Political Science Research Articles

Civilizing Russia's “Barbarous Kingdom”

Abstract The Hulu series The Great, an ahistorical satire of the eighteenth-century Russian Empire, set at the courts of Peter III and Catherine II, doubles as a critique of contemporary politics and culture. Created for Anglophone audiences with little knowledge of history, but aware of stereotypes of Russia as a despotic, dysfunctional backwater, the show's appeal rests on the love-hate relationship between Peter the bro-emperor and the “girlboss” empress Catherine, as well as the expectation that Catherine, ultimately, will “have-it-all.” This article examines the gender dynamics structuring Peter's and Catherine's narrative arcs and argues that Catherine's trajectory from naïve, self-declared enlightened European princess to skilled, pragmatic ruler undermines Peter's attempt to liberate himself from an outdated model of masculinity.

Partisanship and the Pandemic: How and Why Americans Followed Party Cues on COVID-19.

The United States underperformed its potential in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using original survey data from April 2020 to March 2022, we show that political partisanship may have contributed to this inconsistent response by distinguishing elites and citizens who took the crisis seriously from those who did not. This division was not inevitable; when the crisis began, Democrats and Republicans differed little in their viewpoints and actions. However, partisans increasingly diverged when their preferred political leaders provided them with opposing cues. We outline developments in party politics over the last half-century that contributed to partisan division on COVID-19, most centrally an anti-expertise bias among Republicans. Accordingly, Republicans' support for mitigation measures, perception of severity of COVID-19, and support for vaccines gradually decreased after the initial outbreak. Partisan differences also showed up at the state level; Trump's vote share in 2016 was negatively associated with mask use and positively associated with COVID-19 infections. Diverging elite cues provided fertile ground for the partisan pandemic, underscoring the importance of political accountability, even in an era of polarization.

The Influence of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev’s Work on the Economic, Cultural, and Spiritual Development of Kazakhstan in the Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century

The significance and relevance of the issues are predetermined by the fact, that, by the time of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev’s activity, the political and social situation of Kazakhstan in the early 20th century was on the verge of collapse. The main factor that influenced this situation was the policy of spreading illiteracy, people alienated from religion language, and writing. From the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kazakhstan suffered from the colonial policies of the Russian Empire. Currently Kudaiberdiev writes a work “Catechism of Muslims”. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the consequences of the creative work on the economic and spiritual and cultural development of Kazakhstan. During the analysis, several scientific sources and materials were analyzed, and the following scientific methods were used: structural-functional and dialectical methods, the method of synthesis, logical and comparative analysis, and the method of generalization. During the research, it was proved that in the works of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev the calls to fight against the policy of tsarist Russia and to revive their language, customs, religion, and history were present. The main result of this research is proof that the works of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev had a tremendous impact on the social status, culture, religion, and language of the Kazakh people. His works acted in opposition to Russian policy and encouraged people who were tired of colonial oppression. The research on this issue is actively developed, therefore this work is of practical value for the definition of the role of Shakarim’s creativity during the economic, cultural, social, and political development of Kazakhstan at the end of 19 – the beginning of 20 century.

Deep learning based Election Results Prediction using Twitter Data

Abstract: This project presents an intelligent system political sentiment analysis with information from Twitter. . The system utilizes deep learning techniques, specifically a BiLSTM model featuring an attention mechanism, to predict the political affiliation (BJP or Congress) of tweets. The data preprocessing involves cleaning text, data augmentation, tokenization, and indexing. A dataset is used to train the model. consisting of tweets from both parties, getting very accurate results in predicting the sentiment of tweets. Additionally, the software offers functionality for data visualization, including displaying sample tweets, sentiment analysis results, and the winning party. Additionally, an admin page is available for further customization and management. Overall, this project the possibilities of Using deep learning to analyze sentiment of political content on social media data.

