Hi,

I am a student on a gap year and I love political science and international relations. I have a solid understanding of both and am looking to further my understanding. Are there any classes I can take or books I can read?

Thanks

Curious if there is data or analysis on that yet. Looking to quantify how effective the strategy was to appeal to moderates.

Asking for a friend

I want to be informed on this topic and I would really appreciate some information!!Excuse my ignorance and my english…

I really don’t like Trump as a person and I was kind of doing some research on his and Kamala’s campaign and I feel very confused.

I really like Kamala and find her very charismatic but when it comes to politics,I feel confused. When it comes to economy Trump during his presidency did actually really good,even better than Biden. During his presidency we didn’t have much tension going on, no wars, etc.

Could Kamala have really been a better option? (objectively, when it comes to politics and their role as presidents)

Hi,

I have only learnt STATA, so far, during my bachelor's in Political Science, but will have the chance to learn Python (and R) on my master's.

But which program/language is typically acknowledged as the "standard" for academics in Political Science?

I live in Scandinavia by the way, but interested in, what you folks use, and where you are based.

Cheers!

political science and election machines?

If the president elect were to fully impliment schedule f and fires a large amount civil servants, how long will it take for the beaucracy to rebuild itself?

I recently saw a video in response to Trump’s election that was trying to suggest that past dictators have been legitimately elected. The examples used were Hitler and Putin which I thought were pretty poor examples since both of them came to power through being appointed. Putin has been elected since of course but I think it’s agreed upon that they are very questionable elections. However, I do wonder if there have been any leaders who were legitimately elected, no rigging elections or intimidating voters, that went on to become dictators without some kind of military coup. I understand that people have policy disagreements with Trump but if there isn’t any legal or historical precedent I feel like some of these claims are just fear mongering.

I would love to hear any opinions on the matter or if anyone can provide examples.

I'm assuming the president can't unilaterally decide to leave an alliance. The Senate has the power to enter treaties (I think), and I'd expect the House to have some influence over this as well. What kind of process would a presidential administration have to go through in order to leave NATO?

Thanks in advance!

I need FACTS and PROOF. Not just a he said she said. Google searching is very much a he said she said. Is Project 2025 actually on Trumps mind, and is it really going to happen? I've also seen only bits and pieces of it. I have a newborn and do NOT have the time to read 900 pages. What are the scary parts that I need to look out for? Please, no bashing or debates. I just want the actual facts.

After this election and the notion that a "landslide" victory happened, I use landslide because it's the first time a Republican won the popular vote and the Electoral College since W. in '04. A few of the talking heads on Fox and MSNBC mentioned that this could be the end of Identity politics as the population seemed to ignore the trigger words that are normally used to help turn out the votes for key "demographics." Does this shift mean that we are one step closer to "reconstruction," meaning that a person from the "north" and a person from the "south" are at a point in American history where the issues are universal and identity no longer relies on stereotypical definitions that can be pinged by trigger words?

Thoughts?

I was thinking about project 2025. And had the realization that I don’t know if it will still be in effect after trumps term. The effects will still be there even after it. But when we hit 2029, will people be able to change anything? Like bringing back the D.O.E or funding certain non-profits. Side note: it wasn’t until after I posted this that realized his term would end in 2029 not 28. I can’t change the title though.

I'm involved in a research project which requires me to put together a literature review related to credible commitments literature. I'm not an expert in this literature, and the amount of literature I'm finding that involves some sort of credible commitments ideas is a bit overwhelming. Is there anybody in this sub that is more familiar with this area and could tell me what some of the primary canonical pieces are that should be included in any discussion of credible commitments? Or any other interesting articles/books that are more recent as well? Thanks.

Hello, I hope everyone is well. If you have any free time can you please take my survey: Pro-Social Behavior Study!! Thanks, so much!!!!

Good day, everyone!

I have a Bachelor of Science in International Law and Diplomacy and a Master of Public Administration (MPA). For the past two years, I’ve worked as a Policy & Research Analyst for two provincial governments. I’m now planning to pursue a doctorate and I am currently putting together applications to begin in Fall 2025.

