This article explores the relationship between academic freedom and the field of political science, focusing on scholars’ duty to engage in societal issues related to their area of expertise, rather than merely protecting their intellectual pursuits from outside influence. By drawing on and expanding the Confucian principles, it examines how this viewpoint informs the responsibilities of scholars and educators working within the discipline.

It is overdue for political science to consider the names of nation-states, the discipline’s primary unit of analysis and the world’s largest, richest, and most powerful actors. I begin this analysis by examining the descriptors used in formal country names, including empire, kingdom, Islamic, republic, democratic, socialist, and people’s. I analyze country names as independent variables, hypothesizing that they have value as signals of political characteristics. To test my hypotheses, I turn to the Varieties of Democracy dataset. I use fixed-effects panel regressions to examine whether countries’ descriptors correlate with the characteristics they name. I find that except for the democratic descriptor, all other descriptors are surprisingly accurate. This is the first step toward developing an understanding of names in political science as well as adding a new tool for comparative politics.

Americans rely on the media to learn about the US Supreme Court. Historically, coverage was concentrated among a small set of major newspapers that regularly reported on high-profile decisions. The expansion of digital platforms and the Court’s decision to livestream oral arguments at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic created new opportunities for coverage, but it is unclear whether these changes increased overall media attention on the Court. Using new data to track how often Supreme Court decisions and oral arguments appear in print and broadcast-affiliated outlets, this article shows that the volume of coverage has declined in traditional newspapers but expanded (unevenly) across other outlets. These patterns challenge assumptions about stable and centralized Supreme Court coverage and highlight the need for scholars to account for changing levels of media attention when studying public responses to the Court.

The US major-party presidential nominating conventions are an essential platform for a political party’s branding and messaging for upcoming presidential and congressional elections. The conventions also can provide revenue and media attention to their host cities and, consequently, convention fundraising has grown substantially in recent decades. Convention fundraising rules were changed in 2014, tripling the limit for contributions to a party’s campaign funds and removing limits on contributions to host-city committees. Although we do not expect these changes to affect individual donors, we expect corporations, banks, and labor unions to have taken advantage of these new rules. Elections since 2014, however, have been unusual in many ways—for instance, in the relationship between the nominees and their parties and, in 2020, the public health precautions required to hold conventions. This study examines developments in political-party convention fundraising since 2014, focusing on the relationships among candidates, their parties, and the cities where conventions have been held. To make this determination, funding reports were collected for the 2000–2024 election cycles. The article explores changes in the characteristics of convention donors—their other contributions and their relationships to candidates, party committees, and host cities—and notes variations that might be attributable to the nominees or the host cities. It considers whether the new convention-funding rules have matured sufficiently that it is possible to make broad claims about the effects of the rules themselves.

As a racialized group that is subject to discrimination, US Latinxs are often considered “natural” coalitional partners for Black-led civil rights struggles. Although the BLM movement may serve as a potential site for cross-racial coalition building because both Latinxs and Blacks suffer from racial profiling by law enforcement, the development of a shared status across group boundaries hinges on the interpretation by Latinxs of both their personal- and group-level discrimination experiences. Using the 2020 CMPS, I explore how multiple dimensions of Latinx racial group consciousness (perceptions of discrimination, intra- and intergroup commonality, and racial identity) shape their cross-racial alliances with Black social movements. Results from multivariate analysis show that Latinxs who acknowledge Black Americans’ continued struggle against racial discrimination in both American society and the Latinx community are positively oriented toward the BLM movement. Findings also reveal contrasting effects for inter- and intragroup commonality: the former is strongly and consistently predictive of increased support for the BLM Movement, whereas the latter is associated with decreased support. These findings underscore both the opportunities and challenges for Latinx–Black political coalition building.

Political science educators must take innovative approaches to respond to twenty-first-century classroom challenges. Simulation-based pedagogy can foster deep student engagement while developing strong peer relationships, encouraging empathy, and improving professional skills. There are many ways, however, to conduct simulations in political science courses. We argue that open-ended, multi-week simulations in which students participate as relative equals may be especially beneficial for effective learning. Although this “sandbox”-style approach to simulation learning is portable to other settings, we have used it in legislative politics courses focused on the US Senate. Drawing from our experiences and student reviews, we argue that simulations in which students can immerse themselves in a role for an extended period, focus on issues they care about, and learn from their mistakes and successes along the way create a uniquely valuable learning experience. Our approach can present challenges for instructors, but we believe it is flexible enough to be deployed in a variety of institutional settings and that any trade-offs are more than worth it.

