Volume 138 - Number 3 - Fall 2023

Mobilizing the Shy and Closed-Minded into Politics: The Mediating Role of Political Trust for Conventional Participation in the Americas
Matthew Cawvey looks at why individuals low in extraversion and openness engage in public affairs. Using mediation analysis of AmericasBarometer survey data from North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean, he argues that introverted and close-minded individuals tend to be more politically engaged because of higher levels of political trust.

Volume 138 - Number 3 - Fall 2023

Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States
James L. Gibson AND Joseph L. Sutherland discuss self-censorship in the United States. They note that the percentage of Americans not feeling free to express their views has tripled since the time of McCarthyism. They argue that micro-environment sentiments, such as worrying that expressing unpopular views will isolate and alienate people from their friends, family, and neighbors, may be the driver of self-censorship.

Volume 138 - Number 2 - Summer 2023

Taking Ideas Seriously in Political Science: The Diffusion of Presidentialism in Latin America after Independence
CRAIG PARSON, ADOLFO GARCÉ, AND DANIEL BÉLAND survey the asymmetrical status of “ideational theorizing” in political science and present and assess methodological and epistemological views that underlie the asymmetry. They illustrate their arguments empirically by examining Latin American constitutional choice. They argue that the Latin American case illustrates that there are good reasons to think that an ideational account connects in more concrete ways to available evidence than leading alternative hypotheses about constitutional choice.

Volume 138 - Number 2 - Summer 2023

Counting Like a State: The Politics of Intergovernmental Partnerships in the 2020 Census
Philip Rocco analyzes variation in state and local government investments in the implementation of the 2020 census. He argues that census investments depend on the salience of the 2020 count to public officials, the governing coalition’s partisan identities and incentives, and the availability of subnational institutional capacity for census operations.

Volume 138 - Number 2 - Summer 2023

Police Unions, Race, and Trust in the Police
DANIEL DISALVO AND MATTHEW NAGLER look at the effect of police unionization on trust in the police and, in particular, in mediating the adverse impacts of police killings of civilians on trust within the U.S. multiracial context. They find that in jurisdictions where police bargain collectively the drop in non-black trust is effectively eliminated, suggesting that police unionization essentially abets the polarization of trust in the police between blacks and non-blacks.

Volume 138 - Number 2 - Summer 2023

The Dimensions, Origins, and Consequences of Belief in Donald Trump’s Big Lie
Gary C. Jacobson examines the dimensions of belief in Trump’s big lie of a stolen election: its origins and the conditions that sustain it, its effect on the Republican Party, and its impact on the 2022 midterm elections. He concludes that belief in the big lie is both a reflection of and potent contributor to political discord in the United States.

Volume 138 - Number 1 - Spring 2023

Quantum Political Science: Learning About Politics from Egypt
Lisa Anderson reviews Mona EL-Ghobashy’s Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation. Anderson draws on her experience as a political scientist and president of the American University in Cairo during the Arab Spring to assess El-Ghobashy’s subtle and provocative characterization of the events of the period, drawing broader conclusions about the practice of political science under conditions of uncertainty.

Volume 138 - Number 1 - Spring 2023

Polarized Politics: Protest Against COVID-19 Containment Policies in the USA
KATHARINA   GABRIELA   PFAFF,   THOMAS   PLÜMPER   AND   Eric Neumayer analyze protests against COVID-19 containment policies in U.S. states. They show that protest was strongly influenced by partisan control over state governorship and legislatures. The authors argue that protest events occurred in states fully controlled by Democrats even when they adopted similarly stringent containment policies as Republican-controlled states and that the same increase in stringency triggered more protest in blue than in red states.

Volume 138 - Number 1 - Spring 2023

The 2022 Elections: A Test of Democracy’s Resilience and the Referendum Theory of Midterms
Gary C. Jacobson discusses the 2022 midterm elections. He examines why Democrats lost far fewer House seats than standard referendum models predicted given high inflation and Joe Biden’s low approval ratings. He argues that Donald Trump’s meddling and the Court’s Dobbs decision reframed the vote choice in ways that energized Democrats, hardened partisan attitudes, and minimized defections even among those with negative opinions of Biden’s performance.

Volume 137 - Number 4 - Winter 2022-23

U.S. Public Knowledge about the Holocaust Then and Now
Susan Welch and Emily Kiver analyze political and sociological ramifications of the Holocaust and its change over time. They challenge the view that knowledge of the Holocaust within the American public is declining, finding that knowledge has remained relatively steady, and that the Holocaust continues to feature prominently within the American public’s consciousness.