No, we are not More Divided Than Ever
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University The other day, I was grading a student project when I noticed that they had written something that seems widely believed…
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A Boundary of White Inclusion: How Religion Shapes Perceptions of Ethnoracial Assignment
By Amanda Sahar d’Urso, Northwestern University The following blog post is a summary of the research that won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Lucius Barker Award (for research presented…
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Who is it Okay to Punch? An Experimental Investigation of Support for Intolerance in the Form of Physical Violence
By Frank J. Gonzalez and Alexandra McCoy The following blog post is a summary of the research that co-won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Best Paper in American Politics Award (presented…
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Looking Back at a Year of Robust Humanities Advocacy
By Alexandra Klein, NHA Communications and Government Relations Manager In early March, five months after Fiscal Year 2022 began, Congress finally passed a funding package for the year. The package…
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Blocking the Blockers: Charrettes, Urban Planning, and Deliberative Democracy
By: Adam Rego Johnson, The Graduate Center, CUNY The following blog post is a summary of the research that won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Best Paper by an Undergraduate Student Award…
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Practical Tips for Online Student Engagement
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Since the spread of COVID-19, many universities recognize that online teaching is here to stay. However, the online…
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Thoughts on the Future of Political Science
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Well, #MPSA2022 is in the books. From my perspective, the first in-person MPSA conference since 2019 was a success. As I…
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Define Your Success: A Roundtable on Surviving Graduate School
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate school is an exciting time for students to explore their research interests and develop as a scholar. However, the…
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The Future of the Political Science Conference
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University The MPSA’s in-person conference is back! After being canceled entirely in 2020 and held virtually in 2021, this year’s…
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Conference Smarter Not Harder: An Interview with Dr. Gustavo Diaz
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign In this blog post, I’m interviewing Gustavo Diaz (pictured at left): a recent PhD graduate and Postdoctoral Fellow at the…
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First Things First When Teaching Civic Education
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Between 10 and 15 years ago, Political Science experienced a renewed interest in civic education. The National…
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Think Congressional redistricting is hard? Wait until we get to state and local offices.
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Congressional redistricting is in the news–and in my inbox. Every day, I get a dose of emails from both sides reminding…
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Remembering Burdett Loomis
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Dr. Burdett “Bird” Loomis died in late September. He served for many decades as a Professor of Political Science at the…
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Learn how Political Science Students are Improving Wikipedia
By: Dr. Helaine Blumenthal, Wiki Education For the past several years, MPSA has been partnering with Wiki Education to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of topics related to Political Science. In an era…
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Do-It-Yourself Redistricting and What I Learned
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University I redistricted. Here is what I learned. First, the basics. Redistricting no longer requires sophisticated computer…
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Promising Signs for Humanities Funding in the New Administration
By Alexandra Klein, NHA Communications and Government Relations Manager The Biden administration’s request for a funding increase for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and other…
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A Redistricting Primer
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University It’s time for redistricting. What does that mean, and what insights does political science offer? Every ten years, the…
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Making their work count: Political Science students improve Wikipedia
By: Dr. Helaine Blumenthal, Wiki Education Through its ongoing partnership with Wiki Education, MPSA has been helping political science and policy students engage with subject content in meaningful…
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Land Reform and Civil Conflict: Theory and Evidence from Peru
By Michael Albertus, University of Chicago 2021 AJPS Best Article Award Honorable Mention for the research entitled “Land Reform and Civil Conflict: Theory and Evidence from Peru” The distribution of…
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Do International Employment Opportunities Impact Individuals’ Political Preferences and Behavior?
By Nikhar Gaikwad, Kolby Hanson, and Aliz Toth Robert H. Durr Award for Best Paper “applying quantitative methods to a substantive problem,” presented at the 2019 Midwest Political Science…
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Georgia’s New Voting Laws Meet Political Science
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Controversy swirls around Georgia’s new voting laws, along with similar ones in Florida, Texas, and several other states.…
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Their economic pain, our emotional gain: Can schadenfreude motivate responses to redistributive policies?
By Hannah Nam, Samuel Jens, and Yanna Krupnikov New Jersey is one of the first states expected to adopt a “millionaires tax” that raises taxes on those who make over a million dollars a year. In…
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NHA’s Newest Resource Provides Strategies for Making the Case for the Humanities on Campus
By Scott Muir, Study the Humanities project director In the context of the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread decline in humanities majors and enrollments precipitated by…
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Biased? Sure. Lying, no.
