This week’s episode of the Youtube Show Ask a Political Scientist will feature Christian Davenport Ph.D and Alvin Kuai as they discuss the topic When Governments Kill People: Repression, Policing, and …Peace? The show starts at 7:00pm ET here: bit.ly/askaps
Donations are accepted during the show, and this week they will be going to The Town Hall Project.
Here’s more about the show and hosts for this week:
It turns out, governments have found a lot of ways to kill and harm people. From genocide to torture to policing, political violence and repression are part of the histories and presents of a lot of countries. Our guest this week is Christian Davenport, Ph.D., who has been studying the causes and consequences of government-led violence around the world for over a decade. His research has taken him to Rwanda, India, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Northern Ireland, and the United States. This week, comedian guest Alvin Kuai joins host Andrea Jones-Rooy to talk with Christian about his research on government-led violence, his new book on peace and peacemaking, and how all of this can help us think about police and policing in the US.
Christian Davenport, Ph.D. is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. He’s the author of many books, including The Peace Continuum: What It Is and How to Study It, How Movements Die: Repression and Demobilization of the Republic of New Africa, Media Bias and State Repression: The Black Panther Party, and State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. At last count he had written 46(!) peer-reviewed journal articles on topics spanning human rights, suppressing dissent, government-led violence, protests, policing, and more.
Alvin Kuai is a New York City-based standup comedian. He is a regular at Caroline’s and a number of other venues around the city, including the world famous Lantern Comedy Club. He was part of the 2019 New York Comedy Festival’s Best of New Talent Showcase and was a finalist in the 2019 Devil Cup and the 2017 Atlanta Punchline Comedy Festival. Alvin has also appeared on The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table, iHeartRadio, The South China Morning Post, and is apparently very famous on TikTok.
Ask A Political Scientist is hosted by Andrea Jones-Rooy, PhD: political science professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the NYU Center for Data Science (as well as a comedian and circus performer).
