Political Science Department at Northwestern University

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Official account of Northwestern University's Political Science Department.

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Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· 22d

Recent Ph.D. & @afamuw.bsky.social Professor Andrene Wright-Johnson has published a new article with @prqjournal.bsky.social : Women Representing Women: Maternal Health Advocacy and the Limits of Gendered Solidarity

Women Representing Women: Maternal Health Advocacy and the Limits of Gendered Solidarity
Andrene Wright-Johnson. July 1, 2026, Online First. Political Research Quarterly. Vol. 0(0) 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129261465912

ABSTRACT
A persistent puzzle in American politics is whether shared gendered experiences can bridge enduring racial divides in political attitudes. This study evaluates whether maternal health policy frames can activate gendered solidarity among white women in ways that shape their support for a Black woman candidate. Using a survey experiment fielded to a representative sample of 1,047 white women, I assess how exposure to maternal-health-oriented policy messages influences evaluations of Black women candidates. The results show that white women respond sharply to explicitly race-specific health policy agendas, while gender-only health policy agendas do not meaningfully increase support for a Black woman candidate. Additional analyses using established measures of racial resentment and gender consciousness help illuminate these patterns. Notably, gender consciousness is only reactive to the intersectional policy cues. Exposure to the Black maternal health frame (race and gender) reduces the otherwise positive effect of gender consciousness on support for a Black woman candidate. Taken together, racialized attitudes remain the most powerful and consistent predictor of support, while gender consciousness contributes little to no positive upside for Black women candidates.

Figure 1. Candidate support. Note. Figure represented with 95% confidence intervals, n = 1,047.

While all policy positions produced less favorable results for the Black women candidate than health care for all (control), findings presented below in Figure 1 suggest that the two racially-oriented positions correspond to the lowest levels of political favorability for Carolyn Johnson, with both racial treatment variables being statistically significant.12 Relative to the control condition, support for the Black woman candidate declined significantly when she endorsed a Black health policy (95% CI [−0.527, −0.017]). Support also declined when she endorsed a Black maternal health policy (90% CI [−0.478, 0.034]). This suggests support for H1c and marginal support for H1d.

Since the scores are above 5, a facile viewing of these responses may suggest tension with foundational theory,13 but I would underscore that, without an alternative candidate for the respondents to rate, we cannot make any claims regarding relative favorability of other hypothetical candidates (put differently, the respondents may very well be predisposed to rating candidates on the higher-end of the 1–7 scale).14 What we can assess is how support varies across issue frames, using health care for all, an agenda historically favored among women voters and one that is neither racialized nor gendered, as a reference category.

Among the experimental conditions, we can also see from Figure 1 that support for a Black women candidate is strongest amongst respondents exposed to the maternal health treatment. However, the estimated effect of the maternal health treatment was substantively small and statistically insignificant (95% CI [−0.279, 0.235]), indicating that support did not differ from the control condition. Therefore, H1a is not supported.

Using a composite score for racial resentment on the X-axis and a composite score of support for the Black woman candidate on the Y-axis, Figure 4 plots the interaction between racial resentment and candidate support across the four versions of the health care frame. As expected, racial resentment is a strong and consistently negative predictor of support for the Black woman candidate. However, the slope of this relationship varies modestly by treatment.

The maternal health frame produces the least negative association between racial resentment and support, but the interaction term is small and statistically insignificant, indicating that this frame does not meaningfully alter the impact of racial resentment in either direction. By contrast, the explicitly racial frame (Black health) significantly strengthens the negative effect of racial resentment on support. The intersectional frame (Black maternal health) falls between these two: its interaction term is negative but not statistically distinguishable from zero, suggesting only a marginal, or at best ambiguous, intensification of resentment’s effect. Taken together, these patterns imply that while explicitly racialized policy cues amplify the influence of racial resentment, adding a gendered component softens that amplification slightly. For white women respondents, maternal language may introduce just enough gendered resonance to reduce (though not eliminate) the heightened penalty associated with racialized frames.

