Comparative Politics

Research Interest

Christina Ji

Undergraduate Student
Media Studies
Political Science

Christina Ji is a senior from Sugar Land, Texas double majoring in Media Studies and Political Science, with a focus in International Relations. Her academic interests include international consumer behavior, the nexus of tech/entertainment, and virtual communities. She has previously interned at Paramount Pictures for international marketing, and her love for storytelling pushes her to investigate new mediums, stories, and cultures. In her free time, Christina reads and writes - but she is always on the lookout for the best strawberry matcha latte!

Gamin Kim

Undergraduate Student
Political Science

Gamin Kim is a fourth-year pursuing a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Comparative Politics and minors in Data Science, Public Policy, and Human Rights. Her interests include East Asian regional affairs, international security, the intersection between tech and policy, and insurgent violence. Gamin is also involved with the Center for Security in Politics, the Human Rights Center, and Delta Phi Epsilon, the professional fraternity centered on foreign service. After graduation, she hopes to pursue law school and learn more about tech law as it pertains to privacy and...

Nadia AlAjmi

Undergraduate Student
Media Studies
Political Science

Nadia AlAjmi is a fourth-year international student from Kuwait that is majoring in Media Studies and Political Science, with a concentration in international relations. Her academic interests broadly include women’s rights, Eastern European politics, political psychology and how these fields intersect. Given her multicultural background, she is fluent in Polish, Arabic and English. Previously, she was a research assistant with the Center for Studies in Higher Education where her work focused on the experiences that women in and after doctoral programs went through, such as racism,...

Michelle Reddy

Program Director and Assistant Adjunct Professor
Master in Development Practice (MDP), Goldman School of Public Policy

Michelle Reddy is a political sociologist with interests in international development and organizations. Her recent work has largely focused on social mobilization during crises: Ebola, COVID-19, and the European migration crisis and how crises reflect wider challenges in democracy and development. A second, related line of work focuses on the expansion and professionalization of civil society organizations, education, and health NGOs in developing countries.

Dorothy Kronick

Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Goldman School of Public Policy

Dorothy Kronick is a political scientist focused on contemporary Latin American politics, especially Venezuelan politics. Her work on crime and policing in the Americas highlights unintended consequences of common policies such as seizing illegal drugs or rewriting criminal procedure codes. She also studies democratic backsliding and competitive authoritarianism.

Vinod Aggarwal

Professor
Political Science

Vinod K. Aggarwal is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Alann P. Bedford Chair in Asian Studies in Political Science, University of California at Berkeley. He is also Affiliated Professor at the Haas School of Business and Founding Director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC). Prof. Aggarwal is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Business and Politics. His research focuses on international political economy, with an emphasis on business and politics, technology policy, and great power competition. His most recent book is Responding...

Emma Zazueta Lachenaud

Undergraduate Student
Political Economy

Emma Zazueta Lachenaud is a third-year international student at Cal studying Political Economy with a concentration in Economic Development with Econometrics. She has also completed the Haas School of Business intense summer Business for Arts, Sciences and Engineering program. Her interests include comparative politics and diplomacy, economics, international security, and how these fields intersect. Zazueta Lachenaud interned at the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament in Panama, where she conducted research and learned about the diplomatic and parliamentary field. At Berkeley, Zazueta...

Oren Samet

Graduate Student
Political Science

Oren Samet is pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include comparative politics and comparative democratization, with a particular focus on political transitions, parties, and elections in Southeast Asia. Before coming to Berkeley, he worked in various roles for non-governmental organizations in Thailand, including as Research and Advocacy Director for ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a network of regional legislators. He previously worked as a Junior Fellow in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie...

Blaze Joel

Graduate Student
History

Blaze Joel is a Ph.D. student in the History Department at the University of California Berkeley. His research focuses on nationalism, memory, violence, and national identity in twentieth-century Europe. He studies these issues in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and the Basque Country, as well as in an international, trans-European framework. He also studies the Cold War in a global perspective.

Joel is a recipient of the 2021 IIS...

Mark Danner

Class of 1961 Distinguished Chair in Undergraduate Education
Graduate School of Journalism
English

Mark Danner is longtime journalist and writer who holds the Class of 1961 Distinguished Chair in Undergraduate Education at the University of California at Berkeley, teaching in both the Graduate School of Journalism and the Department of English. He writes about political violence, war, and American politics, mostly for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and teaches courses in foreign and war reporting and the realist and modernist novel.