MPSA Blog

Primary Elections: The Value of an Endorsement

By Chapman Rackaway of the University of West Georgia How involved should political party leaders get in primary elections? Should a President endorse a primary candidate, despite standards of public party neutrality? Party organizations were once used to determine nominees internally in caucuses…


Blue Wave, Red Wave; What Wave? No Wave

By Chapman Rackaway of the University of West Georgia Political scientists and pundits alike face a contradictory challenge in the concept of the “wave” election. Journalists use the term commonly, and 2018 is no exception. The hashtag #bluewave is a constant presence on political Twitter feeds,…


Spain's majority-female cabinet embodies women's global rise to power

By Susan Franceschet, University of Calgary and Karen Beckwith, Case Western Reserve University Gender-equal governments, which include the same number of men and women as ministry heads and in other cabinet posts, used to be the purview of woman-friendly Nordic countries and highly progressive…


Save the Swamp

By Michael A. Smith of Emporia State University The Trump Administration’s recent reversal on immigration policy regarding children has gotten me to thinking. What exactly does it mean to “drain the swamp?” First, let me share a bit of background about the current situation. In 1997, a court ruling…


Ethnic Networks

The following is part of a series of posts written by MPSA award recipients highlighting outstanding research presented at previous MPSA annual conferences and in the American Journal of Political Science. The following AJPS Author Summary was first published on the AJPS website and is shared here…


How Governments Influence Competition between Militant Groups

By Justin Conrad and William Spaniel When Algeria descended into violence in the 1990s, two militant groups – the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) – competed for supremacy of the rebel movement. The competition between the two groups, in fact, became a major source of…


All Male Panels Erode Citizens' Perceptions of Democratic Legitimacy

By Amanda Clayton, Diana Z. O'Brien, and Jennifer M. Piscopo All-male panels increasingly face public pushback. Though once ubiquitous, male-only groups are encountering greater scrutiny at conferences, in workplaces, and especially in politics. In the United States, for example, a photo showing a…


The Deliberative Sublime: Edmund Burke on Disruptive Speech and Imaginative Judgment

Edmund Burke Engraving By Rob Goodman of McGill University Could it be true that judicious political conduct requires injudicious political language? Is there a case to be made for the value, amidst relatively settled institutions, of unsettling speech—speech characterized by rhetorical excess,…


Back End Skills

By Chad Raymond of Salve Regina University and Active Learning in Political Science Most ALPS posts deal with the front end of teaching — the stuff that eventually turns into the student experience. Today I’m going to talk about the back end of the job: skills that are beneficial for one’s career…