To probe this gendered dynamic further, I next examine an interaction between treatment condition and gender consciousness. While standard measures of gender consciousness were included in the survey, prior research suggests that these scales often capture liberal feminist ideology rather than a broader sense of gendered identity (Klatch 2001; Schreiber 2002). To avoid producing a measure that would disproportionately reflect liberal attitudes and risk alienating conservative women, I constructed a composite score using two items that tap a wider range of gendered meaning-making. To assess whether gender matters in respondents’ political lives, participants were asked: “When you make political decisions, how important is your gender identity?” To gauge the extent to which respondents perceive a shared fate or collective identity among women, they were asked: “How much would you say that women in this country have a lot in common with one another?”16 The average of these items forms the composite measure of gendered consciousness used on the X-axis, with the composite support measure on the Y-axis.

Figure 5 shows that respondents with stronger gender consciousness tend to evaluate the Black woman candidate more positively. Gender consciousness then serves as a strong and positive predictor of support. However, unlike racial resentment, this relationship is relatively stable across treatment conditions. None of the treatment interactions reach conventional levels of statistical significance relative to the control frame. The only condition approaching significance is the race-and-gender treatment (Black maternal health). Rather than activating a cross-racial gendered solidarity, my findings suggest that this intersectional cue marginally dampens the otherwise positive association between gender consciousness and candidate support.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· 26d

Read the full chapter here: www.transcript-verlag.de/chunk_detail...

Figure1: Return intentions of displaced Ukrainiansin the Czech Republic.

Table1: Summary of the fieldwork with displaced Ukrainiansin Germany and Czech Republic.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· 26d

Matej Jungwirth @matejjung.bsky.social & Neonila Glukhodid have co-authored "Returning to the Past? Typology of Decision-Making of Ukrainian Forced Migrants in the Czech Republic and Germany" out now in a new edited volume Fragmented Lives in Times of War via @columbiaup.bsky.social #OpenAccess

First page of Jungwirth, Matej/Glukhodid, Neonila (2026). Returning to the Past?. In: (Eds.), Fragmented Lives in Times of War (191-216). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839477427-191

Meaning-making and motivations for refugee return are understudied in general and they are particularly puzzling in the case of Ukrainians displaced after the fullscale Russian invasion in February 2022. First, returns to Ukraine are occurring in the middle of an ongoing conflict characterised, inter alia, by widespread airstrikes on civilian infrastructure;this contradicts the most basic international understandings of refugee repatriation as a process principally undertaken when conditions at home are both safe and sustainable. Second, EU member states hosting Ukrainian forced migrants after 2022 have been exceptionally receptive, both relative to other crises of forced displacement and overall ‒ invoking for the first time the European Union’s temporary protection directive that grants Ukrainian refugees unprecedented access to education, housing, health, and work in EU member states.

Book cover of Kuzemska, Lidia, ed. (2026), Fragmented Lives in Times of War (1-6). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839477427-001

What are the challenges faced by forced migrants within and from Ukraine due to the Russian invasion? The interdisciplinary contributors shed light on the lives of displaced persons, which are divided ‒ in terms of time, space, and social context ‒ into a »before« and »after« the war. They analyse the uncertainties faced by war migrants and those who have decided to remain in Ukraine, and how people navigate these uncertainties in everyday life. The volume presents case studies from various European countries that make an important contribution to the growing literature on forced migration from Ukraine and provides new insights into the under-researched areas of internal displacement and voluntary immobility in Ukraine.

About the Author
Lidia Kuzemska is a sociologist with a keen interdisciplinary interest in forced migration, internal displacement, borders and bordering, citizenship, and migration policy. She obtained her PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University in 2022 and was first a research fellow (2022-2023) and then academic coordinator (2024-2025) at the Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin) within the research group Prisma Ukraїna: War, Memory, Migration afterwards. She is also a research affiliate at the Refugee Law Initiative (SAS) at the University of London. Her research focuses on internal and external displacement of Ukrainians since 2014.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· 27d

Please join us in congratulating TWO professors, Isabella Bellezza ( @isabellabellezza.bsky.social ) & Elizabeth Thom ( @ipratnu.bsky.social ), who have have both received 2026 APSA Best Dissertation Awards!!! 👏👏👏💜🚀🚀🚀 politicalsciencenow.com/congratulati...

photo of Dr. Isabella Bellezza, College Fellow & Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University

photo of Dr. Elizabeth L. Thom, College Fellow & Assistant Professor of Political Science and Environmental Policy & Culture at Northwestern University

