Current Issue: Volume 2, Issue 1 (2025)

Throughout this past year, undergraduate students have navigated a rapidly evolving educational landscape. Many students have been forced to balance academic demands with broader societal shifts. Now more than ever, especially considering the increasing financial pressures within higher education, interdisciplinary research in the social sciences has proven to be vital to our future. Despite the challenges presented to every student, undergraduates across the country and the world carried on and made the most of an atypical school year. The staff of DUJPEW has been incredibly grateful to read the wonderful submissions that we received this year and collaborate with our peers in the undergraduate community. This year’s selection process was as difficult as our past editions thanks to the intellectually engaging submissions that we received from across the country. Like the submissions that we received, the eleven papers that we present in this edition of DUJPEW cover a variety of topics, including democratic backsliding, housing construction, and political veto power. Dartmouth College Class of 1819 alumnus Rufus Choate once said, “Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.” I and the rest of the staff at DUJPEW are hopeful that the works in this issue of the journal stimulate the mind and further intellectual curiosity. I would like to thank the entire DUJPEW staff for their great work this year. Although we had a smaller team than in past years, the selection and editing processes went smoothly, and the enthusiasm that each staff member brought allowed this year’s issue to be as strong as ever. I must also thank Addison Dick for bringing me into the DUJPEW community — it has been an honor helping revive the journal. In closing, I would like to thank the eleven authors who contributed the fabulous pieces of writing that make up this year’s publication. Each of these works adds something new and fascinating to their disciplines, and we are proud to be able to provide a platform to share these pieces to a wide audience. I hope that all readers of this year’s journal will be able to appreciate the time and effort that has gone into creating this year’s publication, and that endeavor begins with our eleven authors’ commitment to their crafts. Max Zukerman ’28, Editor-in-Chief Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs