Data access and research transparency (DA-RT) is a growing concern for the discipline. Technological advances have greatly reduced the cost of sharing data, enabling full replication archives consisting of data and code to be shared on individual websites, as well as journal archives and institutional data repositories. But how do we ensure that scholars take advantage of these resources to share their replication archives? Moreover, are the costs of research transparency borne by individuals or by journals? This article assesses the impact of journal replication policies on data availability and finds that articles published in journals with mandatory provision policies are 24 times more likely to have replication materials available than articles those with no requirements.

The central theme of this PS symposium is that political consultants are important in politics, that they have an impact on campaigns and elections. This is not news to political consultants or candidates running for office. Candidates and consultants know they need each other and the rapid growth and diversification of the profession reveals that sense of interdependence (see Thurber 1995). Though professional political consulting outside of political party organizations has been around since the 1930s, it has only recently sparked interest among political scientists. Why have consultants been ignored by political scientists? Why have consultants ignored political scientists (see Thurber and Nelson 1995)? Why is there little or no theory related to political consultants? Why do we know so little about the profession of political consultants? What subfield houses the study of political consulting: elections and voting behavior, political parties, political communications, political advertising, campaign management?

Political scientists have studied campaigns, elections, and political parties from a variety of views and methodologies, but few have focused on political consultants and their influence. Political campaigns are efforts to win elections to public office by informing the voters of a candidate's issue positions, by persuading the electorate to vote for a candidate, by activating partisans, and by mobilizing supporters. Election campaigns are combats over ideas and ways to persuade groups of voters to support those ideas. Studies have treated campaigns as symbolic events, as propaganda activities with the power to change voter preferences, and as a determinant variable in elections, but there is little consensus among political scientists about the role consultants play in campaigns.

In November 1993, 100 years after becoming the first nation to enfranchise women, New Zealand again made electoral reform history as its citizens voted by a 54–46 margin to replace their venerable, U.S.-style first-past-the-post (FPP) method of electing legislators with a new mixed-member proportional (MMP) system. Political scientists in the United States and elsewhere may find New Zealand's decision instructive in six ways:

• as a harbinger of a wider movement toward electoral reform in established democracies and of a global trend toward mixed-member legislatures;

• as a demonstration of how constitutional reform can overcome entrenched interests;

• as a symptom of political backlash against the imposition of orthodox economic policies of the sort advocated by the IMF and other international agencies;

• as a partial repudiation of the Westminster model that U.S. reformers have often taken as their ideal;

• as the source of a new method of ensuring fair and effective representation for a minority ethnic group; and

• as an example of how political scientists can play influential roles as institutional designers and public educators.

Traditional writing assignments only teach students to write for academic settings. Assigning students policy briefs and policy memos gives them the opportunity to practice the type of writing they will perform both inside and outside of academia while still developing critical thinking skills and an understanding of the political world. Including policy-style writing assignments in the curriculum teaches undergraduates the skills demanded by their future employers, helps future academics learn how to write grant and conference proposals, offers students practice at the highest levels of Bloom's taxonomy of learning, hones synthesis and analysis, teaches students to be client-oriented, and makes students more effective citizens.

Researchers often want to increase the broader societal impact of their work. One way to do that is to discuss research findings directly with practitioners. Yet, such interactions are voluntary and do not regularly arise, which raises a key demand question: Under what conditions do practitioners want to connect with researchers? This article shows that relational considerations affect these decisions—that is, what practitioners expect the interaction will be like. I partnered with a US-based civic association to conduct a field experiment. I find that group leaders in this association are more likely to speak with researchers after learning that the researchers will (1) efficiently share information during the interaction, and (2) value practitioners’ knowledge. The results provide actionable guidance for how researchers should approach practitioners and also demonstrate one powerful way that social science evidence can inform efforts to bridge research and practice.

During their time at university, political science students frequently only learn to write for the academic setting. However, not all students will come to work in academia, nor do they want to. When entering the job market, they often do not have the writing skills that are demanded by potential employers and have to learn them “on the fly.” Simulating cooperative policy-writing processes in the classroom not only gives students the opportunity to acquire these skills, but also helps them make important connections between the theory taught in the classroom and the “real-life” policy-making process. Using the practical example of a policy paper-writing simulation, this article illustrates how posing a policy-writing challenge from the field of foreign policy making can equip students with a grasp on theories of policy making, their practical application, and policy writing as a practical skill.

Previous research indicates that undergraduate research activities promote student-faculty collaborations and have a positive impact on students, faculty, and institutions. A review of 13 active undergraduate political science journals indicates that these publications take a variety of approaches in format, frequency, and submission requirements. Further, a survey of undergraduate political science journal editors shows that the role of students and faculty and the sources of support for journal publication vary considerably. Finally, case studies of the undergraduate journal experience at three different institutions suggest that political science journals promote student engagement and student-faculty collaboration.

