GREAT TRANSFORMATIONS: POLITICAL SCIENCE AND THE BIG QUESTIONS OF OUR TIME

Led by Conference Cochairs, Kimberly Morgan from the George Washington University and Deborah J. Schildkraut from Tufts University, the theme panels for this year’s meeting address transformative change, featuring scholars from across the discipline. Transformations can occur through sudden, dramatic upheavals—such as revolutions, regime collapse, or terrorist attacks—that are watersheds between old and new eras. Fundamental change may also be the cumulative result of slow-moving, incremental developments, as in global warming, rising inequalities, or changing social values. However and wherever these transformations occur they are imbued with politics, as political forces structure the nature, pace, and interpretation of change. Transformations may, in turn, profoundly alter the political landscape. Political scientists are uniquely equipped for providing insight into how institutions, policies, leaders, and citizens shape, and are shaped by, big transformations and for suggesting future actions and understandings that can meet the challenges brought by such transformations. Whether we tackle big transformations head on, or approach them through analysis of their component parts, political science is essential for uncovering why large-scale changes occur, how they come about, what they mean, and what new political challenges they present.

THEME PANELS

Find full panel details online at http://community.apsanet.org/annualmeeting/conference-program/theme-statement.

• • 20 Years after Welfare Reform

• • 30 Years After the Immigration Reform and Control Act

• • Advancing Philanthropic Scholarship: The Implications of Transformation

• • Affect, Polarization, and Partisan Identity

• • Contentious Politics and the Internet

• • Cyber and Conflict: Transformative Change or Status Quo Dynamics?

• • Data Access, Transparency, and Replication in Political Science

• • Elections, Parties, and Institutions in Africa

• • Environmental Governance Reconsidered: Challenges, Choices and Opportunities Mini-Conference

• • Forecasting the US Presidential and Congressional Elections

• • Gender Transformations

• • Global Governance: Stagnation or Transformation?

• • Great Transformations in Constitutional Law

• • Higher Education Disrupted: The Politics and Policies of Transformation

• • Judicial Networks

• • New Perspectives on “Sons of the Soil” conflict

• • Party System Nationalization: New Research Frontiers

• • Policing in Comparative Perspective: Police Violence, Corruption, and Democracy

• • Political Science and the Study of Climate Change

• • Political Theory and Political Transformation

• • Race and Citizenship After Ferguson

• • State Capacity, Strategies of Governance and Development

• • Technology Innovation in Research and Teaching

• • Terrorism and Political Transformations

• • The “Anxieties of Democracy”: Diagnoses and Prescriptions, Part 1

• • The 2015 Terror Attacks in Paris and the French Response

• • The Big Next Questions in Gender and Politics

• • The Deliberations on Qualitative Research Transparency

• • The Dynamics and Consequences of Partisan Polarization

• • The Rise of the Radical Right in Europe after the Migrant Crisis and Paris

• • The Slow Pace of Big Transformations in International Relations

• • Theorizing Borders: Considerations on the Dehumanizing Character of Borders

• • Theory Meets Crisis: What Does the Eurocrisis Say to Comparative Politics?

• • Transformations in Higher Education: Perspectives from Scholar-Practitioners

• • Transforming Marriage and Religion in American Political Thought

• • Transformations during Presidential Transitions: How Scholars Can Help

• • Unipolarity and the New World Order

• • Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Great Transformation in the Making

Top: Detail from the Liberty Bell. Bottom: The Liberty Bell stands on display across from Independence Hall. (Photos Courtesy of Drew Meadows)

ANNUAL MEETING WEBSITE

Linked from the Events menu on the APSA main website, http://community.apsanet.org/annualmeeting serves as the home of all APSA Annual Meeting details. Find panel dates, times, and more information in the online, interactive program before arriving in Philadelphia. Read about APSA’s brand-new, first electronic poster hall and our onsite iPoster kiosks! Find valuable travel information and fun things to do in our host city. The conference mobile app will launch in August, providing personal scheduling, event type sorting, division sorting, cross-event type keyword search functionality, interactive maps and exhibit hall floorplans, and colleague connections with in-app messaging.

Registration and hotel reservations may also be done through the conference website. August 8 is the deadline to book hotel rooms in the discounted blocks. Current APSA members receive lower registration rates, so we encourage nonmembers to consider joining to take advantage of reduced registration fees and other valuable services the association offers.

SHORT COURSES

Each year, on the Wednesday prior to the start of the Annual Meeting, APSA hosts half- and full-day short courses that provide opportunities for meeting attendees to enhance knowledge and reinvigorate teaching or research skills. Short courses are only open to registered Annual Meeting attendees and pre-registration is required. View details on the Annual Meeting website’s short course page: http://community.apsanet.org/annualmeeting/events/shortcourse.