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Political Science 101: Socialism vs. Communism
Now, either the President of the United States doesn’t understand the differences between democratic socialism, which is an economic philosophy that is gaining some momentum on the far left right now, particularly among younger voters, and communism; or Trump is merely slinging emotionally-charged rhetoric at people who also don’t understand the distinctions. There is a word for that technique; it’s called “propaganda.”
Isabella Bellezza Receives the 2026 Merze Tate Award for “Exporting Homeland Security: Network Politics and the Globalization of Border Control” -
The Merze Tate Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of international relations, law, and politics. Citation from the Award Committee: Isabella Bellezza’s dissertation, [...]
Rice research offers new perspective on how Asian Americans develop political identities
Rice associate professor of political science sought to better understand how members of one of America’s fastest-growing racial and immigrant populations come to learn about the American political system and develop their political identities.
Tocqueville’s Political Science of American Democracy
The dispersal of power that makes the republic safe for its citizens is the same dispersal that leaves those outside it with nowhere to appeal.
Political Science Professor on Paxton's refusal to answer questions, Talarico and Black Texan voters
Political Science Professor on Paxton's refusal to answer questions, Talarico and Black Texan voters
Matthew Martin Receives the 2026 Edward S. Corwin Award for “The People’s Voice, The Drafters’ Choice: The Politics of Public Consultation in Constitution-Making” -
The Edward S. Corwin Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public law. Citation from the Award Committee: The members of the Corwin [...]
Daniel Barker Flores Receives the 2026 Gabriel A. Almond Award for “Coercion, Capital, and The Latin American City: Understanding Territorial Control and Governance in Marginalised Urban Communities” -
The Gabriel A. Almond Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics. Citation from the Award Committee: We are pleased [...]
Amid budget deficit, political science department cuts TAs, shrinks course capacities
UCLA’s political science department cut teaching assistant and reader positions in response to a budget deficit, faculty said. Each teaching assistant position cut by the department reduces enrollment capacity in political science courses by roughly 60 students, said Margaret Peters, political science professor and vice chair for graduate studies.
Ken Kollman to succeed David Campbell as Democracy Initiative director in January
As the University of Notre Dame’s Democracy Initiative approaches its fourth year, Inaugural Director David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy, is preparing to transition leadership of the initiative to renowned political scientist Ken Kollman, the Dr. William M. Scholl Professor of Politics in the Department of Political Science and the Keough School of Global Affairs. Kollman began a six-month term as director-designate on July 1 and will formally take over as Democracy Initiative director on Jan. 1.
Can the Church Help the Left Win? -
In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Ximena Caló, covers the new article by Guadalupe Tuñón, [...]
SEMO Political Science Student Serves as Arcadia Alderman
SEMO political science student Will Erpenbach serves as an Arcadia alderman while earning his degree and preparing for law school and public service.
SEMO Political Science Student Serves as Arcadia Alderman
SEMO political science student Will Erpenbach serves as an Arcadia alderman while earning his degree and preparing for law school and public service.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
In tight Senate race, Talarico and Paxton discuss border security during campaign stops in "critically important" South Texas
A pollster and political science professor at Texas A&M's Bush School said that the candidates' visits to South Texas highlight the region's importance this year.
How Lindsey Graham’s ability to read the moment propelled him to political relevance for 3 decades
Commentary from two political science professors on how Lindsey Graham's instinctive political skills defined his career.
Hagar Kotef and Merav Amir Receive the 2026 Heinz I. Eulau Award for Perspectives on Politics for “Torture’s Bureaucracy and the ‘Legitimacy Effect’” -
The Heinz I. Eulau Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best article published in the APSA journal Perspectives on Politics. Citation from the Award Committee: Israel’s Ministry of Justice has [...]
Congratulations to the 2026 American Political Science Association (APSA) Award Winners -
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2026 APSA Awards! APSA recognizes and honors the work of various scholars who have made outstanding contributions to political science research, [...]
Congratulations to the 2026 American Political Science Association (APSA) Award Winners -
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2026 APSA Awards! APSA recognizes and honors the work of various scholars who have made outstanding contributions to political science research, [...]
Political expert explains South Carolina's Senate replacement process
News 13 asked a political science expert to explain the complicated process of replacing the late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.
Political expert says Platner’s exit unprecedented in modern Maine politics
University of Southern Maine political science professor Ron Schmidt says he has never seen a U.S. Senate candidate in Maine withdraw this close to Election Day. He compared the Graham Platner situation to the 2024 presidential race, when…
Political expert says Platner exit is unprecedented in modern Maine politics
Political science professor Dr. Ron Schmidt has followed Maine politics since the 1990s.
Graduate students benefit from philanthropy
Meet three scholars in applied physical sciences, political science and music who received fellowships to further their research and teaching.
