Conducting elite interviews presents well-documented challenges, often linked to dynamics that are influenced by researchers’ status. This aspect of positionality is sometimes characterized as “insider” or “outsider” status, but scholars have noted the lack of nuance in this rigid binary. Drawing on experiences during interviews with policy elites—primarily in England—this article describes the author’s “in-betweener” status and reviews four methodological considerations from this perspective, highlighting the challenges and opportunities associated with different points on the insider–outsider spectrum. These observations are meant to stimulate reflexivity among researchers regardless of their status.

Although much research confirms a gender gap in political science and its subfields internationally, only recently have scholars analyzed country-specific conditions for women within the field. Our study contributes to this national-level examination of gender diversity and inclusion by examining the extent to which a gender gap within the subfield of security studies, identified in the international literature, also is present in Canada. Research on gender representation and gendered experiences mostly centers on the academic workforce in the United States. However, in this article, we share the results of a multi-method investigation into the state of gender diversity in Canadian security studies—a national context in which the university sector has signaled a strong commitment to diversity and the government has actively promoted gender equality in official policy. By analyzing data collected from an online survey of security studies scholars in Canada and a document analysis of Canadian security-related journals and selected security studies syllabi, this contribution provides evidence that women are underrepresented in Canadian security studies and experience the subfield in less positive ways. We discuss the implications of these findings for the security studies subfield and suggest paths for future research and key recommendations.

“Gender ideology” rhetoric has diffused globally. Mobilized by a coalition of conservative actors, this discursive innovation helps to fuel the election of far-right politicians who scapegoat LGBTQ people, migrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and women as responsible for economic downturns as well as social and political disorder. This essay outlines the history and current landscape of gender ideology for political scientists and situates it in relation to the rise of far-right and authoritarian regimes globally. It builds on these political trends by concluding with a research agenda for scholars of LGBTQ politics to consider moving forward.

Drag has a long history in the LGBTQ community as a means of political engagement, activism, protest, and community building. Today, drag is popular in the LGBTQ community and in the rest of society. At the same time, it is routinely a target of conservative backlash against the LGBTQ community. Despite drag’s inherently political nature, political science has failed to engage substantially with the influence of drag. This article offers a justification and research agenda to bring drag into the mainstream of political science.

Whereas significant attention has been devoted to online/blended teaching and related tools, open GenAI chatbots and large language models and writing programs have received comparatively less attention as instruments that impact our teaching and assessment methods. The pedagogies of political science and international relations somehow trail behind in understanding and addressing them. For those who are teaching these subjects, it is of great importance to come to terms with AI and its impact on how we should assess students. This article describes an eight-week laboratory during which we experimented with and discussed ChatGPT’s utilizations with our students. The goal of the laboratory was to revise which type of learning objectives our teaching should have and which type of assessment methods are best suited for an environment in which GenAI is present and used regularly. Should we ban it or should we instead focus on teaching students how to use it responsibly and ethically, as well as developing a shared understanding of what GenAI is good for (if anything at all)? Consequently, which learning objectives and assessment methods should we adopt?

What undergirds the association between religious and political conservatism and “group-serving pronatalism”; that is, support for childbearing to advance social or political goals rather than for personal fulfillment? Although recent research suggests that Christian nationalism—reflecting a desire to formally privilege conservative Christian values and identity—strongly accounts for the link, previous studies have not inquired about specific group-serving reasons to have children. Analyses of nationally representative data affirm Christian nationalism (measured in two ways) as the strongest predictor of support for group-serving pronatalism; specifically, support for having children to reverse the nation’s declining fertility, perpetuate one’s religious or racial heritage, and secure influence for one’s political group. These associations are weakly or inconsistently moderated by indicators of traditionalism, conservatism, and race. Findings affirm support for having children to advance national, religious, racial, or political goals corresponds strongly with a desire to privilege a Christian national identity and social order.

The connection between populism and democracy is widely researched. Most of the literature focuses on populist actors (e.g., parties, leaders, and governments) as it examines the intricacies of this relationship. Some of the resulting takeaways have become embedded firmly in scholarship and are currently considered accepted knowledge across the discipline. Scholars have only recently started focusing on the individual-level relationship between populism and democracy. As a result, our knowledge remains limited and is often based on the assumption that what holds for populist actors also will hold for populist citizens. The first part of this article briefly reviews the state of the art on the individual-level relationship between populism and democracy. Drawing from this review, we identify several theoretical and empirical gaps and limitations in the literature that future research should address. We conclude that contemporary scholarship has made important contributions, but more nuanced and targeted research is necessary to comprehensively understand the intricacies between populism and democracy on the individual level.