Integration, supranational authority, and human rights

ABSTRACT Ernst Haas was intrigued by the possibility that international governance could promote peace and stability. International human rights regimes are one such system of governance. Haas was the first political scientist to analyse closely, in his 1970 book, an international body for the adjudication of human rights claims. He concluded that the ILO mechanism for hearing claims was ineffective because states largely failed to implement its rulings. Today, three regional human rights courts receive a growing number of petitions and routinely find that states have violated rights contained in the applicable regional and international treaties. Integration in the domain of human rights courts can be tracked along three axes: vertical incorporation of international human rights into national law; horizontal integration as the regional courts pay attention to and cite each other; and effectiveness, evaluated here in terms of state compliance with judgments. The empirical discussion focuses on these dimensions and their development in three functioning regional human rights courts. Linkages across the regional courts have expanded, producing a global human rights commons. But as Haas might have predicted, the degree to which democracy has taken root in a region conditions the effectiveness of its human rights court.

Civically engaged research in political science: a methodological guide

ABSTRACT In political science, there are growing calls for scholarship to engage directly and equitably with communities and other research stakeholders. We build on, and advance, this emerging methodological literature by revisiting the conventional research process, and provide an adaptable guide scholars can use to develop and undertake a collaborative and civically engaged research project. We outline key considerations and decisions to be made at each step of the process when undertaking civically engaged research, provide a menu of options for how scholars can engage with research stakeholders at each step, and demonstrate these options with examples from real-world applications. In addition, we discuss the current and potential impacts of CER on the larger discipline of political science. This article aims to serve as a useful guide for scholars interested in developing a civically engaged project and as a resource for broadening the training students and scholars receive in research methods.

The Increasing Nationalization of Local Elections: The Case of Prosecutors

To what extent are local races across the country being increasingly driven by politics at the national level? In this article, we examine the nationalization of elections for state executive branches' primary front line legal actors in the criminal courts—local prosecutors. We seek to better understand the factors influencing prosecutor election outcomes and why these types of elections have become more nationalized in recent years. More specifically, we aim to evaluate what effect this greater nationalization has had on the electoral fates of incumbent prosecutors seeking re-election. To date, there is a paucity of scholarship on prosecutor election outcomes within political science despite their importance historically and in light of recent events. This article seeks to fill an important gap in our understanding of what drives prosecutor elections in the United States. More broadly, we believe this research helps us better understand how even these local elections can be impacted by national events.

The 11th: Politics, Polarization, and Partisan Change in a Southern District, 1972–2022

Abstract What can be learned from analysis of a single congressional district? This paper uses the experience of North Carolina’s 11th congressional district to understand the political changes that have defined the last half-century in the American South. The story of how this once politically inconsequential southern Appalachian district found itself in the middle of the national political maelstrom is, in many ways, the story of southern politics over the last three decade. Political polarization, strategic gerrymandering, the power of national political tides, the increasing urban/rural divide and the broader partisan transformation of the South that has remade American politics all are reflected in the 11th. In addition to uncovering new wrinkles in the story of southern partisan change, this paper defines and highlights the advantages of place-based Political Science.

Process Tracing for applied linguistics

A key mission of many applied linguists is to understand how language-related processes work. The inner workings of a process can be explained by theorizing about the underlying causal mechanism that enables the process to unfold and evidencing the mechanism with empirical material. However, the methodological repertoire of applied linguistics is limited in this regard. Thus, we step outside of our field-specific literature and showcase Process Tracing, a family of qualitative, within-case research methods often used in political science to trace causal mechanisms. We describe Process Tracing's key tenets that are applicable to most variations. We then refer specifically to the systems understanding of Process Tracing. This variation views mechanisms as systems with interlocking parts. Each part is theorized to transmit causal force from a hypothesized cause to an outcome. Our concentrated focus enables us to provide specific recommendations for researchers looking to maximize the method's practical explanatory power without over-formalizing its procedures. As such, our coverage bridges the gap between broad introductions to Process Tracing currently available in applied linguistics and an increasingly technical literature found elsewhere. We also provide a preliminary state-of-the-art review of studies that have claimed to use Process Tracing in applied linguistics, often to very different ends. Finally, we demonstrate how we have applied the systems understanding of Process Tracing in one of our own studies as a methodological exemplar. We conclude with a call for researchers to explore the affordances of Process Tracing alongside us as we adapt it for future use in applied linguistics.