Social Sciences in the News: Political Science Chair Scott Straus in
Political Science Chair Scott Straus was featured in an article in The New York Times titled, "U.C. Berkeley Will Start Institute Named for Pelosi." The University of California, Berkeley, will open
Social Sciences in the News: Political Science Chair Scott Straus in
Political Science Chair Scott Straus was featured in an article in The New York Times titled, "U.C. Berkeley Will Start Institute Named for Pelosi." The University of California, Berkeley, will open
Congratulations to the 2026-2027 APSA-Sponsored Congressional Fellows -
APSA is pleased to announce the members of the 2026-2027 Class of the APSA-Sponsored Congressional Fellows! The American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship Program is a highly selective, nonpartisan program devoted to expanding knowledge and awareness [...]
Faculty voice: The creative tension of America’s founding documents
Eric Gonzalez Juenke, an associate professor at MSU's Department of Political Science, reflects on the founding documents of America and what it means 250 years later.
Sofia Elverdin Selected as Co-Recipient of the Best Dissertation Prize From the American Political Science Association’s Women, Gender and Politics Section
Sofia Elverdin, assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, was recently selected as a co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Best Dissertation Pr…
Political Science student receives Roosevelt in Washington Fellowship
University of Florida student Sandra Ukah selected as one of 15 students nationally to receive the Roosevelt in Washington Fellowship.
Experts on history, politics reflect on U.S. 250th birthday milestone
As our nation’s celebration of its 250th birthday approaches, experts in history and political science at Virginia Tech can provide perspectives on how far the United States of America has advanced since its founding and the issues that will influence where it goes next.
Experts on history, politics reflect on U.S. 250th birthday milestone
As our nation’s celebration of its 250th birthday approaches, experts in history and political science at Virginia Tech can provide perspectives on how far the United States of America has advanced since its founding and the issues that will influence where it goes next.
Using AI Tools in Graduate School: Virtual Workshop: APSA Status Committee on Graduate Students in the Profession | Friday, June 26, 2026 -
“Using AI Tools in Graduate School” Friday, June 26, 2026 12:00 PM (ET) / 9:00 AM (PT) | Run Time 75 minutes Register Here Artificial intelligence’s rapid adoption and growing technological power affect nearly all aspects of the political science graduate student research process. Join the [...]
War, sports collide as Iran's World Cup kicks off in Los Angeles
CBC News reported on the unchartered territory FIFA World Cup 2026 is finding itself in as members of Team Iran arrive in Los Angeles, inviting a divisive collision of geopolitics and sports in an area with a large Iranian diaspora. "You've never had two countries engaged in active military conflict matching up against each other, competing in the same tournament," said Salma Mousa, an assistant professor of political science and affiliated faculty with the Bedari Kindness Institute. Mousa, who studies the intersection of sports and conflicts, worries that a potential July 3 face-off between Iran and the U.S. in Texas might “increase tensions to kind of a cataclysmic degree.” Read more about UCLA in today’s Washington Times.
NWA Women in Business: Charlcee Small
Residence: Fayetteville Education: B.A., political science, 2008, J.D., 2011, University of Arkansas Professional background: Small began her career at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas and...
Political scientist Daniel Smith recognized for scholarly contributions
Dan Smith, UF faculty member since 2003, has received the 2026 Career Achievement Award from the State Politics and Policy Section o the American Political Science Association.
Alumni Ronay Bakan Wins Multiple Dissertation Awards from the American Political Science Association
Department of Political Science Ph.D. alumnus Ronay Bakan has won two different awards from sections of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for her dissertation titled “Counterinsurgent Urbanism: Weaponizing Land and Heritage in the Kurdish Region of Turkey”. Bakan won the Best Dissertation Award from the Middle Eastern and North Africa (MENA) section, and Honorable...
Alumni Ronay Bakan Wins Multiple Dissertation Awards from the American Political Science Association
Department of Political Science Ph.D. alumnus Ronay Bakan has won two different awards from sections of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for her dissertation titled “Counterinsurgent Urbanism: Weaponizing Land and Heritage in the Kurdish Region of Turkey”. Bakan won the Best Dissertation Award from the Middle Eastern and North Africa (MENA) section, and Honorable...
APSU formalizes partnership with University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Political Science
Austin Peay State University (APSU) has formalized a significant new international partnership with the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Belgrade (FPN), one of Serbia's most distinguished university faculties and home to a 21-year-old Center for American Studies.
Politics and the pitch
UD political science professor combines academics and hobby as a soccer referee
Meet DFP Spring Fellow, Emily Martinez, University of Wisconsin-Madison -
Emily R. Martinez is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in comparative politics with a regional focus on Western Europe. Her research sits at the [...]
Political expert links Platner popularity to ‘Trumpification of American politics’
University of Maine’s Political Science chair Mark Brewer offered WABI three reasons for Platner’s sustained support to this point.
Why Are Politicians Swearing More?
n American politics, cursing and “four-letter words” are no longer confined to hot mics or hidden behind closed doors. Politicians and pundits are increasingly using so-called “bad words” in speeches, social media posts and campaign ads. Benjamin Bergen, professor of cognitive science and Pamela Ban, associate professor of political science, both from UC San Diego’s School of Social Sciences, examine why swearing among politicians is on the rise and what it reveals about persuasion,
National politics are ‘killing Republicans’ in WA elections. Can that change?
“I don’t see the Republican Party being able to contend in statewide races,” one political science expert said.
