MPSA Blog
Georgia’s New Voting Laws Meet Political Science
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Controversy swirls around Georgia’s new voting laws, along with similar ones in Florida, Texas, and several other states. Passed ostensibly to control voting fraud in the wake of the huge vote-by-mail turnout last year,…
Their economic pain, our emotional gain: Can schadenfreude motivate responses to redistributive policies?
By Hannah Nam, Samuel Jens, and Yanna Krupnikov New Jersey is one of the first states expected to adopt a “millionaires tax” that raises taxes on those who make over a million dollars a year. In announcing the new policy, the state’s governor, Phil Murphy, stated, “We do not hold any grudge at all…
NHA's Newest Resource Provides Strategies for Making the Case for the Humanities on Campus
By Scott Muir, Study the Humanities project director In the context of the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread decline in humanities majors and enrollments precipitated by the last recession, faculty and administrators across the humanities are redoubling their efforts to…
Biased? Sure. Lying, no.
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Accusations that the news media are biased are now so common as to become cliché. Undoubtedly, the media are biased. In fact, bias is inevitable in human decision making. Unfortunately, one of the greatest political…
Trends in the Publicly Engaged Humanities in the Pandemic Moment
By Michelle May-Curry, Humanities for All project director At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many humanists set out to document the quickly worsening global health crisis. As the months progressed, a summer fueled by national protests against police violence and immigrant detention made…
The ICPSR Summer Program: Furthering Great Research and Inspiring Great People
By: Scott Campbell, ICPSR Summer Program Communications Coordinator The ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research started in 1963, and we’ve been called many things since then. Many know us as simply “ICPSR” or “the Summer Program,” and others (hopefully) fondly call our…
QAnon: The Conspiracy Theory Behind the Capitol Seizure
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University On January 6, followers of former President Trump stormed and seized the United States Capitol, temporarily halting the certification of electoral votes. Photos and news accounts of the event point to a popular…
Keeping an Eye on the Map, Notes from Central Eastern Europe
by Raluca Viman-Miller, Assistant Professor, University of North Georgia Nowadays we are completely overtaken by the COVID-19 global pandemic and our focus seems to almost exclusively be on counting infections, comparing rates of evolution or devolution of the disease and following on the good, and…
The Institute for Humane Studies - Working for You
Submitted by The Institute for Humane Studies When you think of the role of academia in society, what comes to mind? Perhaps you envision broader, intellectual discourse, or the civil exchange of ideas? It might be that you’re interested in how philosophy, politics, and economics are interwoven to…
Voter Fraud or Voter Suppression? Using Political Science to Evaluate Competing Claims
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University This year’s contentious political climate has escalated a longstanding, partisan dispute over election laws and their enforcement. Led by President Trump, Republicans are sounding the alarm about possible voter fraud,…