The Impact of Infrastructure: Considerations of Generative AI in the Classroom

How are we to grapple with the increasing intrusion of technology in the classroom? What considerations need to be addressed before we begin bringing advanced technological systems like ChatGPT into our classroom spaces? A close attention to the infrastructural elements at play within the development and usage of AI gives us a better understanding of what is at stake when we bring AI into the classroom. The social and environmental impacts of AI, in particular, are often overlooked in new technological tools, especially ones that are supposed to frictionlessly improve our lives. Ultimately instructors need to balance the potential benefits and drawbacks of using forms of generative AI in the classroom and have a clear view of the impact of their decisions. For Political Science instructors, the impacts of AI may provide new teaching opportunities as well.

To Report or Not to Report on Research Ethics in Political Science and International Relations: A New Dimension of Gender-Based Inequality

To Report or Not to Report on Research Ethics in Political Science and International Relations: A New Dimension of Gender-Based Inequality

Care ethics and critical friends: feminist research practice as an insider/outsider

Building upon its development in educational scholarship, feminist scholars have incorporated the concept of ‘critical friend’ into their methodologies. Within political science, feminists have articulated critical friendship as relational research praxis, applying the concept to relationships between feminist academics and gender experts in institutions. We bring this research into conversation with feminist care ethics, asking how commitments to care ethics interact with commitments to being a ‘critical friend’ in feminist political science research. Based on interviews with feminist researchers, we argue that care is intrinsic to feminist research and underpins friendship. Whether or not it is explicitly articulated, the concept of ‘critical friend’ carries assumptions about the centrality and practice of care. These findings suggest that feminist scholars need to surface care explicitly in methodological discussions and articulate caring strategies, including self-care. Such surfacing must include acknowledging care as a source of depletion and nourishment, as well as fundamentally political.

Taiwan’s Contested Survival in an Era of Shrinking Globalization

Hitherto renowned for its economic and political development, Taiwan has lately come under a harsher spotlight as a possible victim of invasion based on an analogy to Ukraine. Yet, Taiwan is also challenged by a slew of other problems too long neglected. These environmental, industrial, agricultural, demographic, trade, and economic security problems altogether form a “polycrisis” that makes it difficult to solve one set of problems without aggravating the others, and the democratic electoral process has unfortunately so far been unable to table a comprehensive “polysolution.”

An Analysis of Political Identity Development in State Forest Advisory Groups

An Analysis of Political Identity Development in State Forest Advisory Groups

Poland: Political Developments and Data in 2023

Poland: Political Developments and Data in 2023

The Contrasts between Traditional and Modern Diplomacy

Throughout history, diplomacy has been served as a means of creating and managing connections between nations, addressing requirements, and resolving a range of political, economic, social, and cultural issues. It is an axiom that the organization and establishment of states in ancient times differed from the structure of contemporary states. Hence, the nature of their interactions, diplomatic strategies and the appointment of representatives and their roles in foreign countries are entirely distinct from those of the past time. In the past, state diplomacy was temporary, confidential, conducted between two parties, and solely aimed at resolving political issues. Following the Treaty of Westphalia and the subsequent formation of the nation-state system, diplomacy has evolved into its contemporary form. This transformation has been influenced by the advent of modern technology and the proliferation of information and communication tools, which have significantly impacted various facets of human life at both national and international levels. Consequently, there has been a fundamental shift in the nature, scope, participants, objectives, influential factors, and operational mechanisms of diplomacy and diplomatic interactions among nations. This study aims to examine the topic of political science, with a specific focus on international relations professionals. It seeks to explore the distinctions between historical and contemporary diplomacy and to provide a comprehensive and effective response to this inquiry.

