Almost all economic indicators show that the rise of China is all but inevitable. Many argue that it is already happening. China may rank as the second, or the third, or the fourth largest world economic power, depending on how one does the counting, after enjoying an average annual GDP growth rate of nearly 10% in the past quarter of a century (1983–2007) (National Bureau of Statistics of China). China currently has the largest foreign currency reserve in the world, reaching one trillion U.S. dollars (People's Bank of China) and China became the second largest trade country after the U.S. in 2007 (Wenweipo 2007). In fact, no discussion of world economy is adequate without talking about China. Even though the United States is currently embroiled in Iraq and the war on terror, there is no question that the rise of China is still very much in back of the minds of American foreign policy makers and political elites, especially during the current presidential campaigns. For instance, one survey of American international relations scholars reveals that while 58% of the scholars believe that the greatest strategically important region for the United States is the Middle East right now, 60% of them think it will be China and East Asia in 20 years (Peterson, Tierney, and Maliniak 2005). A public survey shows that a majority of the citizens in many developing countries think it would be a good thing if China were to become as large a military power as the United States (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2005).We would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also want express our gratitude to the 132 scholars who participated in our survey.

Total international membership in APSA continues to reach new highs in absolute and relative terms, surpassing December's record number of 2,031 to reach 2,081 for the first time in August 2007. This represents 14.1% of APSA total membership, also a record high.

“I don't think I am good enough” was more than one student's response when invited to participate in civic engagement activities or to articulate their own original scholarly ideas. The insecurities underlying comments like this one are probably much more complex when put into the context of a student's academic life and its normal expectations. Students may have heard about previous civic engagement ventures from classmates who preceded them, and admittedly, many of those students had similar reservations in previous American Democracy Project (ADP) ventures; however, the America's Future Initiative was different. This initiative aspires to engage students' critical and analytical thinking on issues related to deficits and debt, especially in the public sector; furthermore, America's Future is a call to action without a prepared script.

The assignment before me was far more ambitious than any story I'd ever pitched to an editor. I wouldn't have dared to try, for fear of being laughed out of the newsroom. But I was now away from journalism, spending eight months as an APSA Congressional Fellow on Capitol Hill. I was told to think big.

At least partially in response to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election (Jordan and Balz 2018), 2018 witnessed a record number of women running for and winning legislative elections across the country. This candidacy surge affords a unique opportunity to evaluate why individuals choose to run for office. Extant literature identifies both individual- and institutional-level determinants of candidate entry, yet little attention has been given to a critical institutional feature that can encourage or discourage women to put their names forward: primary type. This article develops a model of candidate emergence positing that different primary systems—by virtue of including and excluding the participation of various subpopulations of a state’s electorate—will be more or less attractive to potential female candidates relative to potential male candidates. We uncover evidence consistent with our theory: women appear less interested in running in certain types of primaries (e.g., semi-closed) but find other systems more appealing (e.g., nonpartisan). The results also indicate that after considering primary type, women tend to outperform men in the subsequent general election across the board. This study provides encouraging evidence that closing the representation gap is an increasingly achievable goal but that the rules of the electoral game continue to determine who is playing.

Although ethnographic methods have yielded important insights into the inner workings of many political institutions, their use in the study of institutions engaged in national security policy making and practice has been more limited. Common features of security institutions raise methodological and ethical concerns for participant observers: they are hard to access, handle classified information, and their proximity to the use of violence creates challenges for researchers who adopt critical perspectives toward the framing and practice of national security. This article reflects on how critical ethnographers might respond to these challenges, drawing on experiences from a 14-month ethnographically influenced study of UK government departments involved in national security policy making. I argue that even though questions of informed consent and avoiding harm are complicated by the core functions of security institutions and their cultures of busyness and secrecy, navigating these tensions can itself generate useful ethnographic insights into institutional cultures.

Political science is one of the most popular majors for law school applicants, and studies show that political science majors have high rates of law school admission. In addition, many political science departments have a pre-law advisor. However, little is known about the status of pre-law advising on college campuses or the views of pre-law advisors on political science. This article presents the results of a February 2015 survey of 313 college pre-law advisors from across the United States. The authors discovered that the majority of pre-law advisors hold faculty appointments and serve as pre-law advisors without additional compensation or course releases. Pre-law advisors also rate political science as the second-best major, among 14 popular majors, for preparing students for both admission to and academic success in law school. These findings should be of interest to political scientists as well as other faculty and administrators who are concerned with pre-law advising.

Survey and laboratory experiments are increasingly common in political science. Investment in experimental data collection comes with costs and benefits, particularly for graduate students and advisers. This article describes a set of institutionalized procedures we have adopted with the goal of capitalizing on the advantages that come with experimental research. This includes requiring planning documents, holding research-group meetings, and centralizing data collection. We conclude by discussing the limitations of our approach, ultimately highlighting the need for more disciplinary conversation about how to best structure research groups to produce quality research and advising.