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Department of Political Science

Faculty Research, Books and Features

Faculty & Students in the News

Dr. Corral Álvaro shared his thoughts with the Washington Post about the partisan shifts occurring in South Texas. See the article, Along the Texas border, elected officials ditch the Democrats to go red that was posted on March 6, 2025.

Dr. Robert W. Velez was interviewed on NYT, commenting the big question is whether the Hispanic swing to the right will outlast President Trump. See the article, Latinos Bolted to the Right in 2024. Can Democrats Win Them Back? that was posted on Feb. 11, 2025.

Drs. Garrett and Couture-Gagnon commenting on the president-elect's DHS Secretary appointment. Media: LaPresse - The Return of the Expulsion "Tsar" - reported by Laura-Julie Perrault. For details, see the article that was posted on Nov. 17, 2024.

Oscar Cazares, a senior political science major, received an award from AMSA: “Oscar’s outstanding dedication and leadership as the AMSA Course Director of the 2023 Premedical and Health Justice Scholars Programs have been instrumental in leading a highly successful Scholars Program, fostering an environment conducive to learning and growth for all participants."

Dr. Richard Longoria wrote an article dated August 20, 2024, entitled "Do Charli XCX’s and Kid Rock’s endorsements make a difference? 19% of young people admit they might", in THE CONVERSATION.

Dr. Bryant W. Sculous was interviewed on WallterHub. For details, see “Changes in Inflation by City,” posted on August 14, 2024.

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow was interviewed on the podcast Out of the Box with Jonathan Russo concerning the rise of Christo-Fascism and scenarios for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. For details, see “Trump is the Effect” that was posted on March 8, 2024.

Dr. Álvaro J. Corral wrote an article dated January 18, 2024 entitled “Both Trump and Biden Are Being Pushed by the American Public’s Illiberal Turn on Immigration and the Mexico-US Border” for the London School of Economics’ United States Politics and Policy blog, whose “central mission is to increase the public understanding of social science in the context of American politics and policymaking.”

Dr. Terence M. Garrett was interviewed on German Public Radio about "Migration to the USA crisis at the southern border is worsening." For details, see "Migration to the USA crisis at the southern border is worsening", posted by Sebastian Hesse, ARD Washington on January 4, 2024.

Dr. Robert W. Velez wrote an opinion column entitled “Velez: We Already HAVE ‘School Choice’!” that was publish in the online newspaper Rio Grande Guardian on November 9, 2023.

The Texas Standard, a news radio program originating from KUT Public Media Center at the University of Texas at Austin, interviewed Dr. Álvaro J. Corral for a segment that aired October 17, 2023 entitled “U.S. House Speaker Turmoil Hindering Response to Crises at Home and Abroad.”

Dr. Terence M. Garrett was interviewed on Voz de America (Voice of America - Latin America edition) explaining the rise of illegal migrants. For details, see "In one night, more than 2,000 illegal crossings into the US in a Texas town" that was posted on September 19, 2023 (Dr. Garrett is video at the 1 minute 9 seconds mark).

Dr. Terence M. Garrett was interviewed on Bloomberg Law about the immigration issues by interviewing "described Hanen as a “pretty typical conservative Republican-appointed judge” who has grown frustrated with the refusal of Congress to pass meaningful updates to the US immigration system." For details, see "DACA Case Judge Has History of Ruling Against Deportation Relief"

In September 2023, Dr. Álvaro J. Corral won the “Emerging Scholar Award” from the Latino Caucus of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Dr. Mi-son Kim wrote an article entitled “Evaluating South Korea's Democratic Backsliding” that was published on September 6, 2023 in 9DASHLINE, a European-based “digital platform designed to host expert analysis focused on the key issues and dynamics shaping the Indo-Pacific — the world's most dynamic region.”

Giovanni Escobedo wrote the column “Support Public Education” that appeared in the Brownsville Herald on September 6, 2023. He is currently the regional advocacy director for Raise Your Hand Texas, “a non-partisan nonprofit organization supporting public policy solutions that invest in Texas’ 5.4 million public school students” and is on the board of directors for the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce. As a student at UTRGV, he participated in the Rio Grande Valley Legislative Internship Program at the Texas Capitol and in State Rep. Terry Canales’ office during the spring of 2017. In addition, Giovanni was a Research Intern for Dr. Dongkyu Kim in the spring of 2018 and he along with another student won the position paper award at the Model United Nations in New York City.

