Since the fall of the Soviet Union, “religion has replaced ideology” in international affairs, Georgetown University scholar Shireen Hunter said in a Dec. 1 talk at the Sanford School. Hunter said she finds more peril than promise in the use of Islam as an instrument of foreign policy.

A panel of journalists and political experts will gather on Saturday, Nov. 20, at the Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy to discuss media coverage of the 2010 midterm elections.

As the Peace Corps readies to celebrate its 50th anniversary, we note many returned Peace Corps volunteers that are part of the Sanford community.

On Nov. 9, New York Times columnist David Brooks will give the Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture on "Politics and Culture in the Age of Obama" in the Fleishman Commons.

Some times every vote really does count. In November 2008 in Minnesota, for example, the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken was so close that the state was forced to determine voter intent on thousands of ballots that had been filled out incorrectly.

Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward will give a talk at the Sanford School of Public Policy Oct. 27 at about his latest book, “Obama’s Wars,” which presents the Obama White House as deeply torn over the war in Afghanistan.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Ananat serves as a senior economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Sanford faculty share and review their personal 2010 summer reading lists.

“Problems With the Use of Student Test Scores To Evaluate Teachers”
EPI Briefing Paper 8/2010, Helen Ladd, co-author

Vaccine manufacturers in India and other developing countries may be able to produce a lower-cost HPV vaccine in spite of the complicated array of patent protections on the technology, say researchers at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP).

David Schanzer, center, a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, discusses the role of Muslim communities in combating terrorism during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 2010. The event, “Strengthening America’s Security: Identifying, Preventing and Responding to Domestic Terrorism,” was cosponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the National Security Network.

Sanford students, faculty and alumni are busily blogging this summer from India, Washington, and Togo. Find out what they’re doing.

The 2010 graduation ceremonies on May 15 for the Sanford School of Public Policy honored 147 undergraduates, 56 Master of Public Policy graduates, and 37 Master of International Development Policy graduates from 21 countries. The Class of 2010 was the first to graduate from the Sanford School, which became Duke’s tenth school on July 1, 2009.

Washington Analysis Corp. has been hiring Sanford interns for thirty years.

The conventional wisdom is that young people don’t vote. Heather Smith PPS ’98 didn’t believe that. Though her work as Executive Director of Rock the Vote, she proved that opinion to be wrong at the 2008 Iowa Caucus. The youth vote increased 700 percent over the 2004 caucus and gave the victory that night to Barack Obama.

Health care reform has been a leading issue in the news for the past year, with many twists and turns in the legislative process. Megan Stacy, a second year student in the Master of Public Policy program, experienced some of the process first-hand during her internship last summer in the office of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, as the HELP committee bill was drafted.

Extra legal measures required to pursue capital cases cost the state a significant amount every year, according to research by Philip Cook, ITT/Terry Sanford Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School.