has risen to meet the needs of her generation through her work on the Election@Bard team. Ella is one of the most communicative, intentional, and collaborative forces of a student that I have had the pleasure of working with. We look forward to seeing where Ella's post-Bard journey takes her.”

“I am honored to receive this award, but what is even more gratifying is working alongside my peers and team members to build an informed, engaged, and civically active community,” said Walko. “I’m so proud of our efforts this past year and all we’ve been able to accomplish!”

“Whether they hosted nonpartisan voter registration drives or early voting celebrations, the students honored today made sure their peers did not sleep in on Election Day,” said Jen Domagal-Goldman, Executive Director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “With 100,000 local elections happening across the country in 2025, ALL IN students continue to ensure that everyone on their campuses has the information they need to cast their ballot. The 232 Student Voting Honor Roll honorees lead by example, making nonpartisan voter participation a lifelong habit for themselves and their peers.”

A recent survey from CIRCLE found that 48% of under-35 youth who did not vote in 2024 heard little or nothing at all about how to vote, compared to the 15% of under-35 youth who cast their ballots. By integrating nonpartisan voter registration and education into campus life, colleges and universities can have a measurable impact in encouraging students to become active and engaged citizens.

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge empowers colleges and universities to achieve excellence in nonpartisan student civic engagement. With the support of the ALL IN staff, campuses that join the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge complete a set of action items to institutionalize nonpartisan civic learning, voter participation and ongoing engagement in our democracy on their campus. The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge engages more than 1,000 institutions enrolling over 10 million students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Campuses can join ALL IN here.

Post Date: 04-10-2025

Bard College Student Aleksandar Vitanov ’25 Named a Schwarzman Scholar

Bard College Student Aleksandar Vitanov ’25 Named a Schwarzman Scholar

Bard College senior Aleksandar Vitanov ’25 has been announced as a recipient of a prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship for 2025-26. Vitanov, who is pursuing a double degree in Politics and Music Performance at Bard and the Bard Conservatory, is one of 150 scholars—representing 38 countries and 105 universities from around the world—who will receive the opportunity to attend a one-year, fully-funded master’s degree program in global affairs at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

“I am very grateful to the Schwarzman Scholars Program for this opportunity,” Vitanov said. “I would also like to express my appreciation to my family and all of my mentors for their support throughout my journey.”

Schwarzman Scholars has become one of the most selective graduate fellowship programs, with this year’s admitted students marking its tenth cohort. The program supports up to 200 students annually and is designed to build a global community of future leaders who will serve to deepen understanding between China and the rest of the world. This year, Schwarzman Scholars received the highest number of applications in its ten-year history, with the class of 2025-26 selected from a pool of nearly 5,000 candidates worldwide.

“Our tenth cohort fills me with optimism for the future,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, founding trustee of Schwarzman Scholars. “This year’s selected Scholars are keenly interested in learning about China and broadening their understanding of global affairs, which are both now more important than ever. Our network, now ten classes strong, is already starting to make a global impact, and I am proud of our program’s continued success. I look forward to watching this inspiring community continue to grow.”

Vitanov, originally from North Macedonia, is a student fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center and founder and former president of the Alexander Hamilton Society at Bard. He interned at Hudson’s Europe and Eurasia Center and Charney Research. Vitanov also founded the Musical Mentorship Initiative to provide free music education to Bard’s local community, and won, with a group of classmates, the Davis Projects for Peace prize to expand the initiative to Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya. As a Schwarzman Scholar, Vitanov hopes to study China’s strategy in Southeastern Europe.

Post Date: 01-15-2025

Omar Encarnación Speaks with Reuters About the Political Fates of Trump and Bolsonaro

Omar Encarnación Speaks with Reuters About the Political Fates of Trump and Bolsonaro

Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics in the Division of Social Studies at Bard, was interviewed in Reuters in an article discussing how the political fortunes of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, and former US president Donald Trump have sharply diverged despite having long been aligned. That Trump will return to the White House despite several court cases while Bolsonaro is sidelined from upcoming elections is due to starkly different tools each country has for holding politicians accountable, Encarnación told Reuters. Trump was impeached twice by a Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives, but his Republican allies in the Senate held enough seats to acquit him. “It's one party out of only two, it buys enormous coverage for Trump, quite in contrast to Bolsonaro,” Encarnación said.

