Experts agree that vaccination is the most effective way to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Nevertheless, vaccination rates have slowed nationwide and substantial segments of the population report an unwillingness to get vaccinated. We conducted an online survey experiment to investigate whether endorsement messages from various types of leaders can encourage the unvaccinated population to receive the vaccine. We surveyed 709 unvaccinated registered voters in South Dakota in April 2021 and presented them with identical messages endorsing vaccination from a political, religious, or medical leader. Our results show that messaging from a religious leader had a positive and statistically significant effect on interest in getting vaccinated, whereas messages from a political or medical leader had no statistically significant effect. These results strongly suggest that religious leaders are more effective messengers than other potential messengers and that public health officials would be well served to coordinate their efforts with leaders in faith communities.

At the time of this writing (early August, 2008), the political landscape would appear to bode well for Barack Obama and spell almost certain disaster for John McCain. With presidential approval hovering in the high-20 and low-30% range for more than a year, and levels of economic satisfaction bottoming out, it “should” be a terrible year for the Republican Party in general and the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, in particular, at least if the retrospective model holds. One factor that could mitigate the impact of negative retrospections, however, is that George W. Bush himself is not on the ballot to absorb the full impact of the national angst; in fact, for the first time since 1952, neither the president nor vice president is on the ballot.

Political science as a discipline has largely ignored research regulatory policies associated with institutional review boards (IRBs). Many political scientists—especially those in the senior ranks—are either oblivious to the existence of IRBs or actively decide to sidestep them by not submitting their proposals for review. Based on research conducted since 2004, we hold that APSA members at all ranks of the profession, along with political scientists worldwide, need to be concerned, not to say alarmed, about IRB policy. Why this sense of urgency, and why now?

“Here is a telling statistic. One hundred fifty-three of California's congressional and legislative seats were up in the last election, and not one, I repeat, not one, changed parties. What kind of democracy is that?”

Race and gender are intimately intertwined in the lives of Black women in the United States. Race constructs the way Black women experience gender; gender constructs the way Black women experience race. In the Senate hearings that pitted the word of Clarence Thomas against the sexual harassment accusations of Anita Hill, the great majority of Black women did not believe Hill's accusations. Our analysis will set this disbelief against a background of substantial Black unity on political issues in the United States, Black feminism, television coverage of the event, and Black women's reactions to that television coverage.

Contrary to the conclusion one might reasonably form from the primary White composition of all the major feminist organizations, Black women have usually given stronger support to the women's movement than Whites on surveys (see Table for self-identification as “feminist”). Even as early as 1970, 60% of Black women said they supported efforts to strengthen women's status in society, compared to only 37% of White women (Klein 1987: 26), and in 1972 67% said they were sympathetic to women's liberation groups, compared to only 35% of White women (hooks 1981: 148). Also contravening the impression one might form from the composition of feminist organizations, poor women and working class women are as likely as middle-class women to say on these surveys that they consider themselves “feminist.” The survey data are supported by indepth interviews among all classes of Black women.

On the final day of her American Government class last spring, one of my wife's students approached her and said, “You're a really great teacher. It's too bad you're teaching this subject. I hate politics.” The young man had begun the course getting D's and F's, but gradually raised his grades to B's. Clearly he was diving into the work, but the dislike of politics that he brought into the course remained.

Professor Linda Bennett's experience at Wittenberg University typifies what many people tell me and my observations confirm. Today's young Americans on and off campus have a visceral dislike of politics, and it is expressed in many ways.

Like many Americans over 30, young people do not trust politicians, believing many to be corrupt and self-serving. Large percentages think government is unresponsive to people like themselves, and that government is too much in thrall to well-organized special interest groups. The 1994 National Election Study found, for example, that 77% of Americans under 30 said they trusted the Federal government to do the right thing only “some of the time” or “none of the time”; 79% thought that Washington was run to benefit just “a few big interests looking out for themselves”; and 54% believed that “quite a few” of the people in government are crooked. (Among those over 30, 79% said they did not trust the government in Washington to do the right thing; 80% thought it benefitted just a few big interests; and 51% said that quite a few people in government were crooked.) Large portions of young Americans do not think that they have any political clout or that national politicians are solicitous of their opinions.

We argue for the importance of adequately distinguishing between the concepts of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. We review the literature across disciplines to suggest ways that political scientists might benefit by taking into account important biological distinctions in addition to cultural factors regarding sex, gender, and sexuality in their research. We clarify the distinction between these concepts in an effort to help reduce discrimination and defuse misconceptions, stereotypes, and imposed social roles. We believe that it would be fruitful for us as a discipline to better communicate this research to the wider public in the hope that public opinion and elite discourse will shift in a more tolerant and positive direction as a result.

Although much of what we know about political advertising comes from the study of television advertising alone, online advertising is an increasingly prominent part of political campaigning. Research on other online political communication—especially candidate websites, blogs, and social media—tends to conclude that these communications are aimed primarily at turning existing supporters into campaign donors, activists, and volunteers. Is a similar communication strategy found in online display ads—those ads placed adjacent to website content? In one of the first systematic analyses of the nature, content, and targets of online display advertising, we examined 840 unique online display ads from the 2012 presidential campaign. We show that the policy content, ad location, and interactive elements of the ads varied based on the audience, with persuasive appeals aimed at undecided or persuadable voters and engagement appeals aimed at existing supporters. Comparing ad content across candidates also found that each side focused on those issues for which the candidate had a strategic advantage. As a consequence, and in contrast to the conclusions of previous research that examines television advertising, we found minimal issue engagement in online advertising.