In a news story that aired on May 8, 2023, Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel was interviewed by the @TexasStandard on the Biden Administration reviving family detention at the US-Mexico border.

In a news piece airing on May 3, 2023, Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel was interviewed by the @TexasStandard on a move by the Biden Administration to send 1500 troops to the US-Mexico border ahead of the scheduled end of the Title 42 pandemic policy.

KRGV Channel 5 interviewed Dr. Mi-son Kim on a policy brief concerning a border wall survey conducted in 2022. The news story, which aired on April 5, 2023, was entitled "UTRGV Survey Finds Support Grew for Border Wall."

In a news segment that aired on April 4, 2023, Telemundo 40 interviewed Dr. Dongkyu Kim on a border wall survey conducted at the UTRGV Center for Survey Research and Policy Analysis.

Civic Café, “the podcast of the American Political Science Civic Engagement Section,” interviewed Dr. Andrew H. Smith for the podcast episode “Creating Civic Pedagogy to Serve Hispanic-Serving Institutions” that was posted on February 14, 2023.

Bisnow, an international platform operating in New York City “serving the commercial real estate industry,” extensively quoted Dr. Clyde W. Barrow in the news article “All Bets Are Off as NYC's Casino Bidding Process Heats Up,” which posted on January 26, 2023.

KRGV-Channel 5 News in the Rio Grande Valley interviewed Dr. Richard T. Longoria for the segment “Political Ad Spending for Valley Congressional Races Hits All-Time High” that aired on November 1, 2022.

Voice of America (VOA), a part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media that is “the largest U.S. international broadcaster,” interviewed Dr. Richard T. Longoria for the news segment “Republican Party Targeting Hispanic Voters in Texas” dated October 20, 2022.

CBS News interviewed Dr. Mark J. Kaswan for a segment entitled “How Republicans in the Rio Grande Valley Are Using Faith to Draw in Latino Voters,” which aired on October 14, 2022.

Dr. Mònica Clua-Losada and Mireya Garcia, as an undergraduate student at UTRGV, wrote the article “Frontera Struggles for Reproductive Justice” that on September 10, 2022 was published in Spectre, a Marxist journal that promotes “analysis, discussion, and debate on the revolutionary left.”

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow won the Charles A. McCoy Career Achievement Award, which “recognizes a progressive political scientist who has had a long, successful career as a writer, teacher, and activist.”

In September 2022, the Critical Political Science Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) awarded Dr. Clyde W. Barrow the Charles A. McCoy Career Achievement Award, which “recognizes a progressive political scientist who has had a long, successful career as a writer, teacher, and activist.”

NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel for the news segment entitled “Texas' Abortion Law Led Some to Get Abortion Pills in Mexico, with Grim Consequences.” In this segment that aired on May 6, 2022, she discusses the implications of the Texas abortion law and the potential future implications of overturning Roe v. Wade.

On April 28, 2022, Teen Vogue, a Condé Nast publication professing to be the “young person’s guide to conquering (and saving) the world,” interviewed Mireya Garcia, a political science major who graduated in spring 2022, for the article “Abortion Advocates React to Lizelle Herrera's Arrest, Ready for Abortion Rights Fight.”

PolitiFact that is a “not-for-profit national news organization” owned by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies interviewed Dr. Terence M. Garrett for a news article entitled “Fact-Checking Greg Abbott’s Claims That Biden Has ‘Open Border’ Policies,” which was dated April 26, 2022.

The Austin American-Statesman interviewed Dr. Terence M. Garrett for a news piece dated April 25, 2022 entitled “Fact-Check: Is There a 'Record Number of People Coming across the Border Illegally'?”

On April 20, 2022, The Texas Tribune quoted Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel several times in the article “Under Texas’ Strict Abortion Law, McAllen Clinic Sees Patients Seeking Medication Across the Border.”

The Houston Chronicle interviewed Dr. Mark J. Kaswan on campaign practices in the March 29, 2022 edition of Election Tuesdays.

On March 7, 2022, The Rider, the official student newspaper of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, quoted or referenced Dr. Mark J. Kaswan and Dr. Andrew H. Smith several times each in the article “Professors Give Insight on Primary Election Results: Runoffs to Decide Nominations in May.”

