Associate Professor of Political Science

Year Joined RCNJ: 2007

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7761
• Email: unger@ramapo.edu
• Office: A-214
• Office Hours: M 11:00-12:30 pm; R 9:00-10:30 am

Education:

• B.A. State University of New York
• M.A. University of Texas at Austin
• Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Courses Offered:

• The American Presidency
• The U.S. Supreme Court
• American Political Parties
• American Government
• Introduction to Political Science

Teaching Interests:

• American Political Institutions

Research Interests:

Scholarly Activity:

Publications

• McKenzie, Mark J., Cynthia Rugeley, and Michael A. Unger. 2012. “Investigating How Voters Weigh Issues and Partisanship in Judicial Elections,” American Review of Politics Winter (2012).
• McKenzie, Mark J. and Michael A. Unger. 2011. “‘New Style’ Campaigning, Citizen Knowledge and Sources of Legitimacy for State Courts: A Case Study in Texas,” Politics and Policy 39 (5): 813-834.
• Unger, Michael A. 2008. “After the Supreme Word: The Effect Van Orden v. Perry and of McCreary v. ACLU on Support for Public Displays of the Ten Commandments,” American Politics Research 36: 750 – 776.

Recent Conference Presentations

• “Public Opinion, Constitutional Issues, and the Supreme Court’s 2012 and 2013 Term” (with Bruce G. Peabody and Peter J. Woolley). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwesest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 2014.
• “The Impact of the NJ Supreme Court in and Beyond New Jersey.” Roundtable Discussion at the Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Political Science Association, New Brunswick, NJ, 2013.
• “Experimentally testing voter responses to politicized judicial campaigning” (with Mark McKenzie and Cynthia R. Rugeley). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA, 2013.

Book Reviews

• Legacy and Legitimacy: Black Americans and the Supreme Court (Temple, 2009) by Rosalee Clawson and Eric Waltenburg for The Journal of Politics, 2010.
• Rethinking American Electoral Democracy by Matthew Streb (New York, Routledge, 2008. 226 pp. Cloth, $125.00; paper, $25.95) for Political Science Quarterly, 2009.