Order from Chaos: Unpacking the 2012 American Elections

Type: 
Panel Discussion
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Monument Building
Room: 
Gellner Room
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 6:00pm
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Date: 
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 6:00pm to 7:30pm

The Department of Public Policy,
the Department of International Relations and European Studies
and the Department of Political Science
of Central European University

cordially invite you to a panel discussion on

Order from Chaos: Unpacking the 2012 American Elections

 

To an outside observer, the American elections system can look chaotic, unwieldy, and seems focused on style rather than substance. Is that all there is to it, or can we find order in chaos? Drawing on experience gained from nearly 12 years of working in American domestic politics, CEU professors Dr. Erin Jenne and Levi Littvay, and former U.S. elected official (and current CEU Department of Public Policy student) Steve Butterfield will walk us through the current campaign cycle.
 
How do campaigns actually work from the inside? What motivates candidate, campaign, and voter behavior? How do they interact? Which issues matter most to American voters, and how do campaigns address them? What’s the interplay between a presidential campaign and campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives? What about the state level? What role do the electoral college and so-called “swing states” play? What’s the current “state of the race” at the presidential level? These topics and more will be on the table as part of this conversation.
 
The discussions will be followed by a question and answer session.
 
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:
Hon. Steve Butterfield is a current Erasmus Mundus MAPP student in the Department of Public Policy at Central European University. Prior to joining CEU, he worked on local, state, and federal political campaigns across America. His campaign experience includes work for individual candidates, coordinated party campaigns, labor unions, and issues-based ballot initiatives from 1998-2010.
 
Dr Erin K. Jenne received her PhD in political science at Stanford University and is an associate professor at the International Relations and European Studies Department at Central European University in Budapest, where she teaches MA and PhD courses on qualitative and quantitative methods, foreign policy analysis (with an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy), international relations theory, nationalism and civil war, and international security. She is currently co-teaching an MA class on U.S. Politics and Foreign Policy with Levente Littvay. She also blogs about U.S. politics, culture, economics and society.
 
Dr Levente (Levi) Littvay graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with degrees in political science (MA and PhD) and survey research and methodology (MS).  At Nebraska he taught a number of American politics courses such as introduction to American politics; public issues in American politics; elections, parties and interest groups; and polls, politics and public opinion.  His research focuses on political behavior, political psychology and research methodology. In addition, Levi was part of multiple election campaigns both in the United States and Hungary.