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 13

New article out with @poqjournal.bsky.social 🚨 Not Your Mama’s Ideology (But Close): Modest Generational Differences in Ideological Alignment in Postcommunist Europe Ph.D. candidate Matej Jungwirth ( @matejjung.bsky.social ) @lenkahrbkova.bsky.social & @celytadeas.bsky.social

This paper examines whether generational change in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is associated with shifts in how political attitudes align along the conventional economic–cultural left–right dimension. Because cohorts in the region were socialized under different political–economic systems, CEE provides a setting to assess whether younger generations display patterns of attitude alignment that differ from those of older cohorts. Using pooled European Social Survey data (2004–2023) and original surveys from Czechia, Hungary, and Lithuania, we combine an age–period–cohort analysis of left–right alignment with a network analysis of associations among thirteen salient issues. We find modest generational differences in the early 2000s, but these diminish over time, with all cohorts exhibiting similarly low levels of left–right alignment. Economic and cultural attitudes remain weakly connected, and EU- and foreign-policy issues often form separate clusters. The findings indicate that generational replacement has not produced a shift toward a more conventional left–right organization of belief systems in the region.

We adopt a two-pronged approach, combining large-N individual-level analysis with an in-depth study of ideological alignment in a smaller subset of countries but across a larger set of political issues. First, we use European Social Survey (ESS) data from nine Central and Eastern European EU member states to analyze trends from 2004 to 2023 on four core political issues: EU integration, LGBT rights, income inequality, and immigration (see table 1).

For individual-level analysis, we implement an age-period-cohort effects model to examine the alignment of positions across each pair of issues (i.e., six pairs among the four issues identified above: EU integration, LGBT rights, income inequality, and immigration). Alignment is measured through its inverse—the absolute distance between an individual’s positions on the two issues within each pair.5 Figure 1A illustrates how this measurement captures alignment. An individual takes a position
on one issue. This position is one standard deviation above the mean and thus liberal relative to the attitudes of others. In two scenarios, they can take a position (0.5 SD above the mean), which indicates alignment (a 0.5 SD distance), as they are liberal on both attitudes.

This approach allows for multivariate analysis that controls for additional socioeconomic differences across generations. We can describe temporal trends in alignment. It also allows for an analysis of heterogeneity in generational effects. The random forest model is summarized in Supplementary Material section E and discussed briefly below.

Using networks to measure the interconnectedness of beliefs is a well-established method in public opinion research (see, e.g., Baldassarri and Goldberg 2014; Gonthier and Guerra 2023; Van Noord et al. 2025; Cely 2025b). Networks are estimated using Spearman correlations, as opinions are measured on short ordinal scales.10 To assess interconnectedness in a manner consistent with a unidimensional ideological continuum (i.e., alignment with left–right stances as predefined by researchers; see table 2), we employ the measure of global expected influence (GEI), which captures the extent to which beliefs are constrained along a predefined ideological direction. Full wording of all items is provided in Supplementary Material section A. GEI differs from alternative metrics such as global strength, which does not assume directionality.11 Given the 78 edges among the 13 issues, both metrics can theoretically range from zero—indicating complete independence among all issues—to 78, which would imply perfect correlations of one across all issue pairs in the predefined direction. Empirically, we expect substantially lower values, as individual beliefs correlate only weakly in European contexts (Cely 2025a), and some negative associations are also very likely (Malka et al. 2019).

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 2

Abstract below! Read more here: doi.org/10.1007/s115...

Kim, B.W., Kim, M. Arbitrators as advisors: Evidence from changes in investment treaty design. Rev Int Organ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-026-09627-5

The international investment regime is increasingly reliant on the expertise of lawyers. What impact does the rise of lawyers have on the design of international cooperation? We argue that lawyers can advise states to create international investment agreements (IIAs) that lower institutional barriers, making it easier for investors to access legal dispute resolution. Using an original dataset of 479 arbitration practitioners registered with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes from 1974 to 2023, along with a newly constructed dataset measuring investors’ access to legal dispute settlement, we find that states with a larger pool of arbitration practitioners are more likely to amend their treaties in a way that eases investors’ access to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). We also find support for our theory through interviews with arbitration practitioners. Our findings can explain why states maintain investor-friendly ISDS clauses, even after suffering losses from previous ISDS disputes. The growing reliance on lawyers can reshape and professionalize international cooperation beyond the purview of states.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 1

New from @ipratnu.bsky.social fellow & Political Science Prof. Alexander Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social w/ Radha Sarkar (ITESM ) The Effects of Religious Messages and Endorsements on Political Attitudes: A Meta-Reanalysis @apsrjournal.bsky.social Open Access: doi.org/10.1017/S000...