Insights from Dževada Garić, Professor of Political Science
In our latest Speaker Spotlight, Dzevada Garic, highlights the role of journalism in matters of interfaith coexistence.
The Political Science Behind the Call for Humanity Summit
Long before the inaugural Red & Blue: Call for Humanity summit convened in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the work had already begun. What emerged publicly as a gathering of elected women…
Great Grad: Meet Nico Julia, Geography, Political Science and Spanish Major
Cal Poly student Nico Julia is graduating with Nico Julia is graduating with degrees in political science, anthropology and geography, and Spanish
2026 Short Course: Designing Civically Engaged Political Science Pedagogy -
Designing Civically Engaged Political Science Pedagogy Half Day Short Course | Register here 2026 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition — Boston, MA 9:00 am – 1:00 pm This short course is designed for political science [...]
Gerald Pomper, acclaimed political science professor, dies at 91
Gerald M. Pomper, a retired Rutgers University political science professor who was a nationally known expert in voter behavior and American presidential
Meet DFP Spring Fellow, Nicholas Gonzalez, Northwestern University -
Nicholas R. Gonzalez is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. His subfield is American politics, with research interests spanning political behavior, urban politics, and the intersections of race, class, [...]
Meet DFP Spring Fellow, Niko Dawson, Washington University in St. Louis -
Nikolas Dawson (he/they) is a second-year political science PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, specializing in formal theory and American politics. His fields of study include political behavior, elites, and minority politics (broadly [...]
Taylor Bishop soars toward political career thanks to MSU internships
When Taylor Bishop (Class of 2026) came to Morehead State University from nearly three hours away in Greensburg, he found two things that put him on a clear path to college graduation and his future career. The first was his interest in history growing up, which expanded into political science after he started taking classes at MSU. "I really got interested in politics when I got to Morehead State," Bishop said. "It was like learning a language that I'd never known, and I fell in love with it instantly." The second key factor that shaped much of Bishop's college experience was taking his First-Year Seminar with instructor Rebecca Wright. Wright is also the coordinator of internships for MSU's Center for Career Development & Experiential Education and gave Bishop some important advice. For more information on gaining real-world experience like education abroad and internships at Morehead State University, contact the Center for Career Development & Experiential Education at careerservices@moreheadstate.edu or 606-783-2233. To learn more about MSU's Department of History, Philosophy, Politics, Global Studies and Legal Studies programs, contact hgpl@moreheadstate.edu or 606-783-2655. "You need to get internships wherever you can so it can get you wherever you want." Bishop took those words to heart and for much of his undergraduate career, he benefited from several meaningful experiences outside of the classroom that expanded both his knowledge and his confidence to succeed.
Political science alum confirmed as ambassador to Sri Lanka
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Eric Meyer as ambassador to Sri Lanka. Meyer is a political science graduate from UC Berkeley who was confirmed alongside 48 other nominees.
APSA Statement on the Dismissal of the National Science Board -
The American Political Science Association (APSA) condemns the Trump Administration’s recent dismissal of all 22 members of the National Science Board (NSB), the independent advisory and oversight body for the National Science Foundation (NSF). This [...]
Political Science Professor discusses heated battle between Sen. John Cornyn and Texas AG Ken Paxton
The Need for Political Science in a Politically Turbulent World
Political science majors and professors work to continue their academic pursuits in an ever-changing political landscape.
Meet 2026 RBSI Scholar, Ashton Washington, Towson University -
Ashton Washington, Towson University Ashton Washington is a junior majoring in political science at Towson University. Not only has she maintained Dean’s List throughout her collegiate career, but she has also been awarded the Provost [...]
Political Science department concludes its two-term editorship of national undergraduate research journal
Since Fall 2020, Elon University’s Department of Political Science and Public Policy has hosted the Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics, a publication of the Pi Sigma Alpha, the...
In Memoriam: Peter R. Moody, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Political Science
Peter R. Moody Jr., October 13, 1943 ~ May 2, 2026 (age 82) Funeral Mass Livestream Link It is with deep sadness that the children …
In Memoriam: Peter R. Moody, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Political Science
Peter R. Moody Jr., October 13, 1943 ~ May 2, 2026 (age 82) Funeral Mass Livestream Link It is with deep sadness that the children …
Political Science Professor Named 2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow
Wayde Marsh will research and write two books on rhetoric and political psychology.
Political Science Professor Named 2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow
Wayde Marsh will research and write two books on rhetoric and political psychology.
History and Political Science Honors Its Best of 2025-26
The Arkansas Tech University Department of History and Political Science hosted its spring 2026 awards ceremony in the Witherspoon Hall Atrium at the close of the semester. Below are the awards that were bestowed during the departmental ceremony and the names of the students who received those honors. Fay Bullock…
Meet 2026 RBSI Scholar, Kaitlynne Franklin, Southern Illinois University Carbondale -
Kaitlynne Franklin, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Kaitlynne Franklin is a first-generation Southern Illinois University Carbondale political science student with plans to pursue a Ph.D. in American politics, specializing in race and ethnic politics. She has [...]
First-gen political science student named New College Outstanding Undergraduate
Emra Muslim, a first-generation college student graduating this spring with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, has been named the college’s Outstanding Undergraduate.