Stephen Colbert hosts a comedy television program called The Colbert Report (the t at the end is silent—both of them!) in which heparodies personality-based news shows like The O'Reilly Factor that havebecome popular during the last 10 years. In an effort to make fun of these (usuallyconservative) personalities who engage in non-stop self-promotion, Colbert frequently tradesoutlandish claims for laughs. Among these is the claim that anyone who comes on the Report receives the “Colbert bump,” immediately vaulting the guest tostardom, fame, and fortune. Like Midas turning everything he touches to gold, StephenColbert can turn losers into winners, just by interviewing them on his show (but, ahem, hewould never actually interview a loser now would he?).

The rejection of manuscripts by journals is clearly the norm in the social sciences. For example, in 1976 about 700 manuscripts were submitted to the American Economic Review and more than 500 were rejected; the American Sociological Review rejected more than 500 of about 600 submitted; and of the 525 manuscripts reviewed by the American Political Science Review, almost 500 were rejected. To be sure, these are the top journals in their disciplines; but other respectable journals display the same pattern for that year: the Southern Economic Journal turned down well over 400 of the 500 manuscripts received; the Social Science Quarterly rejected about 425 of the almost 500 received; and the American Journal of Political Science received about 320 and rejected 270. That a perusal of the editorial reports of other journals would yield comparable findings is documented by a survey of 72 economics journals which collectively reported a rejection rate of 77 percent.

Students of the judiciary have long been concerned with the factors that contribute to decision-making at the individual and institutional levels. In particular, analysts have focused a great deal of attention on the Supreme Court and the behavior of its members. Despite this attention, analysts have differed as to the relative influence of the factors justices rely upon when making their decisions. Even the courses taught in a standard political science undergraduate curriculum send mixed signals about these factors to students. Basic constitutional law courses tend to overestimate the role of doctrinal interpretation and precedent and underestimate the impact of the values and attitudes of the Court's members. Courses on the judicial process and politics err in the opposite direction.

When the decision-making literature is viewed as a whole, five basic determinants of judicial decisions emerge: the background of the justice (Tate 1981), the justice's attitudes and values (Rohde and Spaeth 1976), the dynamics inherent in small-groups (Murphy 1964; Woodward and Armstrong 1979), the member's conception of the role of the Court (Howard 1977), and the impact of external stimuli (Casper and Posner 1974). Some of these variables can be measured, but some are very difficult to gauge. As a consequence, analysts cannot accurately assess the relative impact of these five factors upon the individual's decision.

Women are underrepresented among political science faculty and leave academic careers at far greater rates than their male colleagues. Women’s lower research productivity is one reason for the declining number of women in advanced academic ranks. Mentoring can provide necessary advice and feedback to encourage scholarly production, but research shows that female scholars face challenges in traditional mentoring arrangements. We propose that peer mentoring can provide a missing link by supporting research productivity. Using a case study of an existing peer-mentoring group, we document how writing groups can provide flexible mechanisms for peer mentoring that circumvent the obstacles women face with mentoring and complement existing mentoring relationships. We discuss the structure of this group—as well as a survey-based assessment of it—to demonstrate how this approach can be readily adopted by other women in the profession who seek to expand their network of mentors to include peers in their subfield.

Surveys indicate that there is more interest today in politics amongcollege students than has been the case in the recent past. Thisarticle describes a multidisciplinary freshman seminar aimed atusing that interest to promote student engagement and the Reactingto the Past simulations at the course's center.

One of the key challenges of teaching a college survey course such as introductory American government is the lack of interest on the part of students, many of whom take the course to satisfy a general-education requirement. Recognizing that young people are fascinated by video games, the author devised a governance simulation built on the popular computer game SimCity. Although the video-game industry designed these sophisticated simulations to be played by a single participant rather than a large group, the author created a simple set of rules that allows students to run them collectively. This article examines five factors for which an instructor must account if games such as SimCity are to have educational value. The author argues that, if conducted properly, this type of in-class exercise provides a fun and interesting way to teach students about the inherent challenges of governing in a democracy.

We propose that teaching critical thinking is the most important jobof teachers in the political science profession. Yet politicalscientists rarely engage with one another about the specificassignments used to teach critical thinking. This article is thebeginning of what we hope will become a dialogue on how to bestteach students to think critically. We make a few recommendationsfor assignments that aim to make students think critically withinthe various political science methodologies: normative,interpretive, causal, and comparative analysis. We argue for aparticular strategy in teaching critical thinking that reinforcesstudents' abilities to recognize which kinds of arguments requirewhich kinds of evidence.

Nine secondary teachers who were taught to use one model of deliberation, Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) (Johnson and Johnson 1979), were matched with nine teachers in their schools who taught similar grade levels and subjects. Teachers in the Deliberation Classes engaged students in three deliberations across six months. Deliberations focused on current public issues, such as whether violent juvenile offenders should be tried as adults. Five of the nine classroom pairs were analyzed using both pre- and post-questionnaires. There were no statistically significant differences in the pre- and post-questionnaire responses of students in the Deliberation Classes (n = 244) and Comparison Classes (n = 249) in terms of self-reported issue knowledge. Variance in student opinion in the Deliberation Classes showed a significant decrease. Students in the Deliberation Classes (n = 297) demonstrated greater perspective-taking abilities than students in the Comparison Classes (n = 238). Within classes, diversity of opinion regarding issues was evident.