Human Rights Happy Hour Speaker Series Biographies
2012-2013
James Gibson is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Citizenship and Democratic Values at the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include judicial behavior and process, trial courts and criminal justice, constitutional law and civil liberties, and South African politics. Currently, Professor Gibson is researching the Cambodian public's reaction to the trials of the Khmer Rouge. He is author of the award-winning Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? (Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2006), which investigates the hypothesis that truth led to reconciliation in post-apartheid South African society. Professor Gibson has published over 100 books, refereed articles, and chapters, including Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa (Cambridge University, 2009), Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations: Positivity Theory and the Judgments of the American People (with Gregory A. Caldeira; Princeton University Press, 2009), and Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa: Experiments in Democratic Persuasion (with Amanda Gouws; Cambridge University Press, 2004). Professor Gibson is Professor Extraordinary in Political Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. In August, 2011, he received the American Political Science Association's Life Time Achievement Award in the Law and Courts Section, honoring a distinguished career of scholarly achievement. He holds a B.A. from Emory University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Iowa.
Mala Htun is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests are Latin American politics and international comparative politics, with a specific focus on gender, race, and ethnicity. Professor Htun is the author of Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2003), in which she analyzes the effects and social implications of gender-related policy reform in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Among her most recent publications are "Gender, Parties, and Support for Equal Rights in the Brazilian Congress" in Latin American Politics and Society (with Tim Power; 2006), "Gender Equality in Transition Politics: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba" in Looking Forward: Cuba's Democratic Transition (ed. Marifeli Pérez-Stable; University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), and "Is Gender Like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups," in Perspectives on Politics (2004), for which she won the Heinz Eulau Award from the American Political Science Association. Professor Htun was a National Science Foundation award recipient for her project titled "Collaborative Research. States and Sex Equality: Why do Governments Promote Women's Rights?" Additionally, she has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and received the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in Japan. Professor Htun holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.
Clifford Carrubba is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Law, Politics, and Economics at Emory University. He specializes in the study of comparative legislative and judicial politics, comparative institutions, the European Union, and game theory. Professor Carrubba's current research includes studies of legislative behavior and roll call vote analysis, design and change of judicial institutions, and statistical tests of game theory models. His published works investigate coalition formation, legislative design, public opinion formation, and the European Court of Justice. Professor Carrubba is an award-winning author whose works appear in various political science journals including the British Journal of Political Science, the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Politics. His recent publications include "A Theory of Opinion Writing in the Judicial Hierarchy" in Journal of Politics (with Tom S. Clark; 2012), The Limits of Judicial Independence (Cambridge University Press, 2011), "Locating Supreme Court Opinions in 'Doctrine Space'" in American Journal of Political Science (with Benjamin Lauderdale; 2012), and "Who Controls the Content of Supreme Court Power?" in American Journal of Political Science (with Barry Friedman, Andrew D. Martin, and Georg Vanberg; 2011). He was awarded the Outstanding Reviewer Award by Political Research Quarterly in 2008. Prior to joining the faculty at Emory University, Professor Carrubba taught at SUNY-Stonybrook. He earned a B.A. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Business from Stanford University.
Matthew Gabel is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include European politics, cross-national studies of judicial politics, public opinion and mass behavior, and, most recently, American medical policy and decision-making. Professor Gabel is the author of Interests and Integration: Market Liberalization, Public Opinion, and European Union (University of Michigan Press, 1998), in which he analyzes the challenges of creating pan-European political institutions and a unified European currency. Professor Gabel's other recent publications include "Judicial Behavior Under Political Constraints" in American Political Science Review (2008) and "Estimating the Effect of Elite Communications on Public Opinion Using Instrumental Variables " in American Journal of Political Science (with Kenneth Scheve; 2007). His interests recently have turned toward medical policy and decision-making. In this field he has published "Validation of Consensus Panel Diagnosis in Dementia" and "Temporoparietal Hypometabolism in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Associated Imaging Diagnostic Errors," both published in Archives of Neurology (2010-2011). He received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a Fulbright Foundation Senior Specialist and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy. Professor Gabel holds a B.A. from Trinity University, two M.A.s in Political Science and Advanced European Studies from the University of Rochester and the College of Europe, respectively, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester.
Jonathan Miller is Professor of Law at the Southwestern Law School. An internationally recognized scholar on Latin American legal institutions, his research focuses on Argentine constitutional law and civil liberties law. He is author of numerous casebooks and articles in both English and Spanish, most recently "Transplants, Legal Exports As," in Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (ed. David C. Clark; Sage Publications, 2007), "Inter-American Law," in International Legal Developments in Review (co-editor with Meaghan McGrath Beaumont, 2004), and "A Typology of Legal Transplants: Using Sociology, Legal History and Argentine Examples to Explain the Transplant Process," in The American Journal of Comparative Law (Fall 2003). A Fulbright Scholar, Jervey Fellow from Columbia's Parker School of Comparative and International Law, as well as recipient of a grant from the J. Roderick McArthur Foundation, Professor Miller taught at the University of Buenos Aires and worked at the Argentine Supreme Court. He served as a consultant for Lexis/Nexis on establishing online legal research systems in Argentina and Chile as well as completed pro bono activities representing victims of human rights violations by the Argentine military government of 1976-83. He was decorated as an "Oficial de la Orden de Mayo" by the Argentine government in 2008 for his work on behalf of Victor Saldaño, an Argentine citizen on the Texas death row. Professor Miller holds a B.A. and a J.D. from Columbia University.