Our Faculty - Political Science

Winner of the 2014 Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching, Jordon Barkalow is an Associate Professor of Political Science specializing in political theory. He also serves as a co-coordinator of the minor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Professor Barkalow teaches courses in American Government, Political Theory (Western Political Thought and American Political Thought), as well as International Politics and Legal Studies (Democratic Theory and Democratization and International Law). He is also very active in the area of undergraduate research having supervised nine ATP Summer Grants and Honors Theses as well as numerous ATP Semester Grants.

Professor Barkalow’s research focuses on American political thought with a special emphasis on the meaning of American citizenship and national identity. Here, he is working on a book manuscript where he argues that American citizenship is properly understood in commercial terms rather than civic or religious terms. Professor Barkalow has published on the emergence of individualism in American political thought and its institutional implications as well as on the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, John C. Calhoun, John Adams, and Isiah Berlin. In addition to his work in American political thought, Professor Barkalow has research interests in politics and literature, early modern political thought, and constitutionalism.

Dr. Kemper teaches courses on American Politics, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Legal Theory and Process, Model United States Senate, and Mock Trial and Moot Court. He serves as a pre-law advisor for Bridgewater State University and as the faculty advisor to the BSU Pre-Law Club. In 2004 Professor Kemper was recognized as the University's Advisor of the Year. In addition, Dr. Kemper is the Assistant Director of the Center for Democratic Governance and Leadership and co-hosts the Center's monthly cable television public affairs show, Commonwealth Politics. Professor Kemper's current research agenda focuses on the selection of state and federal judges, affirmative action policies in higher education admissions, the impact of courts on bureaucracies, and the historical evolution of free speech doctrine in the United States. Dr. Kemper has presented numerous papers at professional conferences, published an article in The Journal of Politics, and authored several book chapters and encyclopedia entries.

Dr. Deniz Zeynep Leuenberger is Bridgewater State University Chief of Staff and a Professor of Political Science/Public Administration. Professor Leuenberger specializes in sustainable development, public sector economics, public budgeting and finance, and non-profit and non-governmental organization management. In the past, she has held the following roles within the department and university: Coordinator of the MPA Program, Faculty Director of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Regional Engagement, Faculty Director of the Massachusetts Certified Public Managers Program, Faculty Director of the Institute for Regional Development, Coordinator for the Center for Sustainability, and Coordinator of the Center for Legislative Studies Global Citizen Leadership and Education program. She has served on the boards of ASPA's Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, the Section on Transportation Policy and Administration, and the Section for Women in Public Administration. She is the past chair of the Section on Transportation Policy and Administration. She has published articles on sustainable development, strategic planning, and caring labor in Administrative Theory and Praxis, Public Works and Management Policy, Water Policy, State and Local Government Review, PA Times, and in the Public Manager. She is the co-author, with John R. Bartle, of the book Sustainable Development in Public Administration.

Professor Mozaffar teaches undergraduate courses in Comparative Politics and International Relations and graduate courses in the MPA program.  His professional work combines academic research with policy application.  His academic research focuses broadly on the application of institutional analysis to the comparative study of democratization, constitutional design, democratic governance, political parties, elections, electoral systems, electoral governance, ethnic politics, politics and religion, conflict management, African legislatures, and African politics.

A recipient of a National Science Foundation research grant, he is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the colonial state in Africa, regime change, ethnic politics, democratization, political parties, electoral systems, the choice and consequences of new democratic institutions in Africa, and US democracy assistance policy. His work has appeared in the African Studies Review, American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics Studies, Democratization, Electoral Studies, International Negotiations, International Political Science Review, Journal of Legislative Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Political Parties, and Representation (UK).

Professor Mozaffar is a co-Principal Investigator of the African Legislatures Project, a collaborative project between the BSU Center for Democratic Governance and Leadership and the Democracy in Africa Research Unit of the Center for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town.  He is a Research Fellow of the BSU Center for Democratic Governance and Leadership, and a Research Fellow of the Center for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town.  Professor Mozaffar was also a Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria.

In his public policy work, Professor Mozaffar has served as a consultant to the USAID Africa Bureau on institutional design and democratic governance.  During the 1999-2000 academic year, he served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Diplomacy Fellow at USAID, where he worked on democracy and human rights issues in Latin America. He was also a member of the US delegation to the Organization of American States election observation team for the legislative elections in Haiti in May 2000. He was a member of an international panel of experts on electoral systems established by the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division for the Fiji Constitutional Review Commission. In 2005, he served as a member of an international team of experts appointed by Elections Canada to assist the International Mission for Iraqi Elections in assessing the Transitional National Assembly Elections in January 2005, the Constitutional Referendum in October 2005, and the Iraqi Council of Representative Elections in December 2005, which he also monitored and observed in Baghdad.  Professor Mozaffar is also an adjunct lecturer in the Naval Postgraduate School’s Regional Security Education Program in which capacity he travels on naval ships at sea to deliver country briefings and lectures on Islam, Africa and the Middle East to naval personnel on deployment.

Dr. Na Sai specializes in the field of public management and public policy. She also conducts research in nonprofit management. Her current research is focused on human resource management and education policy. She has published in Review of Public Personnel Administration, Social Science Quarterly, and Educational Policy and has also presented a series of articles at professional conferences.   

Dr. Na Sai is currently teaching POLI 521: Public Finance and POLI 501: Foundations of Public Administration for the MPA program. She is also teaching POLI 172: Introduction to American Government and POLI 390: Public Finance for undergraduate students.