Call for Proposals for New Editors: APSA Section Journal Politics & Religion | Deadline: July 15, 2026 -
Call for Proposals for New Editor(s) APSA Organized Section Journal “Politics & Religion” The Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) invite applications for the editorship of Politics and Religion (P&R) [...]
Political science grad earns academic recognition with Dean’s Medal award
Arizona native Mirei Shikama will graduate this spring as the School of Politics and Global Studies’ Dean’s Medalist, obtaining degrees in global studies and English (creative writing) with a minor in political science.
Political science grad earns academic recognition with Dean’s Medal award
Arizona native Mirei Shikama will graduate this spring as the School of Politics and Global Studies’ Dean’s Medalist, obtaining degrees in global studies and English (creative writing) with a minor in political science.
LMU Political Science and International Relations Honors Students Take Their Research on the Road
LMU Political Science and International Relations honors students present research at the WPSA conference in San Diego.
LMU Political Science and International Relations Honors Students Take Their Research on the Road
LMU Political Science and International Relations honors students present research at the WPSA conference in San Diego.
Political science department to be renamed after former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus
The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees approved renaming the department of political science at the University of
Structure, Agency, and Structural Reform: The Case of the European Central Bank -
Structure, Agency, and Structural Reform: The Case of the European Central Bank By Benjamin Braun, London School of Economics and Political Science, Donato Di Carlo, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Sebastian Diessner, [...]
CBL Scholars Program Opens Pathways to Business Law Careers - UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings)
First-year law students and 2026 CBL Scholars Deniz Masjedi, Alvaro Flores, and Tavia Pappaly gain mentorship connections with leading industry professionals as they prepare for careers in business law. Created by the UC Center for Business Law San Francisco (CBL), the CBL Scholars Program aims to develop the next generation of business law leaders, supported by contributions from individuals and corporate sponsors. The highly competitive program provides funding along with academic and professional mentorship to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Scholars gain exposure to the Bay Area’s technology and venture capital ecosystems and access to UC Law SF’s broad network of senior legal professionals. Now in its sixth year, the CBL Scholars Program provides a scholarship and academic and professional mentorship to students entering the business law community from disadvantaged educational, economic, social, or physical backgrounds. The program is generously sponsored by the law firms Gunderson Dettmer and Goodwin Procter. Meet this year’s CBL Scholars: Deniz Masjedi, Alvaro Flores, and Tavia Pappaly. All three have secured summer associate positions at prestigious law firms. Deniz Masjedi: A Passion for Helping Founders Grow Companies Deniz Masjedi, who was born in Iran and moved to Southern California as a teenager, traces her interest in law to her family’s immigration journey and her desire to advocate for herself and her family. She earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied political science and sociology. At UC Law SF, she serves as a 1L representative for the Iranian Law Students Association and is active in the Business Law Society and Technology & Law Society. Next fall, she will serve as director of mentorship for the Technology & Law Society and director of professional development for the Business Law Society. She will join Sidley Austin this year as a 1L/2L summer associate. Q: What draws you to business law? A: Prior to law school, I worked in Cooley LLP’s Private Companies practice group as a corporate paralegal for three years, supporting over 100 venture-backed startups and venture capital funds. I found purpose in helping founders transform their vision into successful companies. It was incredibly rewarding being part of their journeys—from company formation and initial financing to major transactions such as M&A deals. What excites me most about this field is the potential for a small, innovative company to become the next Google or Zoom, shaping how people communicate and access information. I hope to continue supporting entrepreneurs and investors as a corporate attorney. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: As the first person in my family to attend law school in the United States, receiving this scholarship is a tremendous honor. My parents and I left everything behind so that I could enjoy the freedom to practice my religion without persecution and pursue a career in law as a woman. This award is an acknowledgment of my dedication to business law and motivates me to continue pursuing excellence in this field. It also recognizes years of hard work—learning a new language, navigating the college and law school application process, and ultimately building a career in the legal profession. Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: This scholarship will provide access to mentorship from leaders in the field, enabling me to develop the skills necessary to offer practical advice and effective representation to future clients. It also eases the financial burden of law school, letting me focus on my coursework and deepen my commitment to corporate law. As an immigrant, breaking into the legal profession has not always been easy, and the time that mentors have invested in me has been instrumental to my progress. This scholarship will allow me to continue building those relationships while positioning me to one day mentor others pursuing similar paths. Alvaro Flores: Inspired by Entrepreneurs The son of Mexican immigrants raised in San Antonio, Texas, Alvaro Flores says he has long been interested in how policy, markets, and culture shape society. He studied international relations and global economy at the University of Southern California, with minors in business finance and legal studies. His experiences span local political organizing, venture capital and startup work, and teaching entrepreneurship. At UC Law SF, he is involved in the Business Law Society, Technology & Law Society, and the Latinx Law Student Association. He will join Perkins Coie as a 1L/2L summer associate with the firm’s Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice. Q: What draws you to business law? A: I’m drawn to stories of entrepreneurs whose simple ideas become companies that shape the economy and society. Spending time in venture capital and working directly with founders has shown me that many important decisions in the scaling process are ultimately legal ones, particularly how companies are structured and how capital is raised. Business law sits at the intersection of innovation and equity. It offers a way to stay close to the pace of technological change while also helping expand who gets to participate in it. There is something special about being part of that process here in the Bay Area, where the American Dream feels like it is reimagined in real time. