Search Articles from the Blog
Fighting to Preserve the College Experience
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Where have all the posters gone? This past academic year, my colleagues and I experienced a major restructuring at…
The Challenges of Measuring Lethal Violence in Central America. An Interview with Laura Blume.
By Juan Corredor-Garcia, PhD student in political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York While Latin America represents only 9% of the global population, it is home of more than…
Prioritizing the Undergraduate Experience
By Emily Boykin, Doctoral Candidate in Public Administration at Florida State University As a newfound Ph.D. candidate and first-time instructor of record this past semester for an undergraduate…
The Trump Effect on Immigration Court Cases
By Elise Blasingame, University of Georgia; Christina L. Boyd, University of Georgia; Roberto F. Carlos, The University of Texas at Austin; Joseph T. Ornstein, University of Georgia The following…
Best Practices in Discussant Roles & Interactions
By Emily Boykin, Doctoral Candidate in Public Administration at Florida State University Social science scholars continually choose to attend MPSA’s annual conference in part due to the quality of…
The Politics of Higher Education Reform
By Kenneth Burke The criticisms of higher education have become more vocal and visible, particularly in relation to issues such as political correctness, diversity, and inclusion. Political…
Overheard at the Palmer House – A Love Letter to the 80th MPSA
By Kelsey Larsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida MPSA2023 finally wound down—the badges were all printed, the Zoom sessions were troubleshooted, and number of people…
Insights From a MPSA First-Time Attendee
By Juan Corredor-Garcia, PhD student in political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York Academic conferences are privileged spaces for graduate students for various reasons.…
Coherence Over Linearity: Transitioning to Administrative Roles
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Over the course of a career, it is natural for your professional goals to change over time. For many members of the…
Less is More
By Kelsey Larsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida One of the defining things about conferencing is wondering what your audience will be like. Maybe you’re the person is so…
The False Promise of Conference Imposters
By Kelsey Larsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida Now that MPSA23 is in full swing, all of us are getting into our conferencing groove; comments are being offered, posters…
Is This the Post-Trump Era? Nope, Not Yet
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Every year, the MPSA Annual Meetings convene at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago. Just a few blocks away, the…
An Honest Conversation: Parenting in the Academy
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Parenting is both a fulfilling and demanding experience, and parents in academia face unique professional challenges at all…
On Returning to In-Person Conferences: A How-To(-Not-Be-Awkward) Guide
By Kelsey Larsen, Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida We’re officially back in Chicago in full force for MPSA 2023—and as one of this year’s Conference blogging team,…
Last Minute Planning Chicago? You’re Not Alone
By Emily Boykin, Doctoral Candidate in Public Administration at Florida State University If you’re like me, you’re currently sitting in the airport preparing for your flight to Chicago with a…
Maximizing Feedback About Research During Conference Sessions
By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The 80th MPSA Conference is just around the corner, and if you’re like me I’m excited to explore new restaurants in…
Direct Democracy: Still Mad as Hell After 45 Years
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Author’s Note The following passage is an excerpt from the project “Political Science Undercover” by Chapman Rackaway,…
After Big Wins for the Humanities in FY 23 What Comes Next?
By Alexandra Klein, Communications and Government Relations Manager, National Humanities Alliance With the beginning of March, we are gearing up for the 2023 NHA Annual Meeting and Humanities…
The Trump-Biden Era in U.S.-China Relations
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Are we in the midst of the Trump-Biden era? This question seems absurd at first glance. The antipathy that the current…
From Soaking and Poking to Breaching Empathy Walls: Qualitative Research after Fenno
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University It is hard to say goodbye to Richard Fenno (1926-2020). He was truly one of a kind. Fenno called his style of…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Beyond Diversity: The Salience of Ethnicity and Kenya’s Constituency Development Fund
Following is from a series of blog posts by MPSA members about their research that has received funding by either the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Endowment for the Humanities…
Bernie Goldwater: What Sanders Supporters Can Learn from Young Americans for Freedom
Supporters were crestfallen, but their resolve was firm. Their candidate had refused to buckle to the pressure from party elite—the usual pressure from political managers, to move to the political…
How Do Experiences with Government Programs Shape Political and Civic Engagement? Looking Beyond the American Case
A key insight of policy feedback theories is that government offices are sites of adult political learning. As Joe Soss explains: “…public bureaucracies provide relatively immediate experiences with…
Mass Administrative Reorganization, Media Attention, and the Paradox of Information
The following is part of a series of posts written by 2016 MPSA award recipients highlighting outstanding research presented at previous MPSA annual conferences. Our article – Mass Administrative…
Trendspotting Through the Gradventurist’s Lens
Now that it has been two weeks since MPSA 2016 ended, there are a few trends I observed during the conference that I feel need revisiting especially from a graduate student perspective. The…
The American Impasse Between Environmentalists and Industry
In a recent book by Joel S. Whitworth, “Quantified: Redefining Conservation for the Next Economy” (Whitworth 2015), the author issues a bold challenge claiming that our 45-year old approaches to…
If Political Science Ruled the World (and We Were on Our Best Behavior)
Once, as a graduate student at the University of Missouri, I wisecracked, "the entire world should be turned over to political scientists for experimental purposes." I was joking and everyone knew…
Political Science: The Final Frontier
Can science fiction teach us about political institutions? A group of political scientists says yes. James Endersby of the University of Missouri-Columbia is spearheading a project with several of…
Interested in Blogging for MPSA?
MPSA seeks to feature blog posts that focuses on research relevant to current topics in the media, teaching trends and professional development. The blog will be a place for MPSA to highlight the…