A political economy analysis of changes and continuities in Iran–Africa trade relations: a case of South–South dependency?

This paper provides a political economy analysis of the bilateral trade relations and patterns of exchange that existed between Iran and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1962 to 2021. The paper contributes to the growing literature on Iran–Africa relations by empirically delineating not just the changes, but also the continuities between Iran and its African trading partners before and after the Iranian Revolution. It also adds nuance to the broader scholarship on South–South cooperation by showing the disparity between the rhetoric of South–South solidarity and reciprocity between Iran and SSA, on one side, and their low and fluctuating trade volumes, on the other. These volumes resulted from historical inertia or path dependency and structural factors, including trade complementarities and geopolitical conditions, more than demographic, cultural, or religious realities. They were also shaped by the agency and decision-making of Iranian and African leaders and officials regarding the extent to economically engage with each other.

Peers Influence on Youth Political Behavior: A Systematic Review

Youth political behaviour plays a crucial role in shaping the democratic system of a country. Several factors, such as socio-economic status, employment opportunities, and educational background, have been extensively studied in relation to their impact on youth political behaviour. However, there is a deficiency in systematic reviews specifically focusing on the influence of peers on youth political behavior. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a systematic review of relevant studies from the Web of Science, Scopus, SpringerLink, and ProQuest databases. In total, 30 studies were identified through comprehensive search terms such as “peer influence”, “youth”, “political knowledge”, and “political behavior”. Through this review, four key themes emerged: (1) political knowledge, (2) group discussion, (3) peer pressure, and (4) identity development. The findings highlight the significance of identity development and peer pressure as the most influential factors shaping youth political behaviour. By adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, this review encompasses studies conducted in various countries without any geographical restrictions. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of how peers influence the political behaviour of youth can provide leaders and policymakers with crucial insights for encouraging knowledgeable peer networks.

The political implications of state neutrality as a range concept

ABSTRACT The idea that the state ought to be neutral towards different conceptions of the good life has been an influential principle in liberal theory since the 1970s. It has, however, been subject to criticism by communitarians, multiculturalists and liberal perfectionists. Recently, Peter Balint has attempted to defend state neutrality against its liberal critics as the adequate interpretation of the liberal project by redefining it as a range concept. By arguing that neutrality always occurs within a specific range of permissible conceptions of the good life, Balint provides a convincing rebuttal of neutrality’s critics. In this paper I argue that while neutrality as a range concept provides an adequate account of state neutrality, it also makes it vulnerable to a new line of critique. Since the range of neutrality cannot be deduced from the principle of neutrality itself, neutrality is subject to political developments beyond its own control. I will start by clarifying the notion of neutrality as a range concept. Secondly, I will demonstrate that Balint’s notion of the range concept finds ample support in the wider literature on neutrality. Thirdly, I will argue that, as a range concept, neutrality ultimately depends on politically constituted value judgments.

Political scientists' Track II diplomacy: the International Political Science Association and Cross-Strait relations

Abstract The International Political Science Association (IPSA) is a unique case against the common perception that Beijing has the upper hand when the two regimes by the Taiwan Strait contest to join international (non-governmental) organisations. Beijing relentlessly pushes international organisations to acknowledge the One China principle; Taipei also relentlessly denies this principle while it seeks to join. In the 1980s, Chinese and Taiwanese political scientists, representing their own regimes, applied Track II diplomacy to compete over membership of this organisation. IPSA membership mattered to both regimes and their political scientists. After many years of Track II competition, The Chinese Association of Political Science in Taipei became a “collective” member without compromising on how to name itself in April 1989. As a result, Beijing's counterpart withdrew from the IPSA. This situation has now persisted for over thirty years. The IPSA case not only challenges the current understanding of Cross-Strait relations but also throws light on the theoretical understanding of Track II diplomacy.