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: I am truly grateful for the support and belief this scholarship represents. I see it not just as recognition, but also as alignment. The CBL Scholars Program’s focus on developing individuals who engage deeply with the business and technology ecosystem reflects the path I have been intentionally building. More than anything, it feels like an investment in that journey. I have been thoughtful about each next step–whether teaching, working in venture capital, or building multidisciplinary experiences–and this scholarship reinforces that those efforts come together in a meaningful way. Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: It allows me to focus more on developing as a business lawyer, without the distraction of financial constraints. Beyond that, the mentorship and access to the Bay Area network are just as valuable. I’m especially interested in working with early-stage companies and investors, so the opportunity to learn directly from people operating at a high level in that space is huge. Tavia Pappaly: Working in the Wine Industry Sparked Interest in Business and Law Tavia Pappaly spent five years in the wine industry before deciding to pursue law school with a goal of becoming a corporate transactions attorney. Pappaly says she wants to use her legal skills to help business grow and thrive. A first-generation law student from Fairfield, California, she is a member of the Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) and will serve as vice president of social planning for the UC Law SF Sports Law Society in her 2L year. She plans to work as a summer associate at Gibson Dunn in San Francisco after her 2L year. Q: What draws you to business law? A: Business law brings together many of my interests and personal experiences. As the daughter of immigrants who grew up around a family-owned small business, I saw firsthand both the opportunities and challenges of building something from the ground up. That perspective, combined with my experience in the wine industry, solidified my interest in helping businesses of all sizes tackle evolving legal challenges. I’m excited to grow within the corporate law space and develop the skills and experience to support businesses at every stage. I’m deeply motivated to give back to immigrant communities and small business owners, whose experiences often intersect. By building a strong foundation in corporate law, I hope to support those working to create generational stability and to contribute in a meaningful way to the communities that have shaped me. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: Receiving this scholarship is incredibly meaningful to me. I take great pride in my background as a first-generation student and a woman of color, so being recognized for my potential in a field that has historically underrepresented those communities is both affirming and empowering. This program will help connect me to the resources and committed mentors that will help me succeed. Beyond that, it is no secret that law school is a significant financial commitment. This scholarship helps ease both the financial burden and the stress that comes with it, allowing me to focus more on my education and long-term goals. I am incredibly grateful! Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: This scholarship has already connected me with an incredible network of faculty, business law professionals, and like-minded students. The community fostered by the Center for Business Law is deeply supportive, and I’m excited to grow alongside my cohort. I truly believe this network will play an important role in helping me thrive in law school and position me for success in business law. As I have seen firsthand how impactful both financial scholarship and mentorship are, I hope to give back in this same way later in my career.
Shaky political science: using "simulated" elections over real-world elections
[Dear DSOS readers – this article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in early December, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting. We found that many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data, and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first three articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report, the second one analyzing a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report, and a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research]. In this fourth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we shine a spotlight on seven studies that were web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group (the ERRG is an ad hoc committee headed by New America’s Political Reform Program and joined by the American Enterprise Institute, the Unite America Institute and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law). This research consortium has been led by Lee Drutman, senior fellow with New America’s Political Reform Program. These seven studies are simply not credible from any objective standard about how political “science” is supposed to illuminate our understanding of either ranked choice voting or politics in general. The feature that six of these seven studies have in common is that they all used surveys – artificial, simulated elections -- to attempt to say something cogent or interesting about ranked choice voting (RCV) elections. None of them used real world data from actual RCV elections – either the 1000+ elections in the US or the many thousands of elections from places like Australia, Ireland and elsewhere where RCV has been used for 100 years. While a few of these studies conclude with some mixed positives about RCV, our analysis here is content neutral. The idea that, with a political reform like RCV, you can ask respondents in a mock, artificial election to vote with that method, with only the barest of explanation about how RCV works or its likely impacts (i.e. no spoiler candidates, majority winners, voters liberated to pick their favorite candidates, coalition-building), and then ask them their thoughts/reactions about voting in that system, with fake candidates and no real campaigning, no real exposure to an actual election or actual candidates, rests on some very puzzling assumptions. The findings of these seven studies actually are contradicted by the findings from many other studies based on real-world RCV elections. These New America studies also failed to list the real-world RCV studies in their own citations, instead including those studies that reinforced their conclusions. The seven studies featured in this article were chosen because they form a cohesive cohort which precisely illustrates one of the main points of our research paper, namely that using surveys, i.e. artificial elections, or mathematical/theoretical