University of New England

Department of
Political Science News

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Political Science Department, is an invited speaker at at the Wilton Park Conference on “Libya 2020: Future Perspectives” to be held at Wiston House in Sussex, UK, July 17-20, 2008. This is the fourth in a series begun in 2004 as part of an informal Libya-Wilton Park process. Ahmida was invited to speak on “Empowering Civil Society.” Wilton Park, set up at the behest of Sir Winston Churchill sixty years ago, is one of the world’s leading institutions for in-depth discussion of policy challenges. It is a non-profit, academically independent, Executive Agency of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The conferences bring together senior policy practitioners, politicians, business people, academics and other opinion formers, from a range of countries for informal, off-the-record debate. Numbers at our secluded country manor house base are restricted to provide a highly participative framework with ample opportunity for networking.

Political Science Senior Theses, Spring 2008

• Barry, Caitlin. “The Virgin Queen: Gender, Traditions and Stability During the Elizabethan Reign”
• Klebes, Mathew. “The Rise and Fall of Collective Obligations”
• Hommel, Mare.  “The Politics of Humanitarian Intervention”
• Mathews, Keith.  “Veganism and Politics”
• Noreska, Emmy. “The Social Role of Delinquency”
• Pittman, Justine.  “Foucault, Scott, and Malcolm X”
• Thomas, Laura. “The US Kyoto Fiasco”
• Walker, Lynn.  “Gringolandia and Terrorism”

Political science among UNE's top majors
Based on the number of graduates in political science at UNE in 2008, political science has moved to the top five list of bachelor degrees offered by UNE based on the categories used by U.S. News and World Report and other publications.  The Political Science Department at UNE has been growing steadily over the past few years and with its rising upperclassmen, it is now in one of our biggest degree granting categories. The incoming freshmen class for Fall 2008 is its largest ever.

Political Science Department praised by accreditation team.
It is also worth noting that the Political Science Department, under the leadership of Dr. Ali Ahmida, has been praised recently (2007) by its accreditation team who deemed the Political Science Program at UNE to be among the best in the nation:

"Please find enclosed my review of the program of the Department of Political Science. First, I would like to declare at the outset that I consider the Political Science program at the University of New England to be exceptional in breadth and depth, in its coverage and its creativity and above all, its coherence. It is a  program that can be compared favorably with those of major universities and in many respects, which I discuss below, it may be superior to them."

Three PS majors named to Alpha Chi
Three political science majors were inducted into the Alpha Chi honors society: Amy Davis 09, Ashley Katon '09 and Laura Thomas 08.

Students take part in Model UN in New York
Eight University of New England political science students participated in the March 2008 National Model United Nations in New York City. The National Model United Nations (NMUN), hosted by the National Collegiate Conference Association, is a unique opportunity for college students to participate in a simulation of the mechanics and issues that the United Nations deals with on a daily basis. Read more ...

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, was recently invited by the United Nations Development Programme to serve on committee of six scholars to evaluate educational performance in five Arab countries. The countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

An encyclopedia, to which Ahmida contributed a chapter on the Libyan revolution, recently won recognition from the American Library Association's Booklist magazine. Revolutionary Movements in World History: From 1750 to the Present is edited by James V. DeFronzo, who with 95 other expert contributors wrote entries covering 79 revolutions and 25 thematic essays for the alphabetically arranged work. "The entries are scholarly yet can easily be understood by the general reader and by high-school students." http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=2526428x

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
In July, Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Political Science Department, was  invited to serve on the National Screening Committee of the Institute of International Education that reviews applications of U.S. graduate students applying for the Fulbright-Hays Program to study in North Africa.  The committee will convene on Dec. 4, 2007 to review approximately 75 applications.

Professor Ahmida also participated in the international Al Jazeera TV channel's program "From Washington"  on July 23rd, 2007. The program 's focus was (1) the coming American election and (2) the legacy of the first war between the U.S. and Muslim world, the state of Tripoli, 1801-1805. Previous guests on the show have included: Former National Security Adviser Zbignew Brejinski; Former Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross; FBI Assistant Director John Miller; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman; and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes. The show broadcasts to more than 42 million viewers around the world, including the U.S.

Professor Ahmida also returned from a productive trip to Libya in June where he presented a paper "New Critical Trends in American Political Science" at a conference on Public Policies in Modern Libya, organized by Garyounis University, Benghazi, Libya June 6-11, 2007. He also did field work research at the five locations of the Italian Colonial concentration camps in Libya between 1929-34, and interviewed five survivors of these camps.

Career Day
The Department of Political Science will host a Political Science Career Day on Monday, April 30, 2007 from 11:30 - 1:00 p.m. in the St. Francis Room of the Ketchum Library on the University Campus in Biddeford. More information.