This essay is the first of a planned three-part series dealing with quantitative indicators of continuity and change in the political science discipline, focusing on the period since 1960. The series is inspired by the work of Somit and Tanenhaus (1967) which presented reputational rankings of both departments and individuals. For this series of essays, we created a unique database in which we recorded cumulative citation counts between 1960–2005 for all regular faculty members of U.S. Ph.D.-granting institutions ca. 2002. In addition to identifying the department at which the individuals in this data set are presently employed, we have also collected information on their date of Ph.D. and the institution from which their Ph.D. was awarded.The authors would like to thank Robert Axelrod, Nathaniel Beck, Russell Dalton, James Fowler, Ronald Inglehart, Margaret Levi, Michael Lewis-Beck, Jean Oi, Dorothy Solinger, Don Wittman, and the anonymous reviewers of PS for their helpful feedback and corrections. We are also indebted to the bibliographic assistance of Clover Behrend-Gethard, and to the inspiration of Hans-Dieter Klingemann's pioneering work. Any errors presented in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors. The authors welcome corrections to the data that is presented in this series. Comments and corrections can be sent to [email protected].

Data matter. Protest data are no exception. Not all datasets are equal, nor do all have equal validity and reliability. Thus far, there has been no serious debate regarding the quality of protest datasets. Increasing attention to protest studies suggests that now is the time to talk about the sine qua non for growing knowledge in this sub-field of comparative politics. In this paper I emphasize the importance of the underlying data sources. In particular, I argue that protest datasets should be drawn from many sources, particularly as many local sources as possible, in order to provide accurate and meaningful data. To support this contention, I first discuss traditional protest datasets and their limitations and provide suggestions about how to overcome these limitations. Second, I explain an alternative type of dataset coding and its characteristics. And finally, I use statistical tests to illustrate the importance of local sources.I give my sincere and deep thanks to Erik S. Herron and Ronald A. Francisco for reviewing drafts of this paper and giving me indispensable comments and continuous encouragements. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Collins and Omur Yilmaz who edited drafts of this manuscript. My appreciation also goes to anonymous reviews of this paper and the editors of PS: Political Science and Politics. I would like to thank my late farther, Ki-Dae whose love and support were simply endless. I'll share any compliment with them, but only I will take responsibility for any error.

For those who study and teach politics or history for a living, The West Wing unsheathes a double-edged sword. A great strength of the series is its ability to put a human face on engaging political discussions, demonstrating that politics can be accessible and enjoyable. However, this fictional White House also presents potential dangers. The purpose of The West Wing is to entertain rather than to educate, and the program deliberately plays the emotions of viewers through such techniques as background music and sophisticated camera work.

Trends in the political engagement of America's high school students present a paradox. At the same time that an unprecedented number of opportunities exist for American adolescents to get involved in activities with a political flavor like student governments, model United Nations, model Congress, Young Republicans and Young Democrats, and debate clubs, both interest and participation in political activities among high school students is low and declining. This is not unlike what has been observed among adults in the general population. A proliferation of advocacy groups has not resulted in more Americans getting involved in politics. Nor has a never-ending supply of political news on TV and radio, in print, and online led to an increase in the nation's attention to political matters.

It would be too presumptuous for me to claim that there is a direct causal connection between an increasing supply of opportunities for extracurricular political activities among young people and their declining rates of civic engagement. A more modest claim does seem plausible, however: politics has increasingly become a niche activity, pursued by that relatively small slice of the population who are, as Robert Dahl (1961) famously put it, “homo politicus,” i.e., “political junkies.” Television channels provide a telling analogy. Whereas once, events like national political conventions and presidential press conferences would preempt all network programming, they are increasingly shunted off to all-news cable channels and C-SPAN. Ironically, a greater supply of political news has meant that it is easier for people who are not pre-disposed to seek out politically-oriented programming to avoid it.

Notwithstanding political science professors' concerted efforts to remain politically neutral in the classroom, we find evidence that students are able to successfully identify the partisan loyalties of their professors. Furthermore, we find that there is a tendency for students to drift toward the Democratic Party over the course of the semester, yet the direction of the shift appears to be unrelated to either the instructor's actual political loyalties, or to the student's perception of the professor's partisan preferences. Given that political science professors appear to exert no real influence on students' party loyalties, it is unclear whether efforts to diversify the field by hiring more Republican professors would actually reduce the “liberalizing” effects of higher education.

The recent censorship requests made by Chinese authorities to Western academic publishers have sent shockwaves throughout the academic world. This article examines the high-profile The China Quarterly incident as a case in point. Because the censorship is expected to be followed by similar demands to other publications, it is important for the academic community to explore the logic behind it. This research article provides a preliminary analysis of publications on the censorship list and compares them to uncensored articles on similar themes. This exercise allows us to draw important insights. Theoretically, this article makes an original contribution by going beyond the censorship within to outside China. Empirically, it offers a comprehensive analysis of what China wants to censor and the context for its actions.

Has the global COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the scholarly productivity of academics? Do gender and parenting magnify its effect? To obtain insight into the changes the pandemic has wrought in the lives and careers of women and parents in academia, we surveyed scholars in political science and international studies. The survey was in the field during the period in which many academics were experiencing shelter-at-home orders and adjusting to a new reality. It captures initial reactions to changed circumstances as well as the fears and anticipated consequences of the disruptions. We find that perceptions of a negative impact are broadly shared. The open-ended responses suggest that the pandemic may widen the gender and parent productivity gaps. Although further analysis is needed to better understand the effect of the pandemic on scholarly productivity, we conclude that the pandemic exacerbates existing structural inequalities.