models, instead of real-world data, is in fact “shaky political science.” Below are summaries of our analysis of five of the seven New America studies. You can read our complete analysis of all seven studies at our paper, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting.” Choosing to “Vote As Usual” by Andre Blais, Carolina Plescia, and Semra Sevi. New America. (Blais et al., 2021). This study, web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group, used two surveys in which respondents completed ballots for simulated elections using plurality, approval, RCV and point (Score) voting. In both cases the authors provided the respondents with only minimal explanation of each method. For example, the entire explanation for RCV was “For this vote, rank the candidates from your first to your last choice (you do not need to rank them all). This is called the ranked vote.” That’s it. The study did not provide any context or explanation to survey respondents about why she/he might want to rank multiple candidates. Participants were not even told that ballots would be tabulated using an “instant” runoff, not to mention any description of RCVs ability to eliminate the spoiler effect or liberate voters to rank their favorite candidates without fear of helping the “greater evil” candidate to win. That’s like taking an iPhone back in time to 1970 and asking someone if they like it better than their rotary phone without explaining how it works. Their first survey targeted states that held 2020 Super Tuesday Democratic primaries and used the real candidates’ names in the survey; the second survey used fictitious candidates. In other words, they surveyed respondents who had only ever participated in plurality elections, had no history or background with using RCV or any of the other methods, had no clue about its likely impacts, and did not communicate how the alternative methods would be counted, and then asked them: “How satisfied are you with using each system?” Predictably, the winner was plurality elections, the system used for president, Congress, gubernatorial and state legislative elections – in other words, the method they have been using, year after year, all their voting lives. With so little explanation of RCV and its impacts, this study is simply not credible in discovering anything useful about real-world RCV elections. It merely shows that a basic voter education campaign is needed when adopting a new election system. Additionally, the result contradicts many other post-election surveys following real RCV elections, asking opinions from voters who had just participated in a RCV election, that showed a great deal of satisfaction with RCV (see details on that in Studies 22-25 in our paper, as well as the four studies cited in the review for Study 28). Share Other studies on “satisfaction” and “understanding” make similar mistakes, in terms of basing their surveys on inadequate explanation to respondents and lack of education about context. How could any survey ever hope to measure accurately, in essence simulate a real-world election, without actual campaigning candidates, the media writing about those candidates, organizations endorsing candidates and voters being inundated with crucial information? More than anything, what these “studies” based on surveys show is that if you ask voters about something they don’t know very much about, and fail to adequately educate them, their responses will unsurprisingly reflect their confusion. Equally puzzling is that New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group, headed by political scientist Lee Drutman, found this to be a credible enough study that they not only published it but highlighted it in Drutman’s own discussion of research related to ranked choice voting. This pattern was repeated in study after study featured by New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group. For example in Ranked-Choice Voting and Political Expression: Voter Guides Narrow the Gap between Informed and Uninformed Citizens by Cheryl Boudreau, Jonathan Colner, and Scott MacKenzie, the researchers based their analysis on a survey which found that respondents who were asked to vote in a simulated RCV election, with minimal explanation of RCV or how it works, displayed less evidence of being informed about how to use RCV effectively, with the least informed voters ranking fewer candidates. As pointed out under the study above, in a real election voters are informed by a wide variety of methods, including public education by the election administration, by interested political groups, the media, and the candidates themselves who benefit from voters being aware of how to vote in the new system. In Support for Ranked-Choice Voting across Race and Partisanship by Joseph Anthony, David C. Kimball, Jack Santucci and Jamil Scott, the researchers used respondents from different parties and races voting in simulated plurality and RCV elections, who indicated their satisfaction with each voting method. Instead of using real world election results, the authors fell back on the easy, armchair and less reliable academic research methodology of making up mock elections. As with the other studies, little explanation was given of how RCV works or what its implications might be (electing majority winners or eliminating spoilers, for example). Unsurprisingly, this study found that respondents were not very satisfied with RCV. However, when the authors added an explanation that RCV has a tendency to elect more women and people of color, they found that this greater explanation increased the preference for RCV. The more voters were familiar with it, and the more they understood potential positive impacts – surprise! -- the more they were open to switching away from the status quo. Of note, the results from this study are thoroughly contradicted by a number of other studies whose data was obtained from real RCV elections with real voters. Those studies show a great deal of satisfaction with RCV. More “fake election” research An interesting wrinkle on this “research by fake elections” approach, which only served to illustrate how unreliable such “research” can become, was taken in Ranked-Choice Voting, Runoff, and Democracy: Insights from Maine and Other U.S. States by Joseph Cerrone and Cynthia McClintock_,_ also web-hosted and funded by New America’s ERRG. It gets high marks for creativity, but an eye-roll for thinking this could possibly add anything meaningful to our understanding of real world RCV elections. This study tried to determine whether RCV, plurality or two-round runoff elections provided greater voter satisfaction and acceptance of election results. To determine that, the authors conducted a survey asking if voters were satisfied with a fictional newspaper report of an election, with three different versions given to respondents – plurality, runoff and RCV, with variations of Republican/Democrat winners and variations of “come-from-behind” winners,” i.e. candidates not initially in first place but who win the “runoff.” Again, a minimal explanation of RCV or how it works was given, and the survey