PIPE* Race & Law Symposium

Violent encounters involving police and racial minorities are taking place in greater numbers in the United States. Some of the high-profile incidents (New York City (Eric Garner), Sanford, FL (Trayvon Martin), and Ferguson, MO (Michael Brown)) have generated strong public reaction. Protest movements, such as like “Black Lives Matter,” have been helped along by the support of celebrities, like NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and criticized by major political figures, like President Donald Trump.

While scholarship on race and law enforcement exists, it has been dominated by sociologists and criminologists. So existing research often overlooks broader political science issues, like the nature of state-citizen interactions, the organization of government power, and the essence of democratic accountability and responsibility.

The Race and Law Enforcement Symposium brings together leading political science scholars from across the country to investigate these issues, using rigorous social-scientific methods and approaches and a variety of objective data. In doing so, we hope to better understand the mechanisms at the heart of critical questions for our nation today.

*Political Institutions and Political Economy