How do insights from environmental politics of the 1970s–1990s inform our understanding of contemporary climate governance? I suggest that the governance response for addressing pollution problems of the 1970s–1990s was sequential. The first wave of governance interventions addressed market failures; the second wave targeted government failures. In contrast, climate governance seeks to correct both market and government failures simultaneously. Furthermore, unlike first-generation environmental problems, domestic and international factors together hinder progress on climate change. Theoretically, this article examines how governance failures are recognized and addressed, how and why backlashes arise, and which governance innovations are possible in contested policy spaces. Three lessons emerge. First, governance innovations should be sculpted with failure drivers in mind. Because political challenges stall climate progress, climate policy must address these political concerns. Second, governance innovations cannot be expected to deliver a perfect solution devised by a technocratic elite. Policy progress is uneven, slow, and incremental. Third, governance arrangements, even on arguably highly technocratic issues, require social and political licenses to operate. Instead of asking the public to “listen to science,” climate-policy advocates should listen to people and devise policies that the public views as improving their everyday lives.

Political scientist Dr. Paula D. McClain is an exemplary scholar who has dedicated much of her career to building diverse and inclusive scholarly communities in tandem with growing political science scholarship. Among Dr. McClain’s most enduring intellectual contributions is her pioneering work, Can We All Get Along? Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics?, coauthored first with Dr. Joseph Stewart, Jr., and later with Dr. Jessica Johnson-Carew. Among the first comprehensive treatments of American racial and ethnic minority group politics, Can We All Get Along? still implores us to ponder a question that remains as critical as it has ever been to global and national politics, as well as to the academy and the discipline of political science, more than 30 years after its publication. The contributions to this special issue are dedicated to honoring the enduring significance of Can We All Get Along? and the extraordinary work and legacy of Dr. Paula McClain.

Using a rolling cross-section survey of 54,000 voters conducted between mid-October and mid-December, a panel survey of 6,000 voters interviewed in both October and December, and surveys of 1,400 local political elites and officials conducted in both October and December, this study characterizes how confidence in the accuracy of national elections changed with the projected election of President Trump on Election Day. Among voters, Republican confidence immediately increased by 31 percentage points (123% change) and Democrats’ confidence declined by 12 percentage points (16% change) such that the confidence among partisan voters was almost identical by mid-December. The most polarized partisans exhibited the largest confidence changes. Among local political elites, the increase in Republicans’ confidence mirrored the increase among Republican voters (106% change), but the confidence among Democratic political elites remained high throughout. These findings highlight troubling concerns for sustaining a shared confidence in the accuracy and legitimacy of future elections.

This article analyzes how Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) weaponized migration anxiety as a populist strategy during the 2023 general elections. Using a comparative qualitative case-study approach (George and Bennett 2005), the article examines how PiS leveraged anti-immigration rhetoric to mobilize voters, deepen social polarization, and legitimize its governance. The study draws comparisons with Hungary’s 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) refugee quotas to explore how populist governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) use fear-based narratives to consolidate power. It also demonstrates how PiS emulated Viktor Orbán’s 2022 strategy of holding a referendum alongside parliamentary elections to retain power. The study finds that PiS framed migration as an existential threat, using the referendum as a tool to divert attention from democratic backsliding. This strategy mirrored Orbán’s use of anti-immigration campaigns to strengthen his electoral support and resist EU pressures. By expanding on the concept of “populist polarizing referendum,” the study contributes to research on populist electoral strategies, institutional manipulation, and the role of migration-related fear in political mobilization. It highlights the broader implications of such tactics for democracy and governance in the CEE region, demonstrating how populist leaders instrumentalize migration crises to sustain electoral dominance.

Contrary to the dominant literature on autocracies, this article argues and demonstrates that dictators, in addition to being office-seeking, often are driven by policy-seeking motivation—that is, broader beliefs and ideology. The empirical investigation enlists new original data, based on obituaries, about dictators’ political motives. The dataset contains information on 297 deceased dictators who held power at some point during the period 1945–2008. The results reveal that the dictators had a variety of different motives for being in power. Many were strongly ideologically motivated, several were primarily motivated by money and power ambitions, and others held power to create stability and democratize. Thus, dictators’ motives seem to be substantially more diverse than typically assumed, and the data make it possible to measure motivation. This is key to investigating the direct as well as the conditional impact on political dynamics in autocracies.

This article examines the pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching the Israeli–Palestinian conflict amid rising global polarization and campus tensions. We report on a cross-institutional course taught concurrently at Middlebury College (United States) and Yeditepe University (Turkey) after October 7 that was designed to address affective polarization and dehumanization through dialogic education. Drawing on mixed methods including pre- and post-semester surveys, student reflections, and podcast projects, we assess the impact of dialogic practices such as structured dialogue, active listening, and engagement with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. Our findings indicate that dialogic classrooms (1) deepen historical and analytical understanding of the conflict, (2) foster empathy and curiosity, (3) mitigate polarization even in politically divided contexts, and (4) humanize opposing perspectives without erasing convictions. These results underscore the value of dialogic pedagogy for teaching contentious topics across sociopolitical boundaries and suggest its adaptability to other polarizing issues in political science.