showed that respondents had the greatest unfamiliarity with RCV than the other methods. The unsurprising result? Respondents were much more satisfied with “come-from-behind” victories in a traditional two-round runoff election than in RCV, even though RCV is also a runoff system but with a single round of counting. Interestingly, the dissatisfaction with RCV disappeared for those who were more familiar with RCV. In fact, among those respondents who were “very familiar” with RCV, they were equally satisfied with RCV, runoff and plurality. Surprise, surprise. Again, what this study revealed, more than anything, is not only the inadequacy of the explanation for RCV given by the authors of this study, but the failure of the research format itself, thinking that such an artificial mock election could somehow simulate what actually happens in the real world in a real RCV election. Those four studies reviewed above are fitting examples of inadequate and shaky political “science.” Other studies reviewed in our paper from the New America/Electoral Reform Research Group cohort which also used mock elections included: Ranked-Choice Voting is an Acquired Taste by Joseph Anthony and David C. Kimball. New America. (Anthony et al., 2021). Ranked-Choice Voting is No Refuge for Extreme Candidates by Melissa Baker. New America. (Baker, 2021). Also included in this New America cohort is Does Ranked-Choice Voting Reduce Racial Polarization? by Yuki Atsusaka and Theodore Landsman, which actually did use real-world election results data but applied an odd and unconventional methodology to the data which relied on shaky assumptions and non-real-world scenarios that were too divorced from reality. To determine levels of “racially polarized voting,” the researchers imagined “ethnic parties,” by which they mean political parties for each ethnic group, which was especially odd since the election data they were using came from nonpartisan RCV races. But then they made an even odder assumption, namely that since race and ethnic characteristics of studied voters were not available, the authors tried to infer that information based on who voters selected and the racial make-up of voters in each district. This amounted to little more than vague and ambiguous guesswork dressed up with a bunch of mathematical equations used to give it a veneer of scientific appearance. Indeed, it seemed to assume racial polarization in order to prove racial polarization. Based on this questionable methodology, the authors concluded that RCV doesn’t reduce racial polarization. But the premise of this study missed an obvious reality: since RCV incentivizes more candidates to run and can result in more diverse fields of candidates, one would expect more racially-polarized voting in voters’ top rankings, not less, because more voters would have someone on that ballot who represents their racial or ethnic identity and more freedom to vote for their real first choice. By encouraging more diverse candidates and eliminating the spoiler effect, RCV facilitates voting for a favorite candidate of your own race and then selecting a second choice with the best likelihood of winning. The real measure is what voters do with their additional rankings – do they consider other candidates and vote “for the best of the rest”? This study didn’t tell us anything useful about that. But readily available data shows this is common in real RCV elections, and candidates act on this knowledge by engaging with voters outside their racial group. So the authors of this study failed to consider or account for what actually happens in real-world elections, and their conclusions are tainted by this failure. New America has contributed a great deal over the past 2.5 decades to our understanding of many policy areas, including politics and political reform (full disclosure: Steven Hill, one of the authors of this article and of the “Shaky Political Science” research paper and series, is a former senior fellow and former director of New America’s political reform program, 2005-2010). So it was especially disappointing that New America funded and published such a large batch of dubious studies about ranked choice voting. The stated praiseworthy goal of its Electoral Reform Research Group was to inspire new academic research about ranked choice voting that would shed light and help the public better understand the impacts of RCV. Instead, the ERRG research did just the opposite. It produced dubious research that created more confusion and misinformation. In so doing, New America’s political reform program contributed to “shaky political science.” Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS, a reader-supported digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
Hundreds of Candidates Put the “Science” in “Political Science”
More U.S. scientists are running for state and federal office in the U.S. midterm elections than ever before, Nature reports.
Political science junior Maddie Hanes elected ASMSU President
The General Assembly of ASMSU elected Maddie Hanes as the President of the 63rd session, who will serve during the 2026-2027 school year in addition to Anna Burk, who will be the re-elected Vice President of Finance and Operations.
PhD Alumni Jessie Croteau Wins WPSA’s Environmental Political Theory Paper Award
Dr. Jessie Croteau, who received her PhD in 2025, was awarded the 2026 Environmental Political Theory Best Paper Award at the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) for her paper “In Praise of Decay, Toward a Politics of Compost”. This award is given to the author of the best paper in environmental political theory presented at...
Insider: Why are politicians cursing so much lately?
“I think that it is simply because it’s accepted,” one political science professor said of the trend of increased public cursing by politicians.
NMSU political science students present at national research conference
New Mexico State University undergraduate students in the Department of Political Science, Public Law and Administration presented their research at this year’s Pi Sigma Alpha National Student...
NMSU political science students present at national research conference
New Mexico State University undergraduate students in the Department of Political Science, Public Law and Administration presented their research at this year’s Pi Sigma Alpha National Student...
Op-ed: You don’t have to major in business because your dad told you to
I’m a second-year student at Northeastern, and I’ve already changed my major four times — twice last semester. I know that sounds stressful, kind of scary and like I have no idea what I want to do with my life. But currently, my major is combined political science and journalism, and despite the changes I...
ULM Political Science faculty and students participate in state meeting
Political Science faculty and graduate students from the University of Louisiana Monroe recently participated in the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Political Science Association (LPSA), held Friday, February 27, at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La.
