Although much research confirms a gender gap in political science and its subfields internationally, only recently have scholars analyzed country-specific conditions for women within the field. Our study contributes to this national-level examination of gender diversity and inclusion by examining the extent to which a gender gap within the subfield of security studies, identified in the international literature, also is present in Canada. Research on gender representation and gendered experiences mostly centers on the academic workforce in the United States. However, in this article, we share the results of a multi-method investigation into the state of gender diversity in Canadian security studies—a national context in which the university sector has signaled a strong commitment to diversity and the government has actively promoted gender equality in official policy. By analyzing data collected from an online survey of security studies scholars in Canada and a document analysis of Canadian security-related journals and selected security studies syllabi, this contribution provides evidence that women are underrepresented in Canadian security studies and experience the subfield in less positive ways. We discuss the implications of these findings for the security studies subfield and suggest paths for future research and key recommendations.

What undergirds the association between religious and political conservatism and “group-serving pronatalism”; that is, support for childbearing to advance social or political goals rather than for personal fulfillment? Although recent research suggests that Christian nationalism—reflecting a desire to formally privilege conservative Christian values and identity—strongly accounts for the link, previous studies have not inquired about specific group-serving reasons to have children. Analyses of nationally representative data affirm Christian nationalism (measured in two ways) as the strongest predictor of support for group-serving pronatalism; specifically, support for having children to reverse the nation’s declining fertility, perpetuate one’s religious or racial heritage, and secure influence for one’s political group. These associations are weakly or inconsistently moderated by indicators of traditionalism, conservatism, and race. Findings affirm support for having children to advance national, religious, racial, or political goals corresponds strongly with a desire to privilege a Christian national identity and social order.

The Indigenous data sovereignty movement has arisen out of the ambition of Indigenous peoples to benefit from data-informed policy while preventing extractive and harmful research practices by external governments or researchers. Tribes exercise the sovereign authority to choose whether and when to share data with researchers and institutions outside their communities. To provide insight into how Indigenous peoples feel about data sharing, we document meaningful variation in a unique, nationwide survey of Native Americans. We find that respondents support their tribes in sharing data for economic benefit and that those who vote in tribal elections are particularly supportive. As tribal leaders, Native communities, and external research partners address potentially harmful data gaps and build Indigenous data resources, our findings suggest the importance of carefully considering and communicating the purpose of data collection and sharing. Broad benefit to Indigenous peoples’ economic well-being is one factor that likely increases support for data sharing.

Giving money to candidates is an important but unequal form of political voice. Among those Americans worst represented as campaign contributors are Black women and Latinas. Although inequalities in income and wealth fuel inequalities in campaign contributions, resources are an incomplete explanation. This study investigates, for Black women and Latinas, whether their views on donations to candidates differ from their views on other forms of civic and political engagement. The results, including the absence of a shared norm about giving to candidates, illuminate the challenges and opportunities of mobilizing a more representative group of campaign contributors.

In 2023, both Democratic and Republican elected officials supported banning official use of the gender-neutral term “Latinx.” Using a nationally representative survey sample, this study examines whether opposition to the gender-neutral term “Latinx” suggests a potential wedge issue that cuts across partisanship. We find that opposition to “Latinx” is significantly higher among Republican partisans, those who disapprove of Joe Biden as president, and those with “colder” feelings toward Democrats. Opposition to “Latinx” generally converges with factors that predict existing partisan divisions; where it diverges, it does not affect respondent evaluations of Biden or feelings about Democrats. Based on these findings, we conclude that gender-neutral language currently shows little potential as a wedge issue.

Sweeping changes in abortion politics are underway in the Americas. Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay have legalized abortion in recent years, marking a sea change in the most Catholic region of the world. At the same time, several states in the United States have restricted abortion access following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and numerous Central American countries have moved to fully criminalize the practice. Abortion is now legal in countries where it was long taboo, whereas the United States is characterized by a patchwork of laws that spans from some of the most progressive in the world to near-total bans. What explains this changing panorama in terms of reproductive rights in the Americas?

Latin America historically has had some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, making unsafe procedures a main cause of mortality among women and girls. However, in the context of the Green Wave, three countries recently have amply decriminalized access to abortion: Mexico (2021, 2023), Colombia (2022), and Argentina (2020) (Uruguay did so in 2012). The recent wave of decriminalization is the culmination of larger, historical processes that involved the gradual judicialization of reproductive rights in the region. Courts have been a central part of the story. In these three cases, arguments advanced by state and nonstate actors in favor of decriminalization significantly built on jurisprudence developed over many years. The process of abortion decriminalization has been partly a tale of gradual judicialization.

As the US Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a series of sweeping rulings to liberalize abortion—part of a larger trend across Latin America (Daby and Moseley 2022; Fernandez Anderson 2017; Reuterswärd 2020; Ruibal 2014). Mexico has created a nationwide standard of access to abortion services, whereas the United States has abandoned universal legal abortion and embraced a patchwork system in which each state has different laws regulating reproductive healthcare. Why are these two neighbors on such divergent paths? This contribution to the symposium compares the ways that federalism and judicial politics have interacted in Mexico and the United States to explain the different trajectories of abortion policy. The divergent paths of the United States and Mexico can be explained by the two countries’ different experiences with democracy and political and institutional differences between the judiciaries. A different civil-society and constitutional context also has played a role.

