If you told Taylor Richardson a year ago that she would spend the beginning of her Winter 2024 Semester presenting a co-authored research paper at an international political science conference, she probably would have laughed in disbelief.
Enter Professor Matthew Fails.
“I only came across my love for doing research by taking his [Fails’] class,” Richardson said. “I wasn’t even initially enrolled in his class, I only switched to it because I needed to take the course to satisfy my major requirements.”
Upon entering Fails’ political science course, Richardson found a passion for research. The course allowed her to explore various avenues of inquiry in the field of social science.
As the course drew to a close, Richardson decided to focus her final project on examining the relationship between economic performance and presidential attempts to violate constitutional limits on the number of terms they could serve in office.
“At the end of the semester, we [Professor Fails and I] came to the consensus that this would be a good project to build on,” Richardson said. “I had significance already, even though it was a short project, so we knew that it definitely could grow and get better… and that’s exactly what happened.”
For months, Professor Fails and Richardson worked together on the research paper. The pair used data from a global sample of countries to focus on under which circumstances presidents violate term limits.
“We decided to focus on the violation of term limits because such a constitutional violation is one of the main factors for why executive aggrandizement happens. This can lead to changes in the country’s form of governance,” Richardson said.
Richardson and Fails’ co-authored paper, entitled “In Good Times or Bad? Economic Performance and Presidential Term Limit Violations,” unearthed significant findings. In times of inflation, presidential term limit violations are low. Conversely, when the economy is good, presidents tend to have more incentive to change their term limits.
After the completion of their research, Richardson and Fails applied to present their findings at the 2024 Southern Political Science Association conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Richardson was one of the few undergraduate attendees presenting research at the conference.
“Going up there [on stage to present] I was quite nervous and intimidated,” Richardson said. “Once I started talking, it was like a switch flipped. As my words started flowing, I gained confidence. I was extremely passionate about the topic I researched, so it was easy for me to talk about.”
Overall, Richardson found her first professional research conference to be an exhilarating experience.
“I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to be welcomed as an undergraduate student to the SPSA conference,” Richardson said. “I am incredibly grateful for the assistance of Professor Fails, Professor Eldredge, Professor Trumbore and the Department of Political Science.”
This February, Richardson will join Oakland University’s Political Science Honors Society chapter in Washington, D.C. at the 2024 Phi Sigma Alpha National Student Research Conference. At the conference, Richardson will present her co-authored research paper to professors and graduate students from across the country.
