In the Current Issue

Volume 141 - Number 1 - Spring 2026

Articles

Donald Trump's Contributions to Political Science
LARRY BARTELS argues that President Trump has “been a prodigious violator of norms long considered inviolable” to political science and these norms will survive only if and when political actors exert pressure on their behalf.

The 2024 Presidential Election and the Enduring Power of the Racial Divide
VINCENT HUTCHINGS observes that the Black-White racial divide in the 2024 elections remained “stubbornly immobile” and argues that this suggests that “little has changed in the Black-White divide over the last fifty-plus years.”

Lessons from the House Freedom Caucus: Ideology and President Trump
FRANCES LEE examines the tensions between the House Freedom Caucus and President Trump. She reflects on the influence of party and ideology in the contemporary Congress and on the complexities of legislative decision making.

Governing by Decree: The Trump Presidency and the Decline of “Legislating Together”
Desmond King examines executive power under President Trump and argues that the conventional political science view that executive and legislative branches “legislate together” through bar-gaining and negotiation is “outmoded.”

Authoritarian State Conversion: America's Past and the Trumpian Future
Daniel Carpenter argues that the literature of comparative politics and American administrative institutions and development offer valuable insights for assessing the possibility of authoritarian state conversion in the America.

What Donald Trump Has Taught Us about American Political Institutions
Eric Schickler looks at the interactions of the Trump administration with Congress, the administrative state, and civil society. Schickler argues that “the resulting potential for a democratic breakdown—something that very few political scientists anticipated fifteen years ago—is all too real today.”

Bensel's Modern Foundings: Connecting State, Nation, and Regime, through Juridical Equality
Deborah Boucoyannis AND Harris Mylonas review Richard Franklin Bensel’s The Founding of Modern States and argue that regime- and state-building are inextricably linked to nation-building.

The New Politics (and Political Science) of Workers’ Rights?: A Review Article
TREVOR BROWN reviews Daniel J. Galvin’s Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights and situates it within a renewed scholarly interest in the politics of work and labor in the American politics subfield.

The Role of Rivals in International Organizations: A Review Article
Allison Carnegie reviews Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations by Christina L. Davis. She highlights the many contributions of this work to political science scholarship.

Dereliction of Duty: Congressional Inaction and the Coming Crisis in Social Security
Andrea Louise Campbell reviews Fixing Social Security by R. Douglas Arnold. She notes the book’s analysis of why Social Security solvency crises emerge and why Congress has ignored the emergency.

Who Is The Rural Voter? A Review Article and Appraisal of the Field of Rural Politics
MICHAEL SHEPHERD reviews The Rural Voter by Nicholas Jacobs and Daniel Shea. He argues that the book clarifies misperceptions often held by those unfamiliar with rural communities.

It Takes a Movement: Lawyers, Litigation, and Legal Theory in the Attack on Campaign Finance Reform
Richard Briffault reviews Big Money Unleashed by Ann Southworth. He argues that the book examines the composition, development, organization, and intellectual underpinning of the legal movement that has worked to cripple campaign finance regulation.

The Point of No Return: A Review Essay
THOMAS PATTERSON reviews Thomas Byrne Edsall’s The Point of No Return and argues that it diagnoses emerging developments that would come to define our politics.

Beyond Place: Network Effects Versus Jurisdiction and Sovereignty
PETER SZIGETI uses three recently published books to explore the question of what does the coming apart of the liberal international order actually mean.

view additional issues