Across Latin American countries, there is remarkable heterogeneity in abortion legislation, ranging from full prohibition to legal elective abortion.1 However, abortion policy does not seem to clearly map onto implementation on the ground. On the one hand, even in countries with very restrictive abortion laws, (clandestine) abortion rates are comparatively high, and legislation that criminalizes abortion is rarely enforced (Blofield 2006; Htun 2003). On the other hand, in countries that allow abortion under all or some circumstances, access to abortion is not guaranteed. In Argentina, for instance, different reports have stressed the difficulty in accessing abortion procedures both before and after legalization was enacted in early 2021.2

The Southern Cone has been at the forefront of the fight for abortion rights in Latin America. Due to the legacies of Hispanic legal traditions and the overwhelming political influence of the Catholic Church, the region historically has been known for its restrictive policies on abortion and reproductive rights more broadly.1 However, in the past 15 years, Southern Cone countries began to challenge those restrictions and embarked on a feminist revolution that led to what is now widely known as the “Green Wave” because of the color embraced by abortion-rights activists. Uruguay began this trend of legalizing abortion on demand in 2012, followed by Argentina in 2020. Chile experienced a moderate reform in 2017 when it moved from a total ban to a system of exceptions. Feminists have been trying ever since to pass abortion on demand through both legislative and constitutional reforms, which have not yet yielded the expected results.

The conflict over abortion in the United States shows no sign of abatement. Both supporters and opponents of abortion rights have mobilized movements, engaged in collective action, suffered defeats and won victories, and survived over many decades. To understand how the current battle is likely to progress, we need to examine the movement/countermovement dynamics that drive the mobilization and outcomes of the opposing movements (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). This article demonstrates how ongoing mobilization is fueled by the strategies and tactics of each side, which are strongly influenced by the actions of their opponents.

The rise of populism as a global phenomenon has captured the attention of scholars and raised concerns about its impact on democracy. Thanks to a growing academic consensus around an ideational definition of populism, one can observe the generation of important cumulative knowledge on the relationship between populism and democracy. Political science has been at the forefront of this development, and this symposium seeks to both offer state-of-the art information on this topic and discuss blind spots that future studies should try to address.

When the impact of populism on liberal democracy is examined, the focus often is on populists in power. After all, when in office, populists have the possibility to change legislation, thereby negatively affecting individual freedoms and rights, and to transform the political system, often toward democratic decline and illiberalism (Pappas 2019; Ruth-Lovell and Grahn 2023).1 Far less attention has been devoted to populist parties in opposition, even though this is the position in which populists find themselves most frequently.2 Prominent examples of Western European populist parties with a decades-long position in opposition include the Rassemblement National in France and the Vlaams Belang in Belgium on the right and Die Linke in Germany and the Socialistische Partij in the Netherlands on the left. Outside of Western Europe, populist parties often have less longevity and more frequently assume office. However, many of these parties spend years in opposition before taking on government responsibility and/or have returned to the opposition benches afterwards (e.g., Partido Justicialista in Argentina and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość in Poland).

Populism’s effects on democracy after populists gain control of government (hereafter, populist incumbents) are some of the best theorized and documented consequences. The argument that populist incumbents threaten institutions of democratic contestation—and, less frequently, that they correct some aspects of political participation and representation—has been made from multiple approaches.1 Scholars and commentators often cite specific cases of populists harming democracy and, since 2016, several large-N studies have confirmed their negative impact. Specifically, studies repeatedly show the harmful effects of populist incumbents on civil liberties, including media freedom, horizontal accountability, and electoral integrity in both electoral and liberal democracies. Research has been less consistent in showing the positive consequences of populist incumbents, especially for democratic representation and political participation.

The connection between populism and democracy is widely researched. Most of the literature focuses on populist actors (e.g., parties, leaders, and governments) as it examines the intricacies of this relationship. Some of the resulting takeaways have become embedded firmly in scholarship and are currently considered accepted knowledge across the discipline. Scholars have only recently started focusing on the individual-level relationship between populism and democracy. As a result, our knowledge remains limited and is often based on the assumption that what holds for populist actors also will hold for populist citizens. The first part of this article briefly reviews the state of the art on the individual-level relationship between populism and democracy. Drawing from this review, we identify several theoretical and empirical gaps and limitations in the literature that future research should address. We conclude that contemporary scholarship has made important contributions, but more nuanced and targeted research is necessary to comprehensively understand the intricacies between populism and democracy on the individual level.

Populism is both prolific and resilient. By now, populist forces around the globe have managed to enter the highest echelons of power (Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart 2016). It is no wonder that the contemporary academic debate has shifted its focus to exploring the consequences of populism in power, particularly its impact on democracy. Although populism and democracy are not synonymous, the representation of “the people” is a central claim to both. Most populism scholars agree that “all forms of populism without exception involve some kind of exaltation of and appeal to ‘the people’” (Canovan 1981, 94). However, depending on which democratic ideas are emphasized over others—as well as which political practices and structures are favored to institutionalize these ideas (Dahl 1991; Held 2006; Lijphart 2012)—the basic tenet of the “rule by the people” may have many different meanings.

What should we do about populism? In recent years, this question has become more urgent as populist leaders and parties have taken center stage in many countries across the globe. No longer a “minor” political phenomenon, populism has forced scholars to grapple with how to address its potential “threat” to “liberal democracy while also harnessing its “corrective” properties (Rovira Kaltwasser 2012). In this debate, the two questions of who “we” are—that is, who should respond—and how to do it often have taken different forms.

Pundits and academics alike are increasingly concerned about the health of democracy worldwide. Much of this concern is tied to the rise of populism, a global phenomenon presenting challenges to both long-established and relatively young democracies. Political science has been at the forefront of this debate, and thanks to a growing—but not universal—consensus on the ideational definition of populism, our understanding of the subject has deepened considerably. This symposium maps key debates on the complex and often ambivalent relationship between populism and democracy. In this concluding piece, we build on the arguments presented throughout the symposium and related academic discussions to outline two paths for future research on the populism and democracy nexus: a top-down and a bottom-up perspective.