This paper questions how the EU Member States handled the 2015 migrant crisis. The EU Humanitarian Aid Policy allows the coexistence of unilateralism, partial delegation and full delegation. Consequently, each EU Member State can also act autonomously. The paper records first the presence of different behaviours among EU Member States in the field of humanitarian aid. Second, it finds a correlation between states’ concern for the defence of their sovereignty, facing the risk of ‘fragilisation’, and the propensity to solidarity. Third, this correlation between fragility and solidarity has a causal direction that corroborates the research hypothesis according to which the higher the state fragility, the less its solidarity. Fourth, the article categorises the EU Member States into four groups according to their generosity.

This paper maps out the network of researchers on environmental security from the end of the 1980s to 2014, providing a systematic analysis of how the research is organized in this interdisciplinary field. Drawing on the Web of Science database, we generated a co-citation analysis that exhibits the cognitive structure of the field. Twenty interviews were conducted in order to uncover relationships of cooperation, rivalry and conflict so as to understand the structure of academic debates inside the field over time. The research findings highlight that central authors have had a long-lasting influence on the field despite the evolution of their productivity. We also found that the field is composed of six fairly structured groups as well as a few peripheral authors, which can in turn be distinguished by their epistemological and methodological choices, as well as geographical centre of gravity.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether citizens are more likely to vote in a political system that uses a proportional electoral system if the election is close. The results show that citizens who live in Swedish municipalities in which the competition between the two leading parties is close are more likely to vote. However, the results also show that the vote gap between the two major traditional blocs, the left and the right, is not important for citizens when they are considering whether or not to vote in municipal elections. In the study, a theoretical argument has been formulated which suggests that voters are confused and discouraged when there are many aspects to consider regarding the form of an upcoming coalition government. Accordingly, potential voters see the issue of how the coalition will be formed as too complex, and therefore the vote gap between the two blocs is not an issue that is prioritised by potential voters.

Political science has for some time been afflicted with an existential and empirical angst concerning impact and relevance. This is by no means a new or unique disciplinary pathology, but it is one that has intensified in recent years. The reasons for this intensification have been explored in a burgeoning literature on ‘the tyranny of impact’. The central argument of this article is that a focus on the ‘relevance gap’ within political science, and vis-à-vis the social sciences more generally, risks failing to comprehend the emergence of a far broader and multifaceted ‘expectations gap’. The core argument and contribution of this article is that the future of political science will depend on the politics and management of the ‘expectations gap’ that has emerged. Put slightly differently, the study of politics needs to have a sharper grasp of the politics of its own discipline and the importance of framing, positioning, connecting vis-à-vis the broader social context.

Current research struggles to illuminate significant learning outcomes of role-play simulations, such as Model European Union (MEU) and Model United Nations (MUN). In this study, we introduce a model for measuring simulation effects, distinguishing between cognitive, affective and regulative learning outcomes. In particular, we introduce the MISS-model (Motivation, Interest and Self-efficacy in Simulations), which enables measuring affective learning outcomes more in depth and connects these with other learning outcomes. To get more insight in how students vary with respect to affective learning outcomes, we apply the MISS-model in a cross-continental simulation context. Study participants included 133 students. Students’ differences were explored using independent t tests, one-way ANOVA and ANCOVA. Results show student variation for all affective learning outcomes and thus support for applying the MISS-model to measure affective learning outcomes of simulations more in depth. Findings are discussed with regard to simulation practice and future research on simulation effects.

Recent literature suggests that undergraduate students in political science dread studying methods, especially quantitative methods. Nonetheless, we believe that teaching students the value of quantitative analysis is critical. Going beyond traditional teaching approaches, we use a simulation to conceptualize the logic and process of quantitative analysis. In our simulation, student participants are told they are in a prison with another prisoner, where both have the objective to make the other prisoner crossover, using any strategy. The simulation allows students to generate and test basic hypothesis about students’ characteristics and their strategies, as well as operationalizing variables and quantifying results.

One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be undertaken. The limited discussions that can be found suggest that new research is justified if it (1) fills a ‘gap’; (2) addresses an important real-world problem; and/or (3) is methodologically rigorous. This article discusses the limitations of these rationales. Then, it proposes that research puzzles are more useful for clarifying the nature and importance of a contribution to existing research, and hence a better way of justifying new research. The article also explores and clarifies what research puzzles are, and begins to devise a method for constructing them out of the vague ideas and questions that often trigger a research process.

Migration challenges how we think about justice and state sovereignty. This is no less the case for political theorists, and this review symposium focuses on the work of one of the foremost political theorists working on these questions today. In his latest book – Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Migration – David Miller argues for a realist approach to migration, an approach that takes into consideration not just what we ought to do, but also the actual possibilities of implementing justice. In this regard, the relationship between (im)migration and state sovereignty and democracy is central. Miller’s approach is a ‘political’ one that seeks to take into consideration the fact that we live in political communities with (more or less) shared values, and that these political communities cannot easily be disentangled from the liberal democratic institutions of these states. In their reviews of Miller’s book, Sarah Song, Annie Stilz and Kieran Oberman all take issues with particular aspects of Miller’s approach, while also accepting the general thrust to think about migration in the context of state and popular sovereignty.