#MPSAchat
The Rise of New Trade Coalitions Under Global Value Chains
By: Hao Zhang The following blog post is a summary of the research that won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Best Paper in International Relations Award for research presented at the 2023 MPSA Annual Conference. The award recognizes the best paper on the topic of international……
Introducing “Parties, Politics, Peace: Electoral Inclusion as Peacebuilding”
by Carrie Manning, Ian O. Smith, Ozlem Tuncel The notion of liberal peacebuilding, the prevailing approach to international intervention to end civil war in the decades after the Cold War’s end, has fallen out of favor of late. But for the last thirty years, international peacebuilding efforts have…
U.S. States are Trying Political Scientist-Approved Voting Reforms. How's It Going?
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Most U.S. elections use plurality voting, in which the single candidate winning the most votes is elected, even if they fall short of a majority. If the election is partisan, chances are that the finalists were chosen in…
Reforming the Rhetoricians: Aristotle’s Underhanded Aim in the Rhetoric
By: Michael C. Hawley, University of Houston The following blog post is a summary of the research that won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Review of Politics Award for research presented at the 2023 MPSA Annual Conference. The award recognizes the best paper in normative political…
Dangerous Logic of Ambitions: Autocrats’ Quest for Historical Immortality
by Daria Blinova, PhD student, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware What do autocrats truly want? The theory of autocratic survival suggests that autocratic leaders aim to concentrate the power in their hands to maintain control over the society they…
Direct Election and Senate Representation
By: Gabriel Foy-Sutherland, University of Chicago; Daniel J. Moskowitz, University of Chicago; Jon C. Rogowski, University of Chicago The following blog post is a summary of the research that won the Midwest Political Science Association’s Patrick J. Fett Award for research presented at the 2023…
What’s the Matter with Thomas Frank?
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Earlier this month, Ohio voters voted to amend their state constitution to protect abortion rights, overturning a state law that banned abortion under most circumstances. Voters have also affirmed abortion rights in…
The Erosion of the Nuclear Taboo in Contemporary Global Discourse
by Daria Blinova, PhD student, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware Since times of the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II the international community has adhered to unwritten norms against the use of nuclear weapons.…
Fighting to Preserve the College Experience
by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University Where have all the posters gone? This past academic year, my colleagues and I experienced a major restructuring at Emporia State University. I have strong opinions on these events, but this is not the place for a…
The Challenges of Measuring Lethal Violence in Central America. An Interview with Laura Blume.
By Juan Corredor-Garcia, PhD student in political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York While Latin America represents only 9% of the global population, it is home of more than 30% of the homicides around the world. What explains these high levels of violence? Laura Blume,…