From campaign rhetoric to tweets, President Trump has positioned himself as “disrupter in chief,” often pointing to administrative action as the avenue by which he is leaving a lasting mark. However, research on the administrative presidency begins with the premise that all presidents face incentives to use administrative tools to gain substantive or political traction. If, as this article suggests, Trump’s institutional standing differs little from his recent predecessors, then how much of the Trump presidency represents a change from past norms and practices? How much represents continuity, or the perennial dynamics of a far-from-omnipotent executive in an ongoing world of “separate institutions sharing powers” (Neustadt 1990, 29)? To answer this, we tracked presidential directives and regulatory policy during Trump’s first year in office. We found evidence of continuity, indicating that in its use of administrative tactics to shape policy, the Trump White House largely falls in line with recent presidencies.

Americans are engaged in a heated, sometimes violent, debate over the fate of Confederate monuments. As communities decide whether to remove these monuments, elected and appointed officials typically have had the final say. What if instead of allowing elected officials to make such decisions, voters had the power? Would this affect how the public feels about the outcome, win or lose? We used a survey experiment to examine whether the mode of decision making affects public attitudes, testing the effects of a decision made by public referendum versus by a city council. We found that respondents view decisions made by referendum to be fairer and more legitimate and allow multiple perspectives to be heard. These results hold even for respondents who oppose the referendum’s outcome. Our results speak to the potential of direct democracy to enhance public acceptance of decisions, particularly when the public is divided.

Much has been written about efforts to expand women’s social, cultural, and political representation, roles, and opportunities. However, as political scientists, we have done little to document the early history of incorporating women into the discipline. This article illustrates how the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) established the study of politics as an acceptable course of baccalaureate study for women: first, by crafting a model curriculum; second, by advocating for the creation of endowed chairs in political science at women’s colleges; and, third, by publishing in scholarly outlets. The GFWC’s efforts can be viewed as the first steps to the incorporation of women into the discipline—a question that continues to be the subject of much analysis and consternation by professional associations and the academic community.

Political science, like many disciplines, has a “leaky-pipeline” problem. Women are more likely to leave the profession than men. Those who stay are promoted at lower rates. Recent work has pointed toward a likely culprit: women are less likely to submit work to journals. Why? One answer is that women do not believe their work will be published. This article asks whether women systematically study different topics than men and whether these topics may be less likely to appear in top political science journals. To answer this question, we analyzed the content of dissertation abstracts. We found evidence that some topics are indeed gendered. We also found differences in the representation of “women’s” and “men’s” topics in the pages of the top journals. This suggests that research agendas may indeed be gendered and that variation in research topic might be to blame for the submission gap.

Gender representation is a pervasive problem in political science. We draw on evidence from the 2017 and 2018 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting programs to discuss diversity and representation in large political science disciplinary conferences. APSA program divisions differ substantially in their gender representation: although some are representative of their organized-section membership, others are not, and some sections are particularly likely to feature “manels.” We present representation data by organized section, with discussions of what representation looks like and identifying different types of representation goals. We conclude by offering guidelines for increasing gender representation, for both future submitters and program chairs.

Organizations—from academic and professional associations to private corporations and police forces—face challenges promoting diversity and inclusion among their workers and affiliates. Instead of training and regulations, recent research recommends mechanisms that engage managers and leaders in activities that involve behavioral changes. This article describes how we put the managerial engagement approach into practice by organizing a “Diversity and Inclusion Hackathon” at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. With 11 teams focused on a range of topics, the hackathon attracted more than 200 people and produced multiple outputs. It engaged scholars from a range of backgrounds, social identities, institutions, ranks, and beliefs in the generation of new norms, programmatic ideas, and plans for the profession. Although we cannot infer causality, analysis of the APSA Annual Meeting evaluation survey reveals that hackathon participants are significantly more likely to express positive perceptions of the conference.

Using updated data from 2002 and 2017 on the political science discipline, we show how the cohort and gender composition of US PhD-granting departments has changed dramatically over time. Integrating 2002 and 2017 data, we examine overall patterns and gender differences in job mobility, tenure and promotion, and university prestige level among non-emeritus 2002 faculty, controlling for cohort effects. Even with this control, we find strong gender effects in some of these success dimensions. We then introduce another variable, citation counts, and find that women are consistently less cited than men, with important variations in the pattern across different cohorts. A control for citation counts show that some of these gender differences tend to disappear and we consider possible explanations for these findings.

The use of duration models in political science continues to grow, more than a decade after Box-Steffensmeier and Jones (2004). However, several common misconceptions about the models still persist. To improve scholars’ use and interpretation of duration models, we point out that they are a type of regression model and therefore follow the same rules as other more commonly used regression models. In this article, we present four maxims as guidelines. We survey the various duration model interpretation strategies and group them into four categories, which is an important organizational exercise that does not appear elsewhere. We then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies, noting that all are correct from a technical perspective. However, some strategies make more sense than others for nontechnical reasons, which ultimately informs best practices.

This article outlines how the advent of digital-communications technology, particularly social media, has contributed to an increased wariness by political elites to grant interviews to researchers. Errant remarks, misquotes, and comments taken out of context can exact a heavy price. Thus, politicians and their gatekeepers are far more cautious and risk averse than in decades past, which puts qualitative research methods—and the rich data they produce—in peril. Insights drawn from 32 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social scientists, political journalists, and political staffers in six countries revealed that academics who submit interview requests should expect to be subjected to online scrutiny—a vetting—by gatekeepers before any access is granted. Digital screening aims to assess the authenticity and objectivity of the researcher. Our findings suggest that scholars who want to pursue qualitative research with politicians must practice online reputation management and perhaps even delve into personal marketing.