ULM Political Science faculty and students participate in state meeting
Political Science faculty and graduate students from the University of Louisiana Monroe recently participated in the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Political Science Association (LPSA), held Friday, February 27, at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La.
"Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible": Smith's political science at Econlib
We’re joining our friends at Liberty Matters in their celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations through a series of six weekly essays. In this fifth essay, Jacob T. Levy explores one of Smith’s most famous claims in Book V of Wealth […]
“Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible”: Smith’s political science
Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor […]
“Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible”: Smith’s political science
Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor […]
Student’s life experiences inform political science, media studies scholarship
Emily Danczyk, fourth-year Penn State student double-majoring in political science and media studies with a minor in legal studies, was recently named a diversity fellow for the American Political Science Association.
Student’s life experiences inform political science, media studies scholarship
Emily Danczyk, fourth-year Penn State student double-majoring in political science and media studies with a minor in legal studies, was recently named a diversity fellow for the American Political Science Association.
Call for Applications: APSA Diversity and Inclusion Advancing Research Grant for Early-Career Scholars | Deadline: May 3, 2026 -
The APSA Diversity and Inclusion Advancing Research Grant supports the advancement of research goals and professional development of early-career political science scholars. The grant will award scholars whose research areas focus on one of the [...]
Barton outlines how politicians exploit voter information fatigue
Dona-Gene Barton, associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, was interviewed for a March 26 HuffPost article on how politicians on both sides of the aisle have taken advantage of Americans’ shortened attention spans to sway public opinion in their favor.
Ruby Ridge Book Explores Roots of American Conspiracy Politics at Vroman’s Tonight
Author Chris Jennings will discuss his critically acclaimed book “End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America” at Vroman’s Bookstore on Monday, March 30, in a 7 p.m. conversation with journalist and author Jim Newton, a Pasadena resident. The book, published in February by Little, Brown and Company, examines the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff — in which federal agents surveilled a cabin in Boundary County, Idaho, as part of an operation to arrest white separatist Randy Weaver — and traces a line from that 11-day siege to the conspiratorial politics that now mark American public life. By the time Weaver surrendered, his wife, his son, and a U.S. Marshal were dead. Jennings, a former editorial staffer at The New Yorker and the author of “Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism,” argues that the strain of apocalyptic Christianity that gripped the Weaver family can be traced to biblical prophecy readings dating to the 1870s and through the rise of 20th-century fundamentalism, according to the publisher’s description. The events at Ruby Ridge, Jennings contends, acted as an accelerant for this worldview. The New York Times Book Review called the book a thoroughly researched chronicle written with precision, according to a review published in February. Kirkus Reviews described it as a vivid reconstruction of a pivotal moment in the history of right-wing extremism. Newton, who will lead the conversation, spent 25 years at the Los Angeles Times as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, and columnist, including a stint as editor of the editorial pages from 2007 through 2010. He is the author of four books, including biographies of Chief Justice Earl Warren and Gov. Jerry Brown. Newton teaches at UCLA, where he founded Blueprint magazine, and is a columnist for CalMatters. He received the American Political Science Association’s
Pulse of Politics: Iran war poll & DHS funding fight
A new AP/NORC poll shows Americans say U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far. Oakland University Political Science Professor Dave Dulio weighs in on that, as well as the Department of Homeland Security funding fight on Capitol Hill.
Political Science Graduate Finds Her Path and Passion in Purpose-Driven Research
After losing a job and starting over, Ginny Adorador found purpose, strength, and a new career path in education.
Hastings College professor, students present research at political science conference
A Hastings College professor and four students recently traveled to the University of Missouri–Kansas City to present original research at the Great Plains
Hastings College professor, students present research at political science conference
A Hastings College professor and four students recently traveled to the University of Missouri–Kansas City to present original research at the Great Plains
Criminology, political science student turns resilience into leadership
Through mentorship, leadership in the Liberal Arts Chaiken Center, and service to her Pittsburgh community, Trinidy Manison, a Penn State College of the Liberal Arts student, has committed to uplifting others while preparing for a future in law.
Political Science Program Encounters Growth in Enrollment
The department chair received numbers indicating political science as a major is on the rise.
NC Senate leader Phil Berger loses primary by 23 votes, political science expert weighs in
“I received a call from Phil Berger and basically his message was that he was letting me know that he was going to concede in the race,” Page said.
Extendend interview: Dr Roham Alvandi on Iran, Britain, and the futures that might have been
From Cold War power games to the cultural aspirations of the Pahlavi era, this extended conversation pulls back the curtain on the global forces that continue to shape - and be shaped by - Iran today. Dr Roham Alvandi is Director of the Iranian History Initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
An Iranian-American political science expert talks about Iran's nuclear program
NPR's Scott Simon speaks to Ariane Tabatabai, the Public Service Fellow at Lawfare, about the nature of Iran's nuclear program, and whether it, as President Trump has said, posed an "imminent threat."
Political Science study reveals how Americans decide who counts as a
The term “person of color” has grown increasingly common in American public life. A new Berkeley Political Science paper, “Who Counts as a ‘Person of Color’? The Roles of Ancestry, Phenotype,