Top Research Papers on Political Science

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Experimental political science has changed. In two short decades, it evolved from an emergent method to an accepted method to a primary method. The challenge now is to ensure that experimentalists design sound studies and implement them in ways that illuminate cause and effect. Ethical boundaries must also be respected, results interpreted in a transparent manner, and data and research materials must be shared to ensure others can build on what has been learned. This book explores the application of new designs; the introduction of novel data sources, measurement approaches, and statistical me...

This theoretical review conceptualizes political polarization over science and argues that it is driven by two interrelated processes: through psychological science rejection and by adhering to a political ideology that explicitly contests science.

Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth is an edited volume emerging from the ZKM (Karlsruhe) exhibition of almost the same name: Critical Zones: Observatories for Earth Politics. While the book is edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, the curatorial team of the exhibition also included Martin Guinard, Bettina Korintenberg and Jessica Menger. The exhibition, although hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and thus mostly shown online, gathered much attention in its own right, as it featured several exciting projects on mediations of nature, entanglements of technosphere and biosp...

Abstract Although attention to populism is ever-increasing, the concept remains contested. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of populism research and identifies tendencies to a conflation of host ideologies and populism in political science through a two-step analysis. First, we conduct a quantitative review of 884 abstracts from 2004 to 2018 using text-as-data methods. We show that scholars sit at “separate tables,” divided by geographical foci, methods, and host ideologies. Next, our qualitative analysis of 50 articles finds a common conflation of populism with other ideologies, r...

The role of the IPCC as a boundary, or hybrid organization, between science and policy has been well-documented. Much of this research focuses on the role that the IPCC has had in shaping policy outcomes, or how its limitations have potential impacts in uptake and political acceptability of its knowledge claims. Less has been said on its role as an organizer of scientific research. This paper takes the IPCC 1.5 degree Special Report (SR15), requested by the UNFCCC in conjunction with the Paris Agreement in 2015, as a case of how the politics of climate change framed specific work of the IPCC. ...

The attitudes of more than 6000 Americans are examined to understand how the cue giver and cue given about scientific uncertainty regarding COVID-19 affect public trust in science and support for science-based policy.

Abstract Does one’s stance toward evidence evaluation and belief revision have relevance for actual beliefs? We investigate the role of endorsing an actively open-minded thinking style about evidence (AOT-E) on a wide range of beliefs, values, and opinions. Participants indicated the extent to which they think beliefs (Study 1) or opinions (Studies 2 and 3) ought to change according to evidence on an 8-item scale. Across three studies with 1,692 participants from two different sources (Mechanical Turk and Lucid for Academics), we find that our short AOT-E scale correlates negatively with belie...

This is the first comprehensive overview of the 'science of science,' an emerging interdisciplinary field that relies on big data to unveil the reproducible patterns that govern individual scientific careers and the workings of science. It explores the roots of scientific impact, the role of productivity and creativity, when and what kind of collaborations are effective, the impact of failure and success in a scientific career, and what metrics can tell us about the fundamental workings of science. The book relies on data to draw actionable insights, which can be applied by individuals to furt...

Editorial – The Science of Citizen Science Evolves -- Chapter 1: What Is Citizen Science? The Challenges of Definition -- Chapter 2: Citizen Science in Europe -- Part I: Citizen Science as Science -- Chapter 3: Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge through Citizen Science -- Chapter 4: Citizen Science in the Natural Sciences -- Chapter 5: Citizen Humanities -- Chapter 6: Citizen Social Science: New and Established Approaches to Participation in Social Research -- Chapter 7: Data Quality in Citizen Science -- Chapter 8: A Conceptual Model for Participants and Activities in...

Canonical theories of opinion formation attribute an important role to affect. But how and for whom affect matters is theoretically underdeveloped. We establish the circumplex model in political science as a theory of core affect. In this theory unconscious emotional processes vary in level (arousal, measured with skin conductance) and direction (valence, measured with facial electromyography). We theorize that knowledge, attitude extremity, and (in)congruence with political rhetoric explain variation in affective responses. In a large lab study ( N = 397), participants watched video clips wit...

Looking at political participation behavior of young adults in contemporary Europe this paper provides the reader with a map of different terminologies and logics that are used to discuss youth political participation. The existing literature is examined using five guiding questions: what defines youth political participation? How does youth political participation differ from adult political participation? How do young adults develop political attitudes? What methods are being used to analyze youth political participation? How does youth political participation research differ across Europe? ...

Citizen science is an increasingly acknowledged approach applied in many scientific domains, and particularly within the environmental and ecological sciences, in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection to advance scientific research. We present contributory citizen science as a valuable method to scientists and practitioners within the environmental and ecological sciences, focusing on the full life cycle of citizen science practice, from design to implementation, evaluation and data management. We highlight key issues in citizen science and how to address them, such...

The third edition of The Dynamics of Political Communication continues its comprehensive coverage of communication and politics, focusing on problematic issues that bear on the functioning of democracy in an age of partisanship, social media, and political leadership that questions media’s legitimacy.\nThe book covers the intersections between politics and communication, calling on related social science disciplines as well as normative political philosophy. This new edition is thoroughly updated and includes a survey of the contemporary political communication environment, unpacking fake news...

Donald Trump, the Arab Spring, Brexit: digital media have provided political actors and citizens with new tools to engage in politics. These tools are now routinely used by activists, candidates, non-governmental organizations, and parties to inform, mobilize, and persuade people. But what are the effects of this retooling of politics? Do digital media empower the powerless or are they breaking democracy? Have these new tools and practices fundamentally changed politics or is their impact just a matter of degree? This clear-eyed guide steps back from hyperbolic hopes and fears to offer a balan...

The asymmetric α-addition of relatively nonpolar hydrocarbon substrates, such as allyl and aryl groups, to aldehydes and ketones remains a largely unsolved problem in organic synthesis, despite the wide potential utility of direct routes to such products. We reasoned that well-established chiral amine catalysis, which activates aldehydes toward electrophile addition by enamine formation, could be expanded to this important reaction class by applying a single-electron oxidant to create a transient radical species from the enamine. We demonstrated the concept of singly occupied molecular orbital...

Abstract Large‐scale demolition has been ubiquitous in fast urbanising China. The politics of redevelopment is often seen as secondary, derived from and defined by local entrepreneurial governance. However, changing state politics, in particular national political mandates, has not been adequately addressed. Through examining variegated practices, this paper understands how the changing national political context affects or redefines local redevelopment projects. These cases reflect local responses to the national campaigns for rural vitalisation and “Beautiful China”, heritage preservation an...

The article presents a review of the book “The Politics of Regulation,” edited by James Q. Wilson.

Amid the proliferating uncertainties of globalised modernity, development institutions have deployed insurance to transfer risk across more geographic and hazard domains. This chapter first explores why insurance and other risk transfer tools are increasingly popular responses in development practice. It then argues that this embrace can paradoxically proliferate uncertainties when insurance contracts fail to pay out, illustrated with reference to drought insurance in Malawi and pandemic insurance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The chapter closes by envisioning how insurance might be ref...

This paper explores three empirical sites – platform technologies, living labs and experimental development economics – to analyze how scalability thinking is rationalized and operationalized, and focuses in on three constitutive elements of the politics of scaling: solutionism, experimentalism and future-oriented valuation.