Dr. Nazita Lajevardi joining University of Oxford as Visiting Professor of American Government

July 27, 2020

MSU Political Science Assistant Professor Nazita Lajevardi has been appointed the Winant Visiting Professor of American Government for 2021-22 at the Rothermere American Institute at University of Oxford. 

 The John Gilbert Winant Visiting Professorship in American Government, based at the RAI, is named after John G. 'Gil' Winant, who served with great distinction as United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1941 until 1946. The Chair has been held by many of the most distinguished scholars of American politics and government. The Winant Professor for 2020-21 is Robert Lieberman (Johns Hopkins University).

Nazita Lajevardi (2021-22) is a political scientist and attorney. She investigates the politically consequential sociopolitical behaviours and attitudes of the American public toward members of marginalized communities. Her work centers on issues of political discrimination, public opinion, and political behaviour. Her first solo-authored book, Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia (Cambridge University Press, 2020), evaluates U.S. Muslims’ experiences of political discrimination both from the outside perspectives of the public, legislators, and the media, and also from the perspective of Muslims themselves. As she explains at the outset of this carefully researched work, her research is grounded in her life experience as a Muslim after 9/11, when U.S. Muslims found their position in American society greatly diminished and the risks they faced radically heightened.

Her work is currently situated in several research streams: 1) examining the political economy of (immigrant and youth) voting, 2) exploring the link between online extremist hate speech and offline consequences, such as hate crimes, and 3) evaluating the political effects of misinformation about stigmatized groups. To answer her research questions, she uses a variety of research methods, including survey experiments, field experiments, text analysis, and qualitative interviews.

Her scholarship has been published in venues such as Cambridge University Press, The Journal of Politics, American Political Science Review, Political Behavior, Journal of Race and Ethnic Politics, and Politics Groups and Identities, among others. She is also called upon to speak on these issues frequently in the media, and her work has been featured in outlets such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox Magazine, Religion News Service, and The Huffington Post.

For the full press release, go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/article/winant-visiting-professors-of-american-government-appointed-for-2021-24