This article describes a novel series of classroom simulations for teaching Graham Allison’s (1971) three seminal models of foreign policy decision making (i.e., the Rational Actor Model, the Organizational Process Model, and the Bureaucratic Politics Model) and demonstrates the effectiveness of those simulations. The simulations utilize the commercially available board game, 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. The game is a close approximation of the Rational Actor Model. The author developed two additional rule variants to represent the Organizational Process Model and the Bureaucratic Politics Model. The effectiveness of the simulations was evaluated with both a survey and a quiz administered to a treatment section that experienced the simulations and a control section that did not. The results indicate that the simulations are effective pedagogical tools associated with higher student excitement and enjoyment of the material, higher quiz scores, and an increased ability to self-assess understanding of the material.

This article reflects on the first 10 years of the Southwest Workshop for Mixed Methods Research (SWMMR), which was created to foster methodological pluralism and rigor in political science and related fields. Since its founding, SWMMR has helped to develop mixed methods research while prioritizing diversity, equity, inclusion, and mentorship. The article highlights the annual workshop’s role in building an intellectual community while supporting early-career scholars, women, and those from underrepresented backgrounds. We also document SWMMR’s contributions to certain methodological debates through sustaining a supportive space for collaborative growth in political science.

Research has linked the authoritarian personality with support for political violence, including violence against the government. However, support for political violence is simultaneously a measure of and an outcome of the authoritarian personality, and one key component (submission to authority) is the antithesis of one key measure of political violence (violence against authority). This article makes three contributions. First, we accentuate the importance of using exogenous measures of the authoritarian personality when estimating its effect on support for political violence. Second, leveraging data from an original survey and the American National Election Studies, we find that the relationship between authoritarianism and support for violence is conditional: it can be positive, negative, or null, depending on who is in control of government and the specificity of political-violence measures. Third, we argue that another concept—the securitarian personality—might better predict support for violence. Access to firearms—which we argue is downstream from securitarianism—consistently predicts support for political violence.

In 2023, a constitutional amendment that would remove male-only pronouns and replace them with gender-neutral nouns in the state constitution was proposed in South Dakota. Policy changes related to gender pronouns are a sensitive and politically charged issue, particularly in more conservative states such as South Dakota. In April 2024, several months before the vote, we conducted a survey experiment with 727 registered voters in South Dakota to investigate whether providing an additional explanation about the proposed changes in the amendment affected South Dakotans’ support for the proposal. We found that Republicans were less supportive of the proposal across all conditions. The results also showed that participants who were given an explanation of the proposed changes were more supportive of the proposal than those to whom it was described as only introducing gender-neutral language, particularly among women, Independents, and Republicans. Overall, we found that the attitudes toward the proposal were structured along partisan lines and that providing additional information about the proposed changes increased popular support.

This goal of this article is to improve our understanding of Morocco’s instrumentalization of migration and border management to pressure Spain. We analyze the literature on critical security studies and North–South relations. This study’s contribution, resulting from the theoretical approach of the Beirut School of Critical Security Studies and the Spanish–Moroccan border-crisis case study, is twofold. First, it decenters the study of security and international relations from the dominant concerns with Western interests and policy priorities. Second, it documents a paradigm shift in the study of North–South relations, highlighting the agency of the Global South. This agency, evident in the case of Morocco, indicates that smaller state actors have the capacity to gain leverage over bigger state actors and that they are not merely recipients of the policies of the Global North. Proof of this is Morocco’s successful instrumentalization of the border crisis to obtain Spain’s explicit recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

This study examines how patterns of referencing in political science research have changed during the past three decades. By analyzing references in leading political science journals from 1990 to 2024, we reveal a notable shift: a decline in book references (52% to 28%) and a corresponding increase in journal article references (40% to 65%). These findings have important implications for students, the discipline, research libraries, and academia, particularly in tenure and promotion evaluations. They also raise concerns about the depth of analyses and increased specialization at the expense of broader synthesis.

This article describes the creation of the Minority-Serving Institution Research Academy (MSIRA), a training and apprenticeship program for undergraduate political science students supported by the National Science Foundation and launched at the University of California, Riverside, in 2023. MSIRA is a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in which students spend 10 weeks learning basic research methods through active-learning and team-based exercises. After the 10-week course, students provide 25 hours of research assistance for faculty mentors. We examine focus group and survey data from the first cohort of MSIRA fellows to describe its impact and to draw parallels and distinctions with other CUREs.