I’d appreciate any insights: Do you think I have a strong chance based on my background? Additionally, do you have any advice for PhD applications, and is applying to six schools a good approach?

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

As per title I am looking for academic works exploring the role of clientelism in democratic developing countries, most of the ones I have found look at the issues from a normative base (i.e. how it impacts negatively rule of law, and democratic quality). I would be interested in some more neutral accounts, or even better, some works looking at the positive outcomes of clientelism.

Hi, does anyone here know how to be a intern in senate or congress? What's the process and requirements? Btw I'm a student.

Inflation was still very high before the Midterms but the Democrats still managed to hold the Senate albeit with a loss of the House of Representatives. Meanwhile the Democrats lost out big time in this year's election despite inflation being brought to a stable level and the economy seeming to do better under Biden. So what caused the change of election performance between 2022 and now?

Over the past month, I've been working on a passion project that combines my two main interests: politics and public speaking, with a touch of computer science. My goal is to leverage technology to address a pressing issue I've observed.

The Problem: Information Overload

There's simply too much content nowadays. Politicians frequently utilize the power of the press and engage in extensive forms of communication—rallies, interviews, debates, podcasts, and more—to sway public opinion. The average person can't keep up with the increasing volume of political content generated by potential representatives.

So, what do we do instead? We rely on "experts" who analyze this information for a living. While this seems like a fair solution to the problem of information overload, it has its limitations. I'm sure many of you have felt frustrated when a story or public event you find important goes unnoticed by these experts and gets lost in the noise. This happens for various reasons, but a significant one is that journalists and analysts don't have the time to scrutinize all the content produced. Instead, they rely on instinct and experience to select stories that will capture public attention and, ultimately, generate revenue. This is the essential business model for most news entities, both mainstream and independent. This ulterior motive can tarnish the trustworthiness of news media, especially with the recent rise of terms like "fake news."

Another issue is the bias often associated with these political experts. The same political speech can be portrayed in two completely different ways, depending on the outlet's perspective or agenda. This disparity makes it challenging for the public to get an objective understanding of what was actually said.

The Solution: Mass Analysis of Transcripts Using Generative Models

So, how do we deal with information overload? One answer is to compress the vast amount of data into something more digestible. While this may seem obvious, the challenge lies in determining what "digestible" means for us and how to effectively compress the data without losing essential information. Let's tackle the latter first.

Over the past 50 years, there has been tremendous progress in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), particularly in the development of summarization techniques. Effective summarization of large content requires the ability to process, filter, and produce a shorter, compressed version that minimizes information loss—a task that is intuitive for humans but incredibly difficult for machines. Traditional NLP methods struggled with this due to their inability to capture the context essential for fully understanding the content.

However, this has drastically changed with the rise of generative models like GPT, LLaMA, and others. The current models' ability to handle massive context windows and generate scalable, high-quality summaries—once deemed impossible—not only makes summarization feasible but also offers solutions to the problems mentioned above. Here's why generative models are a game-changer:

1. Extremely Quick Relative to Humans: Generative models can process and summarize vast amounts of text in a fraction of the time it would take a human. This speed enables the analysis of all available political content, ensuring that no significant speeches or statements go unnoticed due to time constraints. It democratizes information by making comprehensive analysis accessible to everyone.
2. More Objective Than Humans: While humans are inherently subject to biases—conscious or unconscious—generative models can provide more objective summaries by focusing solely on the content without personal or institutional agendas influencing the outcome. This objectivity helps present political speeches and statements neutrally, allowing the public to form opinions based on the actual content rather than a biased interpretation.

The challenge I'm facing now is figuring out what "digestible" means for the end user and how to present the compressed data effectively. I'm considering factors like the ideal length of summaries, the inclusion of key themes or topics, and the best formats for presenting the information (text, visualizations, etc.).

This is where I need your help. I'm reaching out to this community to get insights on what you would find most valuable in such a tool. Your feedback will be instrumental in shaping this project to meet the needs of people interested in politics and public discourse.

