In recent years, universities around the world have been at the center of political controversies. In this call for papers of Perspectives on Politics, we invite political scientists to use their expertise to explain what is and ought to be happening at institutions of higher education. We encourage papers from a range of perspectives, subfields, and approaches within the discipline.
We welcome all kinds of political science research focusing on universities, including both established research agendas investigating universities as political phenomena and work in which scholars apply disciplinary concepts and theories to the case of universities for the first time. Here is a non-comprehensive list of themes that would be appropriate for this issue.
UNIVERSITIES’ IMPACT ON SOCIAL POLITICAL CHANGE
States often create and fund universities to produce knowledge and train the next generation of leaders. Universities, however, often have missions that put them at odds with political actors outside of the academy. Many academics consider academic freedom essential to do their job well, but politicians and social movements sometimes seek to curtail academic freedom. The editors of the journal are interested in political science analyses of the often-tense relationship between professors, administrators, funders, regulatory agencies, social movements, students, athletic programs, and the public.
UNIVERSITIES AS MEANS OF POLITICAL CONTROL AND GLOBAL DIPLOMACY
Governments around the world seek to control their higher education systems. Examples include Erdoğan’s politicized appointment of the rector of Boğaziçi University in Turkey, Orbán’s forcing of Central European University to relocate from Hungary to Austria, and DeSantis’s appointment of conservative trustees to New College of Florida. Universities are laboratories in which to trace processes of democratic backsliding and are key to shaping the political and social order of a country or international politics.
POLITICS OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND HIGHER EDUCATION AS POLITICS
Universities are not only facing political challenges from the outside but also from the inside. In the United States, wealthy donors have an outsized influence on university governance, and governors can shape curricular and hiring decisions. Student movements also act as a force for change, as do administrators’ responses—ranging from negotiation to violent repression.
Political science can illuminate what universities are, what they should be and why, and how they are or should be governed.
CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE
August 1, 2025 via Perspectives on Politics Editorial Manager.
**Please note: Accepted papers will be published individually on FirstView, following the same process as regular submissions and prior to the special issue being published as a complete collection.**
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Please refer to the Perspectives on Politics Submission Guidelines.
ABOUT PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS
Perspectives on Politics seeks to provide a space for broad and synthetic discussion within the political science profession and between the profession and the wider scholarly and reading publics. Such discussion necessarily draws on and contributes to the scholarship published in the more specialized journals that dominate our discipline. At the same time, Perspectives seeks to promote a complementary form of inclusive public discussion and synergistic understanding within the profession that is essential to advancing research and promoting scholarly community.
Perspectives seeks to nurture a political science public sphere, promoting scholarly topics, ideas, and innovations, linking scholarly authors and readers, and promoting borad reflexive discussion among political scientists about the work that we do and why this work matters.
QUESTIONS
Please direct questions about this Special Issue to:
[email protected]. Please do not propose papers to the editors or write directly to them with questions. This compromises anonymous review. You will know on the basis of in-house review within several weeks if your paper has been rejected without external review. ■
