Anti-LGBTQ+ narratives are deployed by extremist groups with contrasting ideologies, from Jihadis to right-wing extremists and QAnon to Incels (involuntary celibates). Using these different movements as case studies, this article highlights the convergence of ideologically conflicting extremist organizations around antiqueer sentiment. Given the enhanced vulnerability of LGBTQ+ populations, fueled by politically charged rhetoric, this article makes an appeal for more research to explore and analyze narratives through a scholarly lens and link queer issues to current debates in the study of terrorism and political violence. Research should focus on the experiences of queer populations within conflicts abroad and experiences of domestic extremism in the United States. Without adequate attention given to the experiences of LGBTQ+ victims, it is impossible to develop protocols for trauma-informed care for vulnerable populations.

Political science was once silent about—and for many decades continued to be slow to address—LGBTQ+ politics as a topic worthy of scholarly research. One of the longest-standing gaps in the literature has been the lack of work that was pioneered by Ken Sherrill: research that centers LGBTQ+ people and politics as subjects, rather than objects, of study. Here I make the case for sustained scholarly attention to LGBTQ+ political behavior and discuss how quantitative empirical research in this vein is more feasible than ever before. I then provide an example of what is possible today with analyses of the 2022 Cooperative Election Study (CES), a large representative sample survey (complete case N = 45,240; LGBTQ+ N = 5,213) that includes questions about respondents’ sexual and gender identities. The analyses reveal several discoveries about LGBTQ+ people’s political behavior and lived experiences, including that they are no more politically engaged than the typical American, are in much poorer health than any other group, and belying stereotypes, are not of higher socioeconomic status than other Americans. A spatial representation of groups’ positions on the US political landscape shows that LGBTQ+ people are relatively distant from other groups, indicating that they may struggle to find natural coalition partners because of lack of shared interests.

We collected data on every tenure-track (TT) faculty member in the 122 PhD-granting political science departments in the United States to identify which graduate programs place faculty members in our discipline’s research universities. The top 20% of departments produced 75% of all faculty and the bottom 50% accounted for less than 5% of all TT faculty members at a research university. Forty-nine programs did not have a single graduate placed in a TT position at a PhD-granting department in the past 10 years, and 18 programs did not have a single graduate in a TT position at a PhD-granting department at all. The overwhelming majority of TT faculty members are at a lower or equally ranked department. The results have important implications for prospective graduate students and the future of our discipline.

Social construction theory postulates that policy outcomes depend on whether target groups are imagined by the public as deserving or undeserving. However, recent evidence demonstrates that the constructions in question are contentious rather than uniformly shared. This article applies the conjoint-experimental method to measure the social construction of immigrant (il)legality and to assess its political implications. We demonstrate that it is multidimensional because the absence of legal status is associated with receipt of government benefits, Hispanic origin, police record, poor English fluency, and less education. We also show that whereas the receipt of government benefits is not associated with the absence of legal status among most respondents, individuals who hold this association support stricter immigration-enforcement policies. Our findings corroborate the social construction approach but also indicate that researchers may want to measure multiple dimensions of target-group constructions in addition to deservingness.

Giving students choice in how they are assessed, known as assessment optionality, is an innovation in assessment that has gained attention in recent years for its potential for improving inclusivity and engagement in teaching and learning. However, although assessment innovations can be beneficial, the process of changing long-established norms can be difficult. Political science is a field in which the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning literature has long noted that there is limited pedagogical innovation. This resistance to innovation creates a challenge for those working in the field—stronger and specific arguments must be developed to justify changes to curricula. This article presents the results of participatory research with political science students to explore whether a subject-specific case can be made for the use of assessment optionality in the discipline. The study explores political science students’ understandings of costs and benefits of assessment optionality and shares co-created recommendations for the potential application of the practice.

When introducing students to broad theoretical frameworks, simulations and games can help to make theoretical concepts clearer. One example is the use of the mobile app for the board game Risk to illustrate many of the concepts associated with realism. The mobile app has advantages over the physical board game in that the length of the games often is much shorter and allows students to experiment with the number of opponents to determine how that changes the dynamics of the game. Survey results from students in an introduction to international relations course who played Risk in proximity to lessons on realism report that playing iterations of the game clarified realist topics including the balance of power, the security dilemma, and the temporary nature of alliances.

In this article, we assess the availability of reproduction archives in political science. By “reproduction archive,” we mean the data and code supporting quantitative research articles that allows others to reproduce the computations described in the published article. We collect a random sample of quantitative research articles published in political science from 1995 to 2022. We find that—even in 2022—most quantitative research articles do not point to a reproduction archive. However, practices are improving. In 2014, when the DA-RT symposium was published in PS: Political Science and Politics, about 12% of quantitative research articles point to the data and code. Eight years later, in 2022, that has increased to 31%. This underscores a massive shift in norms, requirements, and infrastructure. Still, only a minority of articles share the supporting data and code. In 2014, Lupia and Alter wrote, “Today, information on the data production and analytic decisions that underlie many published works in political science is unavailable.” They could write the same today; much work remains to be done.

Taiwan’s achievement in passing a marriage-equality law in 2019 and the democratic backlash against LGBTQ+ rights deserve scholarly attention in Asia and beyond. Specifically, Taiwan’s road to marriage equality led to these empirical puzzles: What explains the conservative shift in Taiwan’s public perceptions toward LGBTQ+ rights? How would the backlash against LGBTQ+ rights impact Taiwan’s democracy? What does Taiwan’s experience inform us about norm localization and LGBTQ+ politics in Asia and beyond?

The strategic framing of the Christian right—that is, the symbolic use of family and its localization of conservative values using Confucian norms—enabled them to couch their religious beliefs and facilitate collective action among different groups. This study offers a culture-based explanation of how the Christian right successfully established a single-issue coalition against LGBTQ+ rights. The article is organized as follows. First, it engages current literature on discourse analysis, norms contestation, and contentious politics. Second, the study proposes a two-part framework for understanding how the Christian right effectively constructs their conservative claims to gain public support. A comparative analysis of the discourse from the conservative and progressive sides sheds light on how their narratives shaped the marriage-equality debate. Third, it addresses how this countermovement impacts Taiwan’s democracy and human rights.

Artificial intelligence in higher education has expanded worldwide with the growth of AI technologies. The emergent applications of artificial intelligence in higher education (AIEd) in course preparation, delivery, and administration as well as in learning assistants and prediction for the sake of learners are widely considered important innovations that can change education worldwide. The Armenian case was examined via a survey that was conducted at the country’s leading universities to investigate whether and how faculty use AIEd. Although the results indicate that many Armenian teaching faculty use AIEd in narrow capacities and acknowledge the potential usefulness of AIEd in the practical administration of Armenia’s higher education, the use of AIEd is not deep.

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.

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.

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).

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.