Questions for You:

1. What are the three critical insights you'd want to gain from a political speech?
2. How should these summaries be presented to make them most digestible and useful? (e.g., bullet points, infographics, thematic categorizations)
3. How important is objectivity in these summaries, and how would you define or measure it? Would a community-based fact-checking feature help mitigate possible model subjectivity or mistake?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this project. Do you think such a tool would be helpful? What features or analyses would you find most valuable?

Ok so I live in Hanoi and recently saw many people calling Vietnam totalitarian. But others say it's authoritarian. What's the difference between the two systems, and how will you rate Vietnam among the two terms?
PS sorry for my bad English because my mother tongue is Vietnamese ;)

Does anyone know of any literature that explores the notion that current young people are more conservatives now than before? I've been seeing a lot of that recently but can't find anything related to it.

Are there any articles that find partisanship being weaker in multiparty systems? In particular, I am looking for contradictions to Campbell (1960) The Development of Party Identification regarding party identification/partisanship being the cause of vote choice in a two party system.

I've been thinking about this in the months leading up to Trump's win as his rhetoric got more and more extreme. If he actually does start doing the more extreme stuff he's talked about. Going after 'the enemy within', banning swathes of people's rights, extreme immigration policies etc. And the supreme court only gets more blatantly partisan, do you think it's possible we'll start to see drastic rifts between the laws of the government and the states?

For example gay marriage and sodomy now becoming state issues like abortion. And what happens if a decent chunk of states just tell the SCOTUS to stuff whatever ruling they make and ignore it?

This is all based on hypotheticals, of course. I'm just curious. I feel like the worst possible outcome for a Trump presidency is part of why we're 50 small countries in a trench coat.

While it is terrible that they hold all three chambers if you’re not a rich, white male it’s not world ending.

I honestly believe that it’ll just end up being “tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts especially for the wealthy”, some deregulation, a bad time but not apocalyptic for federal employees, and some small tariffs/isolationism.

There won’t end up being: mass deportations, camps for gays, etc.

My reason being is those would be bad for the billionaire benefactors who really pull the strings and they use the xenophobia to control some of the rubes who are most loyal.

It’ll basically be a neocon agenda with more isolationism.

Do you think my prediction is right?

One caveat is I worry they will try to pass laws that’ll make it harder for dems to get back power in 2026.

Hi all, I’m looking forward to the next election (given we have one) and started hypothesizing what the parties next steps are. 2026, with new congressional seats opening up, do we think both the house & senate will stay polarized to the right? and 2028, will Kamala be the pick for the Dems again? also, who could possibly be the successor to Trump? really just trying to gather opinions and viewpoints on what we’ll be seeing, assuming that we don’t have an insane restructuring in the time frame. 🙃

Looking to get myself more educated in what's happening in the US. Does anyone have any recommended reading in the seeming rightward shift of American politics?

IIRC, before the Vance - Walz debate, Harris had about a +3% polling average lead over Trump. After that debate, that lead started to erode. Not dramatically, but over October it eroded down to about the 1% it ended up being on election day.

Before the debate, I think the belief was that Trump had made a poor choice in Vance. Vance stumbled over "cat lady" comments and came across as weird. He hurt Trump's post-assassination momentum. But in the debate, he was calm, steady, articulate and made Trump's case better than Trump was making it. Trump himself seemed to be boosted by Vance's performance, he gained more focus on economic issues in his campaigning. In contrast, Walz, while calm and civil, seemed to struggle to articulate Kamala's case, and the early positive reviews he had gained coming out of the Democratic convention faded, and he was more and more non-factor in October.

I've always believed that one of the key moments of the 2000 Bush vs Gore campaign was Dick Cheney's debate performance vs Joe Lieberman. He gave gravitas to Bush, who was perceived as a lightweight in some quarters. Similarly, I think Vance had a steadying influence on Trump.

VP debates are often viewed as irrelevant, but I think there are times when they matter, and this was one of them.

Yes? No?

Why would a follower, not a fascist leader, embrace fascism?

There has to be a deeper level to it, aside from propaganda. What emotional need is being fulfilled? Has there been an antidote to steer people off fascism once the mind virus is instilled?

For one, they are clearly not historians to know what happens every time.

I can understand power-hungry psychopaths. But what's in it for the average Jane?