Events

2026 Barbara Boxer Lecture: City, State and Nation - A Conversation with Mayor Barbara Lee

Tuesday, April 7, 2026 4:00pm - 5:15pm

IGS and the Bancroft Library are pleased to announce that Barbara Lee, Mayor of Oakland and Former U.S. Representative for California's 12th District, will be in conversation with former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer as the 2026 Barbara Boxer Lecturer.

About the Event:

The 2026 Boxer Lecture will be a thoughtful conversation between Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and Former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer with a focus on women in public service leadership, where they will discuss Mayor Lee’s distinguished...

Barbara Boxer Lecture Series

Book Talk: Policy Making for Realists

Friday, April 3, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Please join us on Friday, April 3rd, for a book talk with Professor Matt Grossmann on his latest book, Policymaking for Realists.

American politics is likely to remain a closely divided, highly polarized two-party system for the foreseeable future. That changes which strategies reliably work, where progress is still achievable, and how reformers should think about their goals. Instead of treating today’s partisan environment as an abnormal detour likely to end soon or reasoning that only a sweeping...

2026 Matsui Lecture: Congressional Power in Turbulent Times

Tuesday, March 10th, 2026 The Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service is pleased to announce that Former United States Representative Charlie Dent will be the 2026 Matsui Lecturer.

Please join us for Congressional Power in Turbulent Times: Elections, Executive Power, and America's Role in a Changing World, a conversation with former U.S. Representative Charlie Dent, and moderator Eric Schickler, Professor of Political Science and co-Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

About...

2026 Percy Synar Awards Ceremony and Reception

February 27, 2026 2:00pm - 3:15pm Please join us as we congratulate the 2026 recipients of the Charles H. Percy Undergraduate Grant for Public Affairs Research and the Mike Synar Graduate Research Fellowship.

The Charles H. Percy Undergraduate Grant for Public Affairs Research 2026 Recipients:

Sabrina Hemedez Avenido (Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies; Minor: Public Policy): “Utang na Loob: A Family Affair into Civic Engagement Education in Filipino American Families”

Karla Vicencio Ramirez (Sociology & Legal Studies): “What...

REI Colloquium: Bordering on Indifference: Immigration Agents Negotiating Race and Morality

Thursday, February 26, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm

These days, as has long been the case, there is no shortage of news stories about the United States Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement or “ICE,” the agencies charged with border enforcement, detention, and deportation in the U.S. But despite the notoriety of the agencies themselves, most of us know little about the agents that work for the Border Patrol and ICE. Who are these agents, how do they come into the work, how are they trained and socialized to do their job, and how do they reconcile the political...

REI Colloquium: How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America

Thursday, February 12, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm

How Schools Make Race shows how a Spanish-English bilingual-education program teaches—implicitly and explicitly—about race. It shows how the program’s practices, pedagogy, and policies construct the Latinx group as an example to illuminate the process through which schools unintentionally reinforce racial ideas and impede their anti-racist efforts. The book frames the program as a racial project and attends to how schools construct Latinidad in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. Chávez-Moreno...

2025 Diversity and Entrepreneurship Undergraduate Research Symposium

October 3, 2025 9:30am - 2:00pm Creating Opportunity in the Midst of Crises; Strategies for Increasing Access, Reducing Disparity, & Strengthening Diverse Small Businesses in California

In Spring of 2021, the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a grant of more than $333,000 from the Wells Fargo Foundation to launch a two-year Diversity and Entrepreneurship Fellowship Program. The new initiative expands Berkeley undergraduate research, advocacy and internship experiences that focus on how small...

Events

REI Colloquium: The Violence of Illegibility: How Detention Transforms Asylum Seekers From Victims to Suspects

Thursday, October 2, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm

There are approximately 150 detention facilities across the United States, with plans to construct more in the future. Though the law maintains that detention is "non-punitive," facilities function as total institutions where almost all daily activities are overseen by authorities, and those detained are not guaranteed legal representation. Based on participant observations and multiple interviews with 41 immigrants in detention from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean collected at two detention centers, I show how legal...