Brian Duff,
Brian Duff, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science, will be presenting a paper titled "Parenthood and the Authoritarian Impulse" as part of a series of "Political Psychology and Behavior Workshops" sponsored by the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University April 6, 2007. For more information on the workshop and a pdf of Duff's paper, visit http://www.iq.harvard.edu/NewsEvents/Seminars-WShops/PPBW/index.html

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of UNE's Department of Political Science, was one of two American scholars who were asked to submit abstracts for the first Tunisia International Meetings on the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The conference was co-sponsored by the United Nations and the Tunisian Ministry of Culture.  A hundred international schools attended the conference, in Mahida, Tunisia between February 18-24 ,2007. The conference was conducted in Arabic, English and French. Ahmida  gave a paper on "Historiography, Orality, and Agency: Lessons from Italian Colonial Libyan History." He also chaired a panel.

On Feb 12, 2007, Ahmida appeared live on the Al Jazeera TV channel  on the weekly talk show "Min Washington" ("from Washington"). The show covered the Maghreb Center's Inaugural Symposium in Georgetown and American and European security interests in North Africa. The host is Washington D.C Al Jazeera Bureau Chief Abderrahim Foukara. Previous guests on the show have included: Former National Security Adviser Zbignew Brejinski; Former Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross; FBI Assistant Director John Miller; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman; and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes. The show broadcasts to more than 42 million viewers around the world, including the U.S. Ahmida is the author of The Making of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colonialization and Resistance and Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya.

Ahmida also has been invited to become an Advisory Board Member of the newly incorporated Maghreb Center. The Maghreb Center gathers the world's very best scholars and development practitioners devoted to the Maghreb. In addition, the center has invited Ahmida to present a talk on Libya at the Maghreb Center Inaugural Symposium, which will be held at Georgetown University on Feb. 8, 2007. The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown will host a dinner for participants on Feb. 7 and will host a lunch the following day. Ahmida has also been invited to speak at Colby College in March or April on fascist colonial policies in Libya.

In the Jan. 7, 2007 Education Life section of the New York Times, Ahmida was interviewed and credited as a source for a "Pop Quiz: Middle Eastern Studies."  One section of the quiz, highlighted in a box and titled "Colonizing Libya," asked questions such as the number of "Libyans incarcerated in concentration camps from 1929 to 1933" (answer, 100,000).  The quiz credits Ahmida and his most recent book, "Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya."

Sandra Featherman
In December, Maine Governor John Baldacci's Blue Ribbon Commission on Dirigo Health, chaired by Sandra Featherman, Ph.D., UNE president emeritus and professor of political science, recommended that the state raise millions of dollars from new or higher taxes to help finance Dirigo Choice, a state-sponsored insurance program designed to expand access to health care in Maine. The Blue Ribbon Commission on Dirigo Health said the state should boost the cigarette tax from $2 to $2.50 a pack and increase taxes on other tobacco products by an unspecified amount to raise money for Dirigo Choice, which is embroiled in a funding controversy that is working its way through the courts. The 20-member panel, which Baldacci appointed last spring partly to find new ways of funding Dirigo Choice, also is recommending that the state raise existing taxes on beer and wine and impose new taxes on snacks, bottled soft drinks and syrups.

Featherman was also appointed to and chaired the Presiding Officers' Advisory Committee on Legislative Ethics committee created by Maine Senate President Beth Edmonds and Maine House Speaker John Richardson largely in response to a growing ethics scandal in 2006, concerning a lawmaker accused of using his position to further the interests of his employer.

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida

In December, Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, went to Tripoli, Libya to chair an international conference on the Italian colonial concentration camps in Libya. For three years Ahmida has advocated and organized the themes for the conference. The conference hosted scholars from the USA, Italy, France  and Libya, and papers were delivered in English, Arabic and Italian languages. The Center of Libyan Studies and the Italian Historical Society of the Memory of the Republic co-sponsored the conference, which took place between December 12-14, 2006. Ahmida's keynote address was on "Folk poetry and oral history as a source for the history of the concentration camps-1929-33."  The conference established an International Committee for the study of the camps and Ahmida was invited to be a member of this committee, which will meet once a year in either Italy, Libya or the USA.

Ahmida also chaired the oral thesis's exam of his Libyan student Afaf al-Basha. Her thesis is "Libyan Historiography in the 19th Century" She passed her exam with distinction and the examining committee said the thesis is the best one in the last ten years in Libya, It was recommended for publication by the University of Zawia Press.

In September 2006,  Ahmida was invited to contribute to the five-volume reference work New Encyclopedia of Africa, Second Edition.  Intended for college, high school and public libraries, and will be part of Scribner's esteemed series of reference works on world history, which includes the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (2002) and the Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (1995).

Comprising more than 1,200 articles on many aspects of African cultures, societies, and history, this new edition of the encyclopedia seeks to break down the artificial and misleading distinctions between Africanist studies and conventional academic disciplines. NEA will expand the coverage of the first edition to include North Africa and to present Africa in relation to its place in the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.