Many media pundits explained Bush's victory in the 2004 presidential election as due in large part to an advantage that he held over Kerry in personal characteristics or character traits, at least as perceived by the voters. By these accounts, Kerry was seen by many voters as aloof, humorless, vacillating, and indecisive. In contrast, Bush was viewed as warm, authentic, and a strong leader. Such interpretations were expressed by a wide range of journalists. For example, New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks (2004a) claimed that if “… the Democrats had nominated Dick Gephardt, this election wouldn't be close, but character is destiny, and Kerry's could be debilitating …” Also in the New York Times, Kate Zernike and John Broder (2004) found that in interviews around the country taken the day after the election, “the voices of voters … fairly shouted that the outcome was … about a fundamental question of character.” Leadership was the trait most commonly cited as one of Bush's strengths. As one voter whom they interviewed put it, “People say George Bush is a cowboy … People say he shoots quick … sometimes you have to do that, you have to be decisive. Kerry never projected that.” Kerry was also faulted for being dull and uninspiring. Brooks (New York Times 2004b) felt that Kerry talked “like a manager or an engineer.” Others felt that Kerry lacked the personal warmth or charm that would allow voters to relate to him. Klein (2006, 221) felt that Kerry “… remained aloof, a distant figure, a politician in all the worst senses of the word.” Perhaps the worst insult was hurled by one of my students, who called Kerry “too professorial.”Author's note: I appreciate the comments provided by two of my colleagues, David Holian and Greg McAvoy.

An emerging consensus suggests that women are underrepresented in government because of biases in the recruitment process instead of biases at the ballot box. These results, however, are largely for legislative offices, and research suggests that “male” characteristics are generally associated with executive positions like the presidency. At the same time, some research demonstrates social desirability masks gender biases against women who seek the highest office in the land. We use the historic candidacy of Hillary Clinton to examine if she faces hidden biases in either the primaries or the general election. Two different methods for uncovering hidden biases embedded in national surveys demonstrate small hidden biases that are likely electorally inconsequential.

There are many issues of ethics and openness in elite interviewing that I have learned how to deal with through the years.Thanks to Beth L. Leech, Rutgers University, for including me in this workshop. I learned a lot listening to my fellow interviewers and gleaning wisdom from their experiences. Thanks also to Jeffrey Berry and the Political Organizations and Parties Section of APSA for putting the workshop on. My work has focused on people who cause trouble: protesters, litigants, defendants, sidewalk counselors, rescuers, and abortion providers, to name a few. Of course, in dealing with people you are studying you must be honest and ethical. It is important to remember that their activism comes from something they deeply feel. Their activism is because of their beliefs, opinions, experiences, and sense of community. They do not exist as activists so that you can add more lines to your vita or finish your dissertation. You must leave them in the same position in which you found them. You must do no harm to them.

Conventional accounts of Donald Trump’s unexpected electoral victory stress idiosyncratic events and media celebrity because most observers assume this unusual candidate won without much organized support. However, considerable evidence suggests that the support of conservative organizational networks, including police unions such as the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), propelled Trump to victory. The FOP is both a public-sector union and a conservative, mass-membership fraternal association that was courted by the Trump campaign at a time of politically charged debates about policing. Four years before, the FOP had refused to endorse Republican candidate Mitt Romney because he opposed public-sector unionism, which provided fruitful and rare variation in interest-group behavior across electoral cycles. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that FOP lodge density contributed to a significant swing in vote share from Romney to Trump. Moreover, survey evidence indicates that police officers reported increased political engagement in 2016 versus 2012. Belying the notion that Trump lacked a “ground game,” this research suggests that he tapped into existing organizational networks, showing their enduring importance in electoral politics.

To allow researchers to investigate not only whether a paper’s methods are theoretically sound but also whether they have been properly implemented and are robust to alternative specifications, it is necessary that published papers be accompanied by their underlying data and code. This article describes experiences and lessons learned at the Quarterly Journal of Political Science since it began requiring authors to provide this type of replication code in 2005. It finds that of the 24 empirical papers subjected to in-house replication review since September 2012, only four packages did not require any modifications. Most troubling, 14 packages (58%) had results in the paper that differed from those generated by the author’s own code. Based on these experiences, this article presents a set of guidelines for authors and journals for improving the reliability and usability of replication packages.

We present two simulations designed to convey the strategic nature of terrorism and counterterrorism. The first is a simulated hostage crisis, designed primarily to illustrate the concepts of credible commitment and costly signaling. The second explores high-level decision making of both a terrorist group and the state, and is designed to highlight scarce-resource allocation and organizational dynamics. The simulations should be useful both in a traditional classroom setting as well as to the larger public. We provide a primer on the subject matter, and all the material necessary to run the simulations.

College professors are evaluated for promotion and tenure on the basis of their accomplishments in three areas: teaching, research, and service. All too often, however, service is considered the poor cousin of the trio. In political science in particular, we believe that this imbalance is detrimental to the individual scholar, our students, the discipline, and the general public. The goal of this symposium is to contribute to what we see as a nascent revitalization and rehabilitation of service—especially public service—as a respectable and integral part of a political science career. We encourage our colleagues to engage the political world more often, more directly, and more reflectively, and we encourage the profession—the APSA, our departments, and our colleagues—to value such engagement institutionally and through our social norms.