SARKAR R, COPPOCK A. The Effects of Religious Messages and Endorsements on Political Attitudes: A Meta-Reanalysis. American Political Science Review. Published online 2026:1-22. doi:10.1017/S0003055426101695

The experimental study of the effects of religious messages and endorsements by religious leaders on political attitudes has a relatively short history yet has coalesced around three main claims: religious treatments are especially effective because of their religious character, effects are larger for religious affiliates than nonaffiliates, and effects are larger for high religiosity types than low religiosity types. Here, we meta-reanalyze the experimental record (58 treatment-outcome pairs drawn from 43 studies reported in 26 papers) to probe the generalizability of these claims. Our findings indicate that these three headline claims do not generalize straightforwardly across contexts: effects are large in some cases and close to zero in others, and we find no evidence in favor of the claimed heterogeneities by religious affiliation or religiosity. Based on a census of the estimands in this literature, we offer suggestions for future research that would enhance commensurability and synthesis.

In total, we considered 76 studies reported in 55 papers, including those that we formally meta-reanalyzed, as well as those that we did not (for reasons detailed in the “Discussion” Section and in Section F of the Supplementary Material). Our informal reading of the literature’s top estimands was confirmed by the census. Considering only average treatment effects, we found 37 studies that estimated the effect of a religious message on a political attitude, 14 that compared the effect of a religious message on a political attitude to that of a secular message, and 11 that estimated the effect of religious endorsements on political attitudes. Following those, we found studies of the effect of religious attributes on candidate support (7), the effect of religious messages on descriptive norms (5), the effect of religious messages on donation behavior (5), and 58 other distinct estimands for which there were 4 or fewer estimates. Fully 46 average effect estimands in this literature were studied just once.

Figure 1 gives a visual representation of the estimand census. Each study (not paper) in our meta-analysis is arrayed on the horizontal axis. Each facet collects together estimands that share a common treatment and outcome. In the main text, we show only the three treatment-outcome pairs that are the focus of our meta-study, but in the Supplementary Material, we provide equivalent figures for the remaining treatment-outcome pairs. The vertical axis shows the subsamples ever considered for effect heterogeneity in any paper and is arranged by frequency across papers, with the most common subsamples at the top. The three kinds of samples we meta-reanalyze here are in fact the most common: nearly every study reports a full-sample effect estimate (an ATE), and many consider effect heterogeneity by religiosity and religious affiliation. We mark points with a star rather than a dot to indicate their inclusion in our meta-analysis.

Average Treatment Effects
Figure 2 reports 36 estimates of the effects of religious messages versus a pure control. Of these, 8 are positive and significant, 1 is negative and significant, and the remaining 27 are nonsignificant. Of the 8 significant estimates, 5 (all positive) remain significant after a false discovery rate 𝑝 -value adjustment. Our random-effects summary estimate is 1.1 points (0–100 scale) with a standard error of 0.8 points, which is not statistically significant. We do, however, find clear evidence of heterogeneity across the 36 studies (Q-test 𝑝 -value ≤0.001 ), with an estimated standard deviation of 3.6 points. We see here that the very strong results of Masoud, Jamal, and Nugent (Reference Masoud, Jamal and Nugent2016) (8-point effect in Egypt), Blair et al. (Reference Blair, Littman, Nugent, Wolfe, Bukar, Crisman and Etim2021) (10-point effect in Nigeria), or Chauchard and Badrinathan (Reference Chauchard and Badrinathan2025) (11-point effect in India) do not generalize straightforwardly to other religious messages, outcomes or places (although, of course, we do not know why or the scope to which they do generalize). By the same token, the very small effects estimated in other contexts do not obviously generalize to the contexts of the Egypt, Nigeria, or India studies.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 30

🔥Hot off the press via @ispp-pops.bsky.social A very particular set of skills: The role of perspective-taking in hostage diplomacy negotiations Profs. Dani Gilbert ( @danigilbert.bsky.social / @buffett.northwestern.edu ) & Cynthia Wang ( @cynthiascwang.bsky.social / @drrc-kellogg.bsky.social )

