Research and Publishing
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,…
Voting Can Be Hard, Information Helps
By Melody Crowder-Meyer, Shana Kushner Gadarian, and Jessica Trounstine When Los Angeles County voters entered their polling booths in November 2016, they were faced with a multitude of decisions. The choice of which presidential candidate to support was likely fairly straightforward. But how…
What 18,000 Declassified Documents (and a Computer) Reveal About the Credibility of Signals During Crises
By Eric Min of Stanford University Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, left, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy sit in the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Vienna, Austria, at the start of their historic talks. [AP/Wide World Photo/US Department of State]For the last couple decades, international…
Foster Care Privatization: How an Increasingly Popular Public Policy Leads to Increased Levels of Abuse and Neglect
Foster care in the United States is dramatically influenced by federal and state legislation. Since the late 1990s policies establishing privatized foster care have become increasingly popular throughout the country. The privatization of foster care, much like the privatization of other government…
Finger on the Pulse: Alive and Kicking at MPSA 2018
By Harold "Harry" Young of Austin Peay State University At this year’s MPSA conference, I was on a mission to uncover what participants were so serious about as they hovered over laptops and chatted in small groups. My personal interactions revealed groups generally mystified and frightened by the…