Carter School Political Leadership Academy

The Political Leadership Academy (PLA) at the Carter School hosted recently re-elected Congressman Don Beyer on November 19.

A cultural immersion trip in 2008 brought Charles Davidson (PhD ’19) inside the walls of San Pedro prison in La Paz, Bolivia. What he saw there not only changed his life, he said, but ignited a spark of inspiration that led to peacebuilding efforts around the world.

The Taliban’s reign in Afghanistan is not feasible long-term, said Charles Davidson, executive director of the Political Leadership Academy at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

The Political Leadership Academy will be one of the Carter School’s primary means of outreach to policy-making circles and a direct contribution toward bi-partisan decision making in our country

A number of Carter School faculty and staff members are working closely with President Gregory Washington to make our university a national model for anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

Dr. Simmons teaches classes on conflict theory, narrative, media, discourse and conflict, human rights, quantitative and qualitative methodology, global conflict, and critical theory. His current work on peace and conflict resolution combines Weberian institutional theory, with critical social philosophy, bringing in insights from semiotics and narrative analysis.

A political scientist by training, Dr. Lopez Bunyasi's scholarship is broadly concerned with matters of race, racism and antiracism in the United States, with specializations in structural inequality, racial attitudes and ideologies, racial marginalization, and the politics of whiteness.