KENS 5 CBS in San Antonio interviewed and cited Dr. Clyde W. Barrow for the news story “What Experts Say Beto O'Rourke Must Do to Close the Distance With Greg Abbott,” which was aired on March 1, 2022.

KENS 5 CBS in San Antonio cited and interviewed Dr. Clyde W. Barrow in the news piece “The Role the Rio Grande Valley Will Play in Deciding Texas' Next Governor,” which aired on March 1, 2022.

CBS 4 News Rio Grande Valley on KVEO-TV interviewed Dr. Andrew H. Smith during its election night coverage for a segment entitled “Your Local Elections Headquarters: Political Specialists” that aired on March 1, 2022.

Faculty Published Research

Dr. Alexandre Couture Gagnon and other published "Québec on the World Stage: Examining a Provincial Approach to Cultural Diplomacy." The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society (2025), Vol 54, No 6. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10632921.2024.2442954

Dr. Mi-son Kim and others published "Gendered punishment? How the corruption of female politicians affects public opinion of female political leadership." International Political Science Review (2025). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01925121241302776

In December 2024, Dr. Dongkyu Kim and others published "Examining the presence and effects of coherence and fragmentation in the Gulf of Maine fishery management network" in Regional Environmental Change, Vol 25, No.3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-024-02328-y

In December 2024, Dr. Dongkyu Kim and others published "Water challenges at the U.S.-Mexico border: learning from community and expert voices" in Ecology & Society, https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-15632-290435.

Dr. Terence M. Garrett published a chapter, "Border Security," in Frontera (TCU Press, 2024).

Dr. Carlos Gutierrez-Mannix published "The Twitter Blackout: Do congressional rules influence the cyberworld?" in Social Science Quarterly (Online Early view: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13432)

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow published a chapter, “The Contradiction of the Corporate University: Academic Inefficiency and the Iron Cage of Bureaucracy,” in Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024)

Dr. Richard Longoria published "Shaking the tin cup: Celebrity candidate fundraising in American elections" in Social Science Quarterly. (Online Early View: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13403)

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow published "What Comes After the Critique of the Corporate University? Toward a Syndicalist University" in Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis, Vol. 3, No. 1 (April 2024): Article 1.

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow edited the Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science that Edward Elgar published in March 2024.

Dr. Terence M. Garrett published “Política migratoria en la era del Trumpismo y del espectáculo mediático: El significado de una presidencia de Trump u otro candidato en 2024 para las Relaciones México-Estados Unidos” in Norteamérica, Revista Académica Del CISAN-UNAM, Vol. 19, No. 1 (February 2024): https://doi.org/10.22201/cisan.24487228e.2024.1.658.

In November 2023, Dr. Dongkyu Kim and others published “Managing Inter-Organizational Trust and Risk Perceptions in Transboundary Fisheries Governance Networks” in Marine Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105927.

In November 2023, Dr. Mark J. Kaswan published a Book Review of Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century in New Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2023.2273064.

Dr. James Parisot published “Capitalism and the Creation of the U.S. Constitution” in Studies in American Political Development, Vol. 37, No. 2 (October 2023): 199-211.

Dr. Álvaro J. Corral published “Raids at Work: Latinx Immigrant Labor Precarity and the Spectacle of ICE Worksite Enforcement Raids” in Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 3 (September 2023): 1529–1541.

Dr. Terence M. Garrett and Arthur J. Sementelli published “Revisiting the Policy Implications of COVID-19, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Creating (and Maintaining) States of Exception in the Trump and Biden Administrations” in Politics & Policy, Vol. 51, No. 3 (June 2023): 458–475.

Dr. Álvaro J. Corral published “The Wall between Latinas and Latinos? Gender and Immigration Enforcement Attitudes among U.S. Latina/o Voters” in Politics & Gender (June 2023): 1-25.

In the abstract for an interview with Dr. Clyde W. Barrow, his book, Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education, 1894-1928 (1990), is praised as "a touchstone text for generations of scholars studying higher education." See “Reflections on Universities, Politics, and the Capitalist State: An Interdisciplinary and Intergenerational Discussion with Clyde W. Barrow” in ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May 2023): 878-893.

Dr. Carlos D. Gutierrez-Mannix published the chapter “The Criminal Justice System in Mexico” in Comparative Criminal Justice: International Trends and Practices that Jospeter M. Mbuba edited and Rowman & Littlefield Publishers released in April 2023.

