Criminal justice professor Brian Levin and political science lecturer Louis A. Gordon were quoted in news articles focusing on the reaction of Muslim voters in the United States and analyzing Middle East politics.
Levin was quoted in an article from attn.com - “This Tweet Reveals How Muslim Voters Are Feeling Today.” The story examines how Tuesday’s presidential election surprised political analysts, polling researchers and voters, and included a number of social media posts by concerned Muslim voters.
Data from the CSUSB Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism showed hate crimes against American Muslims were up 78 percent in 2015. Levin, who is the center’s director, said that campaign rhetoric played a significant role.
“We’re seeing these stereotypes and derogative statements become part of the political discourse,” said Levin. “The bottom line is we’re talking about a significant increase in these types of hate crimes.”
Gordon was quoted in an article – “Religious and ethnic tensions are critical to analyzing Middle East politics” – in PHYS.org on the new book 'Middle East Politics for the New Millennium: A Constructivist Approach' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) that he co-wrote with UCR political science Ph.D. candidate Ian Oxnevad.
The book examines how conventional analyses of Middle Eastern geopolitics overlook the complex relationships and cultures of ethnic and religious groups in the region, sometimes with disastrous results.
Gordon and Oxnevad advocate a new approach to analyzing the region, one that focuses less on theoretically interchangeable states in favor of one that draws on geography, ethnicity, religion, language, and the internal dynamics of countries in the region to interpret political events.
Click on “This Tweet Reveals How Muslim Voters Are Feeling Today” to read the complete article.
Click on “Religious and ethnic tensions are critical to analyzing Middle East politics” to read the complete article.