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Robert J. Franzese, Jr. has been appointed Acting Director of the Center for Political Studies for 2006-2007, beginning in late August, while Nancy Burns is on leave. Professor Franzese’s research interests center on the comparative and international political economy of developed democracies. His work has focused on how political and economic (a) institutions (e.g., electoral & governmental systems, central bank independence, labor-market organization, etc.), (b) structure (e.g., income distribution, party-system polarization and fractionalization), and (c) circumstances/events (e.g., elections, terms-of-trade shocks, etc.) affect macroeconomic policymaking: its character and its efficacy. His research agenda has produced several journal articles and conference and working papers on the monetary-, fiscal-, and other economic-policy effects of, for example, participation, representation, veto actors, delegation, central bank independence, wage bargaining institutions, and international context and institutions. It has also produced his book on the democratic (mis-)management of the Keynesian Welfare State: Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2002. From this central agenda in macro-, positive, political economy, Professor Franzese’s research and teaching interests branch into related issues in the comparative and international politics of developed democracies and quantitative empirical methodology.