In February 2023, Dr. Dongkyu Kim and others published “On the Architecture of Collaboration in Inter-Organizational Natural Resource Management Networks” in Journal of Environmental Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116994.

Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel published “Border Vigilante/Militia Activity, the National Security State, and the Migrant ‘Threat’” in Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 16, No. 1 (February 2023): 192-214.

In January 2023, Dr. Mark J. Kaswan published “An Equality of Security: Bentham, Thompson, and the Principles Subsidiary to Utility” in Revue d’études benthamiennes, https://journals.openedition.org/etudes-benthamiennes/10469.

In January 2023, Dr. Clyde W. Barrow published the article "Nicos Poulantzas Was a Vital Theorist of Democratic Socialism" in Jacobin, self-described as “a leading voice of the American left,” https://jacobin.com/2023/01/nicos-poulantzas-revolutionary-reformism-democratic-socialism-state-theory.

A bilingual Euro-American journal of historical and theoretical studies of politics and law translated into Spanish a previously published article by Dr. Clyde W. Barrow and republished it as "La Globalización y el Surgiemento del Estado Fortaleza" in Soft Power, Vol. 9, No. 2 (July-December 2022): 91-100.

Dr. Richard T. Longoria published “Celebrity Politics in the American South: The Case of Ben ‘Cooter’ Jones” in Journal of Political Science, Vol. 50: No. 1 (November 2022): 7-26.

Dr. Terence M. Garrett published “Border Securocracy: Global Expansion of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Bureaucratic Apparatus Before, During and Beyond COVID-19” in Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol. 45, No. 3 (September 2022): 230–246.

Dr. Richard T. Longoria authored a book entitled Celebrities in American Elections: Case Studies in Celebrity Politics, which Lexington Books published in September 2022.

Dr. Alexandre Couture Gagnon and Alexandre Sirois edited the book Le délire de l’empire américain that Éditions La Presse published in September 2022.

Dr. Andrew H. Smith published “Service-Learning at a Hispanic-Serving Institution: A Preliminary Study” in Journal of Political Science Education, Vol. 19, No. 1 (September 2022): 91-106.

In September 2022, Dr. Justin Curtis published “Patterns of Islamist Violent Mobilization in the Context of Islamist Party Politics” in The Social Science Journal, https://doi.org/10.1080/03623319.2022.2119730.

Dr. Terence M. Garrett and Dr. Arthur J. Sementelli published “COVID-19, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Creating States of Exception” in Politics & Policy, Vol. 50, No. 4 (August 2022): 872–886.

Dr. Richard T. Longoria published “George Murphy: A Celebrity Politician” in Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Summer 2022): 201-227.

Dr. Jokubas Salyga published “Monoliths of Authoritarianism, Cartographies of Popular Disenfranchisement and the Ascendance of the Far-Right in Estonia” in Global Political Economy, Vol. 1, No. 1 (July 2022): 129-154.

Dr. Bryant William Sculos authored the book The Dialectics of Global Justice: From Liberal to Postcapitalist Cosmopolitanism that SUNY Press published in July 2022.

In June 2022, Dr. Carla Angulo-Pasel published “The More Things Change...Governance and Resistance along the Mexico–Guatemala Border” in Borders in Globalization Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring & Summer 2022): 26-37.

Dr. Chris O'Kane and Dr. Kirstin Munro published the chapter “Marxian Economics and the Critique of Political Economy” in Adorno and Marx: Negative Dialectics and the Critique of Political Economy, which Bloomsbury Publishing released in June 2022 and was edited by Dr. Werner Bonefeld and Dr. Chris O'Kane.

Dr. Justin Curtis published “Reevaluating Islamist Electoral Success and Participation in Government” in Digest of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (June 2022): 170-184.

Dr. Sonia Alianak and Dr. Thomas West authored a book entitled Parallel Religious Revolutions in Britain in 1688 and Egypt in 2013, which Cambridge Scholars Publishing released in May 2022.

In March 2022, Dr. Mark J. Kaswan published “Property, Ownership and Employee Ownership: Employee Control in ESOPs” in Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership, https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPEO-11-2020-0028/full/html.

In March 2022, Dr. Natasha Altema McNeely, Dr. Dongkyu Kim, and Dr. Mi-son Kim published “Deportation Threat and Political Engagement Among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2048044.

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow published the article "What's in a Name? From New Political Science to Critical Political Science" in New Political Science, Vol. 44, No. 1 (March 2022).