This is the expanded written version of the James Madison Lecture delivered on September 6, 2024, at the APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. I grapple with the pressing question before us as social scientists and as citizens: How and why have US politics and governance arrived at the present juncture where long-standing constitutional practices and democratically responsive governance are very much at stake? My answer focuses on what I see as the prime driver of the current crisis: the recent radicalization of the Republican Party and its allies, as they have pursued two forms and phases of antidemocratic politics. The first version involves maximum use of legal hardball steps that stretch existing laws and rules to disadvantage partisan opponents (I also call this approach “McConnellism” in honor of its chief practitioner, outgoing GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky). The second approach targets political competitors and government operations with extralegal harassment, threats of violence, and even actual violence. Drawing on my own research with many collaborators, as well as from many excellent studies by colleagues in political science and beyond, I will dissect the elite and popular roots of recent Republican embrace of both forms of antidemocratic politics.

Populism’s effects on democracy after populists gain control of government (hereafter, populist incumbents) are some of the best theorized and documented consequences. The argument that populist incumbents threaten institutions of democratic contestation—and, less frequently, that they correct some aspects of political participation and representation—has been made from multiple approaches.1 Scholars and commentators often cite specific cases of populists harming democracy and, since 2016, several large-N studies have confirmed their negative impact. Specifically, studies repeatedly show the harmful effects of populist incumbents on civil liberties, including media freedom, horizontal accountability, and electoral integrity in both electoral and liberal democracies. Research has been less consistent in showing the positive consequences of populist incumbents, especially for democratic representation and political participation.

The rise of populism as a global phenomenon has captured the attention of scholars and raised concerns about its impact on democracy. Thanks to a growing academic consensus around an ideational definition of populism, one can observe the generation of important cumulative knowledge on the relationship between populism and democracy. Political science has been at the forefront of this development, and this symposium seeks to both offer state-of-the art information on this topic and discuss blind spots that future studies should try to address.

Pundits and academics alike are increasingly concerned about the health of democracy worldwide. Much of this concern is tied to the rise of populism, a global phenomenon presenting challenges to both long-established and relatively young democracies. Political science has been at the forefront of this debate, and thanks to a growing—but not universal—consensus on the ideational definition of populism, our understanding of the subject has deepened considerably. This symposium maps key debates on the complex and often ambivalent relationship between populism and democracy. In this concluding piece, we build on the arguments presented throughout the symposium and related academic discussions to outline two paths for future research on the populism and democracy nexus: a top-down and a bottom-up perspective.

Populism is both prolific and resilient. By now, populist forces around the globe have managed to enter the highest echelons of power (Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart 2016). It is no wonder that the contemporary academic debate has shifted its focus to exploring the consequences of populism in power, particularly its impact on democracy. Although populism and democracy are not synonymous, the representation of “the people” is a central claim to both. Most populism scholars agree that “all forms of populism without exception involve some kind of exaltation of and appeal to ‘the people’” (Canovan 1981, 94). However, depending on which democratic ideas are emphasized over others—as well as which political practices and structures are favored to institutionalize these ideas (Dahl 1991; Held 2006; Lijphart 2012)—the basic tenet of the “rule by the people” may have many different meanings.

When the impact of populism on liberal democracy is examined, the focus often is on populists in power. After all, when in office, populists have the possibility to change legislation, thereby negatively affecting individual freedoms and rights, and to transform the political system, often toward democratic decline and illiberalism (Pappas 2019; Ruth-Lovell and Grahn 2023).1 Far less attention has been devoted to populist parties in opposition, even though this is the position in which populists find themselves most frequently.2 Prominent examples of Western European populist parties with a decades-long position in opposition include the Rassemblement National in France and the Vlaams Belang in Belgium on the right and Die Linke in Germany and the Socialistische Partij in the Netherlands on the left. Outside of Western Europe, populist parties often have less longevity and more frequently assume office. However, many of these parties spend years in opposition before taking on government responsibility and/or have returned to the opposition benches afterwards (e.g., Partido Justicialista in Argentina and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość in Poland).

What should we do about populism? In recent years, this question has become more urgent as populist leaders and parties have taken center stage in many countries across the globe. No longer a “minor” political phenomenon, populism has forced scholars to grapple with how to address its potential “threat” to “liberal democracy while also harnessing its “corrective” properties (Rovira Kaltwasser 2012). In this debate, the two questions of who “we” are—that is, who should respond—and how to do it often have taken different forms.

