New Program to Study Political Campaigns
What better time to begin a program to study political campaigns than a presidential election year? The new Douglas S. Harlan Program in State Elections, Campaigns and Politics, begun with a $1.1 million donation from Douglas Harlan ’64, will focus on the practice of politics and policymaking in the American states.
The Harlan Program will bring together Rice scholars from various disciplines and will have three components: an archive collection, research, and outreach and training.
Lyn Ragsdale, dean of social sciences and a professor of political science, will administer the program. She described it as an excellent resource for those studying and working in state politics.
“Rice is uniquely situated to house the Harlan Program,” said Ragsdale, who is also the Radoslav A. Tsanoff Chair of Public Affairs. “We have the largest, strongest group of scholars in the country studying state politics. These are individuals who study state courts, state legislatures, state elections and election laws, school boards, minority politics, Texas politics and politics in the South.”
Rice faculty members also are involved in research on state populations, voting rights, voting schemes, voting machines and voting fraud.
The program’s archive will include an array of state materials that are currently not available anywhere else in the United States and will permit an examination of state public policy and its connections to elections and selections of public officials.
The core of the collection will center on campaign materials for state offices, including gubernatorial, state legislative and local. The collection also will include materials on state legislatures, courts and election laws dating from 1789 that cover the various property, race, sex and residency restrictions that have shaped voting since the founding of the Republic of Texas.
“Rice is uniquely situated to house the Harlan Program. We have the largest, strongest group of scholars in the country studying state politics.”
-Lyn Ragsdale
The research component will permit Rice to train several graduate students working on doctorates specializing in state politics, elections and policymaking. The grant also includes a $100,000 award to fund a Rice undergraduate student majoring in political science and provides funds for undergraduate internships in campaigns, school boards and state agencies. In addition, it will establish a certificate program to enable newly elected officials to learn about key aspects of their jobs, such as bonding, budgeting, taxation, regulations, reviews, impact statements, team building and leadership. It also will fund events that bring together state officials and scholars to discuss major policy and political topics facing state governments.
Harlan practiced law for 22 years, taught political science, served at senior levels of the federal government and with the city of San Antonio and published more than 600 articles in publications such as the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, the American Journal of Criminal Law, Texas Bar Journal, the Ripon Forum and various Texas daily newspapers.