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Accusations that the news media are biased are now so common as to become cliché. Undoubtedly, the media are biased. In…
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Trends in the Publicly Engaged Humanities in the Pandemic Moment
By Michelle May-Curry, Humanities for All project director At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many humanists set out to document the quickly worsening global health crisis. As the months…
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The ICPSR Summer Program: Furthering Great Research and Inspiring Great People
By: Scott Campbell, ICPSR Summer Program Communications Coordinator The ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research started in 1963, and we’ve been called many things since then.…
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QAnon: The Conspiracy Theory Behind the Capitol Seizure
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University On January 6, followers of former President Trump stormed and seized the United States Capitol, temporarily halting the…
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Keeping an Eye on the Map, Notes from Central Eastern Europe
by Raluca Viman-Miller, Assistant Professor, University of North Georgia Nowadays we are completely overtaken by the COVID-19 global pandemic and our focus seems to almost exclusively be on counting…
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The Institute for Humane Studies – Working for You
Submitted by The Institute for Humane Studies When you think of the role of academia in society, what comes to mind? Perhaps you envision broader, intellectual discourse, or the civil exchange of…
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Voter Fraud or Voter Suppression? Using Political Science to Evaluate Competing Claims
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University This year’s contentious political climate has escalated a longstanding, partisan dispute over election laws and their…
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Celebrating 90 Years of University of Michigan Press
by Shaun Manning, Publications Sales and Exhibits Manager, University of Michigan Press. What is your company’s history? What sets your company apart? University of Michigan Press was founded in…
Conference,#MPSAchat,Member Profiles,MPSA Conference,News,Shaun Manning,Authors,MPSA Blog,Research and Publishing
Geographical Coverage in Political Science Research
by Matthew Charles Wilson, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina and Carl Henrik Knutsen, Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Political…
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Exhibitor Spotlight: Springer Nature
by Lorraine Klimowich, Senior Editor for Political Science, Economics, and Public Administration, Springer Nature What is your company’s history? What sets your company apart? Springer was founded by…
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Is the Preference for Chaos a Rational Decision?
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University The study of “fake news” and other rumors spread via social media are gaining steam. Recent work by political…
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Teaching Tactics: A Simple Hack for Maintaining Personal Connections to Students
By Matthew Charles Wilson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina This blog was originally published by the Incubator for Teaching Innovation at…
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Adjusting/Adapting Assignments for Flexibility and Engagement in Online Instruction
By Diane E. Schmidt, Ph.D., California State University, Chico, Political Science Online instruction, especially with students who are unfamiliar with online learning, requires balancing teaching…
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Measuring the Quality of Management of Federal Agencies
by James Thompson and Alejandra Medina, University of Illinois – Chicago In normal times, elected and appointed government officials pay relatively little attention to the question of how well…
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Do Millennials Exist? Generations, Social Science and the Trouble With De-Bunking
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University The host of TV’s “Adam Ruins Everything,” Adam Conover is easy to identify by his quirky hairsyle and clothes,…
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NHA’s New Toolkit: Documenting the Impact of Your Humanities Program
By Cecily Hill, NEH for All Director of Community Initiatives As of this writing, colleges and universities around the nation have closed their doors; most have shifted to online learning. In-person…
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Coping with COVID-19: A Graduate Student’s Reflections
By James Steur, a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign About one month ago, I wrote a blog post about strategies for networking at the 2020 MPSA…
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Understanding and Reducing Biases in Elite Beliefs About the Electorate
by Miguel M. Pereira, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. A central question in the process of representation is how elected officials…
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How the Pandemic Became Partisan: A Story of Parties, Science and Professionals
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University How did the Coronavirus pandemic become partisan? The partisan divide on responses to the pandemic is only the latest…
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To Networking & Beyond: Strategies for Successful Networking
By James Steur, a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign As MPSA 2020 fast approaches, my colleagues have talked to me about the part of conferences…
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Study the Humanities: Articulating Career Pathways
By Scott Muir, Study the Humanities Project Director, National Humanities Alliance Commentators have offered a variety of explanations for the widely observed decline in humanities majors and…
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Beyond the Hat: Will the Trump Coalition Hold in 2020?
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Will President Trump’s Coalition hold in 2020? Hardly anyone seems to be asking this question, at least in public these…
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Can Gerrymandering be Measured? Here Come the Mathematicians
By Brian Hollenbeck and Michael Smith of Emporia State University Just weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court acted to sharply limit the role of the courts with regards to partisan gerrymandering. In…
Michael A. Smith,Research and Publishing
A Moment to Take Stock (and Keep Advocating)
By Beatrice Gurwitz, National Humanities Alliance Photo credit: Morrison Photography For three years in a row, the Trump administration has called for the elimination of the National Endowment…
Public Engagement and Advocacy,Research and Publishing
Rethinking the Political Science Major – MPSA Roundtable (audio)
This roundtable Rethinking the Political Science Major (audio), chaired by John T. Ishiyama of University of North Texas and featuring J. Cherie Strachan of Central Michigan University, Whitney…
MPSA Podcasts,Selected Presentations,#MPSA19,Professional Development,Teaching and Learning
MPSA Member Profile: Ajenai Clemmons
Ajenai Clemmons is a Ph.D. Candidate in public policy with a concentration in political science at Duke University. Her academic research focuses on the most important factors that help and harm the…
Show Me the Money: Securing Research Funding
By Charmaine N. Willis of University of Albany One of the most important parts of conducting any research project, regardless of its methodology, is securing research funding. The recent MPSA…
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