Stephen Colbert hosts a comedy television program called The Colbert Report (the t at the end is silent—both of them!) in which he parodies personality-based news shows like The O'Reilly Factor that have become popular during the last 10 years. In an effort to make fun of these (usually conservative) personalities who engage in non-stop self-promotion, Colbert frequently trades outlandish claims for laughs. Among these is the claim that anyone who comes on the Report receives the “Colbert bump,” immediately vaulting the guest to stardom, fame, and fortune. Like Midas turning everything he touches to gold, Stephen Colbert can turn losers into winners, just by interviewing them on his show (but, ahem, he would 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.

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.

I argue in this paper that one possible way of addressing the critical issue of preparing students for their future role as citizens in a global society is to integrate active learning exercises such as case studies and problem-based learning scenarios that focus on international issues and events and significant global conditions. These provide an opportunity for students to practice the skills that are essential for participation in modern democratic societies. In this brief discussion paper, I present two very practical strategies for introducing students to global realities and exposing them to different cultural and ideological ways of “seeing the world.” Both strategies emphasize skills that are essential for analysis, evaluation and, eventually, problem-solving.

Political science, as a discipline, is a relative newcomer to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). We examine authorship patterns of SoTL articles in PS: Political Science & Politics, the Journal of Political Science Education, and International Studies Perspectives from 1998–2008. Our findings indicate more collaborative SoTL articles compared to non-SoTL teaching articles. Authorship patterns reveal a relatively high presence of women, assistant professors, and authors housed in Ph.D. and BA departments for SoTL publications. We conclude that SoTL constitutes an important new field of inquiry in the discipline that is likely to become more prominent as a younger cohort of scholars matures.

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.

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.

We propose that teaching critical thinking is the most important job of teachers in the political science profession. Yet political scientists rarely engage with one another about the specific assignments used to teach critical thinking. This article is the beginning of what we hope will become a dialogue on how to best teach students to think critically. We make a few recommendations for assignments that aim to make students think critically within the various political science methodologies: normative, interpretive, causal, and comparative analysis. We argue for a particular strategy in teaching critical thinking that reinforces students' abilities to recognize which kinds of arguments require which 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.

Because it is a slice of one's life as well as a method for gathering data and insights, and because it entails socio-cultural immersion and interpersonal trust, field research confronts political scientists with a special set of normative issues not encountered in libraries, laboratories, or home countries. This essay weighs four plausible yet fallible positions on the ethics of fieldwork overseas, with particular reference to American political science research in the Arabic-speaking world in the 21st century. I am raising questions I cannot really answer: specifically, amidst American military engagement and a good deal of spying by governments all around, can we, or ought we, practice scholarly detachment, reciprocity, activism, or, perhaps, espionage?

The response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has shown that even a serious public health crisis cannot escape the lens of partisanship. The literature shows that most Republicans have viewed the coronavirus as less serious than their Democratic counterparts. This study demonstrates that this partisan gap extends to the real behavior of the public during, and after, the coronavirus state lockdowns. Using location data from mobile phones, we find that county-level partisanship predicts compliance with state shutdown orders, even when controlling for local COVID-19 intensity. Further, the magnitude of this effect is stronger than that of other explanatory variables, such as age, education, and population density. These results show that partisan beliefs can affect behavior regarding issues that are not overtly political, even behaviors that could put one or others at risk.

All indications are that 2010 will be a very good year for Republicans. After two election setbacks, they are poised for a comeback. Partisanship, ideology, the midterm decline from the prior presidential surge, the partisanship of districts being defended, and even President Obama's approval ratings have set the stage for significant seat gains by Republicans in the House.

In recent issues of PS, American political and social scientists have been accused – by their colleagues – of subservience to the established order. Of equal concern to the profession should be the paradoxical plight of their Brazilian colleagues who, while pursuing much the same goals and utilizing many of the same techniques of inquiry, find themselves accused – by their government – of subversion, and very actively persecuted for this charge.

The following is a description of the situation of Brazilian social scientists since December 1968. Official censorship, self-imposed prudence and the understandable propensity for foreign journalists to concentrate on the more spectacular and horrifying aspects of Brazil's current regime, e.g. torture, assassination by “political police” or vigilante group, arbitrary arrest and loss of political rights by prominent politicians, make it difficult to obtain reliable documentation. Much of the information I gathered personally during a three week stay in Rio de Janeiro, Sāo Paulo and Pôrto Alegre in May of 1969. This has been updated with the help of Brazilian scholars resident in the United States. For obvious reasons I cannot recognize their efforts personally. I would, however, like to thank Mr. William Wipfler of National Council of the Churches of Christ and Professor Ralph Della Cava of Queens University who are preparing a comprehensive dossier on civil rights violations for proximate publication. Peter Bell, formerly with the Ford Foundation in Rio, has been particularly helpful with information and criticism.

One of the more entertaining pastimes during the presidential campaign is the “veepstakes,” or speculation about who the presidential nominee will select for a running mate. While much of this speculation occurs after the nomination has been decided (Alter 2004; Feldmann 2004; Kennedy 2004; Lehigh 2004; Starr 2004), speculation about the 2008 selections had begun as early as 2007 (Cain 2007; Klein 2007; Mackowiak 2007; Sanderson 2007). Most are grounded in a good understanding of what presidential candidates look for in a running mate, but one writer has not unfairly referred to the veepstakes as a “largely fact-free parlour game” (Harding 2004).