Read more in Reuters

Post Date: 11-25-2024

Political Studies Events

10/27
Monday

Monday, October 27, 2025
Bard Center for the Study of Hate 2025 Interns Showcase (with pizza!)
Barringer House 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
This past summer the Bard Center for the Study of Hate sent ten student to intern with NGOs that focus on hate, or some subset of it, to work, learn, and analyze how these groups think about hate. You’re invited to join them as they discuss their experiences (over a pizza lunch) Monday, October 27, 2025 in the Barringer Global Classroom.

Students interested in the 2026 internships are encouraged to attend. Feel free to email Ken Stern at [email protected] with any questions.

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Barringer House
10/28
Tuesday

Tuesday, October 28, 2025
John Ryle, Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology, in conversation with Peter Rosenblum, Professor of International Law and Human Rights
Olin Humanities, Room 203 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The international human rights movement is in crisis, with a decline in support from major powers, and key institutions such as the International Criminal Court in disarray. In Sweden, however, the government has mounted a large-scale war crimes trial – now in its third year – the most extensive trial in Swedish history. Two directors of Lundin Oil, once the country’s largest energy company, stand accused of complicity in crimes committed during oil exploration in Sudan: in the words of a headline in Bloomberg News, "Oil Billionaire Ian Lundin Risks Jail”.

In bringing the Lundin directors to trial the Swedish government is projecting a principle of universal jurisdiction that dates back to the Nuremberg trials and before – the idea that no one anywhere should be beyond the reach of the law. The prosecutions at Nuremberg of executives of German companies that used slave labor in the 1939-45 World War were limited, but it has been argued that the new wave of corporate prosecutions under national law – of which the Lundin trial is the leading example – are an indication of a possible future for the pursuit of human rights. The directors of Lundin Oil are accused of aiding Sudan government forces in a campaign of violent displacement during the 1983-2005 civil war in Sudan (the conflict that led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011). The prosecution alleges that Lundin requested security from the government of Sudan in the knowledge that this would involve forcible displacement, and that they allowed airstrips built by Lundin to be used by Sudan government helicopter gunships to attack villages and kill or expel their inhabitants. But the two Lundin executives deny the charges, asserting that the company operated lawfully.

As an anthropologist and human rights researcher with experience in the Sudanese oil zone, John Ryle was called to testify in the trial (one of more than ninety witnesses, including thirty from South Sudan), spending a day under examination on the witness stand in the District Court in Stockholm. He will discuss his experience of participation in the trial, the nature of the communities that live in the oil zone, and their indigenous legal systems, the distinction between restorative and retributive justice, and connections to the current crises in Sudan and South Sudan, and the realities of research in war zones, where often, in the phrase of the late US senator Hiram Johnson, truth is the first casualty.

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Olin Humanities, Room 203

2023

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Gabriel Hetland, Associate Professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latina/o Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Sociology Department, SUNY Albany
Olin 102 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
This will be a book talk. In case you want an image of the book or other details, click here.Is democracy possible only when it is safe for elites? Latin American history seems to suggest so. Right-wing forces have repeatedly deposed elected governments that challenged the rich and accepted democracy only after the defanging of the Left and widespread market reform. Latin America’s recent “left turn” raised the question anew: how would the Right react if democracy threatened elite interests?
This book examines the complex relationship of the Left, the Right, and democracy through the lens of local politics in Venezuela and Bolivia. Drawing on two years of fieldwork, Gabriel Hetland compares attempts at participatory reform in cities governed by the Left and Right in each country. He finds that such measures were more successful in Venezuela than Bolivia regardless of which type of party held office, though existing research suggests that deepening democracy is much more likely under a left party. Hetland accounts for these findings by arguing that Venezuela’s ruling party achieved hegemony—presenting its ideas as the ideas of all—while Bolivia’s ruling party did not. The Venezuelan Right was compelled to act on the Left’s political terrain; this pushed it to implement participatory reform in an unexpectedly robust way. In Bolivia, demobilization of popular movements led to an inhospitable environment for local democratic deepening under any party.

Democracy on the Ground shows that, just as right-wing hegemony can reshape the Left, leftist hegemony can reshape the Right. Offering new perspectives on participation, populism, and Latin American politics, this book challenges widespread ideas about the constraints on democracy.