In this issue are included several articles that directly relate to the U.S. elections, a timely issue given the contests in November. In particular, several articles directly relate to how representatives present themselves, the nature of the “culture war” in American politics, and the continuing issues of race and voting in the United States. Further, we present articles that ask other important questions such as: Do peacekeepers really make a difference in promoting an end to fighting? How does foreign military presence produce norm changes within a country? Do political entrepreneurs mobilize ethnic and religious cleavages in different ways to attain their political goals? Can humankind form a deliberative, global-scale polity? Taken together, these articles demonstrate that original research in political science can—and frequently does—speak to the important problems confronting the nation and the world.