Almost a decade ago, historian Gary Okihiro asked “Is yellow black or white?” (Okihiro 1994). Although Okihiro argued for solidarity between nonwhite groups, he noted that yellow is neither black nor white: That dichotomous racial framework does not adequately represent Asian Americans. Similarly, a political framework that was developed when African Americans were overwhelmingly the nation's most numerous minority does not fully capture the politics of Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry. As recent waves of non-European immigrants have required a broader conception of what it means to be an American, they have also made it necessary for political scientists to develop an expanded notion of the scope of minority politics.The distinct Characteristics of Asian Pacific-American (APA) politics have led to the formation of Asian Pacific American Caucus (APAC), an APSA-related group. APAC helps to bring together political scientists and other scholars who study APA politics.

Political observers have detected a noticeable uptick in American political incivility in recent years, culminating with several moderate senators recently citing the rise of hard-core partisanship as the reason for their retirement. Supporting these accusations of unprecedented incivility with empirical evidence can be difficult, as notions of what constitutes appropriate, civil behavior are subjective and can vary across the political context of different eras. Was it more uncivil, for example, for William Jennings Bryan to accuse his political opponents of crucifying other Americans on a cross of gold than it was for a member of Congress to yell “You lie!” at the president in the nation's Capitol? Assessing the incivility of these statements requires determining the effect each had on political opponents' abilities to maintain a functional relationship despite their disagreement over policy outcomes. Nevertheless, many politicians, political observers, and scholars are truly concerned that current levels of incivility are indeed worse, not only damaging the ability to resolve complex public problems, but threatening the long-term stability of America's governing institutions. Largely focusing on changes in institutional structures and elite behavior, scholars identify numerous explanations for this trend.

Social scientists' initial forays into the field of political socialization were directly linked to goals of creating good citizens beginning in childhood (Merriam 1931, 1934; Sears 1990; Wallas 1908). With the advent of behavioralism, however, researchers began viewing the study of political socialization as an end in itself (Ball 1995). The emphasis on objective, scientific analysis caused researchers to abandon participant observation, in-depth interviews, and classroom experiments, thus precluding the collection of interesting and valuable data that could be used to inform the development of civic education programs. Further, the dominant theoretical model assumed that political orientations are transmitted from family members and teachers to young people. This model led to rather sterile debates about which agent was the most influential, rather than to discussions about how agents might successfully inspire the development of democratic citizenship values in children and adolescents (Torney-Purta 1999).

Problems of theory and method, contradictory research findings, and evidence of the volatility of political orientations over time contributed to declining scholarly interest in the field of political socialization in the 1980s, especially investigations of preadults (Cook 1985; Merelman 1986). However, political socialization research is currently experiencing a renaissance sparked in part by concerns about citizenship education, of which service learning is an important component. Networks such as the APSA Task Force on Civic Education have been formed to unite educators and researchers. These networks allow for an unprecedented exchange of ideas linking academic inquiry and service learning.

This short article outlines why the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for the final 71 years of the twentieth century, not only lost the 2006 presidential election, but posted a miserable third place finish by taking only 22.7% of the national vote versus 36.7% for the winner, Felipe Calderón of the center-right National Action Party (PAN) and 36.1% for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). It also explains why, despite its recent electoral results, the once-hegemonic party will continue to play an important, but reduced political role: as a coalition partner with the governing PAN to create majorities in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Has the pandemic exacerbated gender inequality in academia? We provide real- time evidence by analyzing 1.8 million tweets from approximately 3,000 political scientists, leveraging their use of social media for career advancement. Using automated text analysis and difference-in-differences estimation, we find that although faculty members of both genders were affected by the pandemic, the shift to remote work caused women to tweet less often than their male colleagues about professional accomplishments. We argue that these effects are driven by the increased familial obligations placed on women, as demonstrated by the increase in family-related tweets and the more pronounced effects among junior academics. Our evidence demonstrating the gendered shift in professional visibility during the pandemic provides the opportunity for proactive efforts to address disparities that otherwise may take years to manifest.

This article presents the results from a survey of political science department chairs regarding the tenure procedures and standards at their colleges or universities. The findings reveal that only a small fraction of the colleges and universities in the United States refuse to offer tenure or are attempting to limit tenure. We also find general agreement regarding the standards for evaluating teaching and service and that research expectations vary according to the highest degree offered by a department.

Will President Obama lose votes in 2012 because of racial prejudice? For 2008, weestimated, via a carefully controlled, national survey-based study, that on balancehe lost about five percentage points in popular vote share due to intolerance forhis race on the part of some voters. What about 2012? There are at least threepossibilities: (1) the presidency has become postracial, and the vote will registerno racial cost; (2) intolerance has increased, and the vote will register anincreased racial cost; and (3) intolerance has decreased, and the vote will registera decreased racial cost. Our evidence, drawn from an analysis comparable to thatcarried out for 2008, suggests Obama will pay a racial cost of three percentagepoints in popular vote share. In other words, his candidacy will experience adecrease in racial cost, if a small one. In 2008, this racial cost denied Obama alandslide victory. In the context of a closer election in 2012, this persistentracial cost, even smaller in size, could perhaps cost him his reelection.

The special Senate election in Oregon, held during January 1996, was the first time in which a federal election was held using a vote-by-mail format. The purpose of this survey was to address most of the relevant issues and concerns involving vote-by-mail elections and to provide an assessment of this electoral method at a crucial time in the political process.