Former president Trump has maintained broad support despite falsely contending that he was the victim of electoral fraud, also known as the “big lie.” We consider both the antecedents of this phenomenon and its consequences. We propose that Trump supporters’ already established deep personal alignment—identity fusion—with their leader predisposed them to believe the lie. Accepting it then set the foundation for other identity-protecting beliefs and attitudes. Using a three-wave panel of Trump supporters, we found that the more fused they were before the 2020 election, the stronger their belief in the big lie grew between 2021 and 2024. Accepting the big lie helped solidify fusion with Trump and had consequences for related attitudes. Belief in the big lie predicted downplaying the criminal charges against Trump and supporting his antidemocratic policy agenda. Fueled by and fueling further fusion, belief in the big lie is a primary component of a larger narrative that emboldens Trump and justifies antidemocratic behavior.

Is political science research that explores gender and LGBTQIA+ politics still underrepresented in the discipline’s top journals? This article examines publication trends in gender research and LGBTQIA+ research in five top political science journals, between 2017 and 2023 (inclusive). I find that gender research and LGBTQIA+ research together account for 5% to 7% of published research in the selected top journals; however, most of this research is on gender politics rather than LGBTQIA+ politics. Overall, gender research and LGBTQIA+ research largely appears in top journals when it conforms to disciplinary norms about methods and author gender. The majority of published gender and LGBTQIA+ research is quantitative. Men author gender research at rates almost three times their membership in the American Political Science Association’s Women, Gender, and Politics research section and also are overrepresented as authors of LGBTQIA+ research. This study suggests that editorial teams’ signaling influences which manuscripts land at which journals.

How can political science scholars use visualization and mapping tools to refine the development of research on complex theoretical concepts? Literature mapping, a powerful method commonly used in the natural sciences to visualize scientific landscapes, is not yet widely used in political science. This study illustrates the capabilities of this method by analyzing visual maps of academic research on the term “organizing” in the context of political action. We describe our multistep methodological approach for generating the maps and demonstrate how they can be analyzed to produce insights about themes, potential gaps, canonical literature, and levels of dialogue across research areas. We conclude by outlining future research possibilities generated by this study’s literature mapping approach.

Today, few political news outlets receive universally favorable evaluations from the American public. In retaining broad public approval, local media remain a notable exception that is important to understand. We consider the durability of local news trust to criticism from politicians, focusing on Republican elites because they generally are more willing to attack the media than Democrats. In a survey experiment, we find that exposure to a Republican politician’s attack on a local newspaper dramatically reduces the public’s trust in and intent to use local news. This attack is particularly effective among Republicans, although it also leads Democrats and Independents to negatively shift their views of the local newspaper. Among those exposed to elite criticism of local news, overall trust and partisan divides between Republicans and Democrats resemble those for national media. This shows that the credibility of local news depends on the absence of elite criticism rather than resilience to it.

The Indigenous data sovereignty movement has arisen out of the ambition of Indigenous peoples to benefit from data-informed policy while preventing extractive and harmful research practices by external governments or researchers. Tribes exercise the sovereign authority to choose whether and when to share data with researchers and institutions outside their communities. To provide insight into how Indigenous peoples feel about data sharing, we document meaningful variation in a unique, nationwide survey of Native Americans. We find that respondents support their tribes in sharing data for economic benefit and that those who vote in tribal elections are particularly supportive. As tribal leaders, Native communities, and external research partners address potentially harmful data gaps and build Indigenous data resources, our findings suggest the importance of carefully considering and communicating the purpose of data collection and sharing. Broad benefit to Indigenous peoples’ economic well-being is one factor that likely increases support for data sharing.

Many important questions in political science require the use of human-coded data or information that has been systematically ordered and quantified by a human being from qualitative sources. This article discusses challenges and recent innovations in collecting and documenting human-coded data. We review five datasets produced within the past 10 years and also reflect on our experiences in collecting a quarterly dataset that tracked state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that scholars can deliberately produce and publish theoretically grounded human-coded data in an accessible format that promotes transparency, traceability, and readability. We highlight several ways that scholars are already doing this, including narratives, source lists, and coding justifications that enhance the quality of their human-coded datasets. We also discuss common issues during coding and how technological innovation through interactive web-based platforms can improve the documentation of coding decisions.