Gilbert, D., & Wang, C. S. (2026). A very particular set of skills: The role of perspective-taking in hostage diplomacy negotiations. Political Psychology, 47, e70173. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.70173

Abstract
Hostage diplomacy—detaining foreign nationals for leverage under the pretext of national law—is a growing international security problem. Beyond constituting a violation of international law, hostage diplomacy is challenging to resolve. Target states must deal with aggressive, sovereign perpetrators; handle a fraudulent but plausible legal process; account for numerous stakeholders; and protect their citizens from future harm. How do target-state negotiators navigate these challenges? This theory-building article explores perspective-taking—imagining the world from another's vantage point—as a tool to shape target-state negotiators' effectiveness in navigating hostage diplomacy. We introduce a model that conceptualizes perspective-taking on two dimensions. First, negotiators can use multiple-perspective taking, considering various stakeholders, including interests within their own government, the perpetrator's government, and the hostage's family. Second, across stakeholders, negotiators can take strategic, cultural, emotional, and moral perspectives. We posit that engaging in different forms of perspective-taking improves target-state negotiators' ability to identify a domestic win-set, reach international agreement, and anticipate future crises. Drawing on insights from members of the U.S. hostage-recovery enterprise, we offer a plausibility probe suggesting that perspective-taking affects the process and outcomes of negotiations. Perspective-taking may thus help negotiators better manage power dynamics, navigate informal rules of engagement, alleviate uncertainty, and bolster global security.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 23

PDF version: www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/po...

OVERVIEW Wage theft—when employers fail to pay workers what they are legally owed—remains a pervasive problem in the United States and around the world. Labor advocates have responded by pushing for stronger state and local laws, operating under the assumption that enforcement agencies will translate those powers into vigorous enforcement. That assumption is wrong, according to new research forthcoming in Regulation & Governance by Workplace Justice Lab researchers at Northwestern and Rutgers, led by IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin. Many agencies aren't using the full extent of their legal authority to enforce the minimum wage— and workers who can least afford it are paying the price. The findings suggest that stronger laws alone aren't enough: How agencies wield their authority matters just as much.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 20

To earn the Lifetime Achievement Award, the section sets a very high standard: winners must make path breaking contributions to the discipline, the field, the subfield, and beyond. Oftentimes we weigh such contributions only through the lens of being a typical triple threat of excellence ... 1/x

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 18

How Have Interpretivism and Big Data Changed the Landscape for Measurement Validation? New chapter by Prof. Jaye Seawright from Working with Concepts Foundational Essays by David Collier, with Research Notes on Innovation in the Field doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Summary
David Collier’s work on measurement validity and methods of validation establishes a baseline understanding that still largely describes the state of theory and practice. Scholars have developed some new ideas, and real-world conditions have changed in ways that shift the picture in subtle but important ways, but the road map that Collier’s work set up remains a useful guide to the landscape. There may well be sufficient differences between the ethnographic and interpretive measurement methods that have gained intellectual ground in recent years, in comparison with the more established case-based tradition, to potentially divide the tradition in two. The availability of large, complex data sets through digital distribution pushes scholars toward statistical techniques and, in particular, toward more generalized measurement hypotheses – a trend that leads to good research but also produces some losses. There may be opportunities for research that brings case-based techniques back in to ground these methods in more specificity, although the challenge of how to do this efficiently will demand serious methodological work. Finally, the text-as-data tradition shows scholars who have run ahead of the methodological literature in terms of mixing methods across measurement traditions and the qualitative/quantitative divide.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 17

New Article from @chloethurston.bsky.social, @asdurso.bsky.social , Beata Woźniak-Jęchorek, & Megha Patnaik Understanding employee trade-offs in remote work: toward more sustainable workplace design doi.org/10.1016/j.js...

Beata Woźniak-Jęchorek, Amanda Sahar d’Urso, Chloe Nicol Thurston, Megha Patnaik,
Understanding employee trade-offs in remote work: toward more sustainable workplace design,
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems,
Volume 35, Issue 2,
2026,
101970,
ISSN 0963-8687,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2026.101970.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096386872600017X)

Highlights
• Remote and hybrid work persist, but conditions for their long-term sustainability remain unclear.
• We shift focus from structures to how employees evaluate and trade off job attributes.
• A conjoint study shows acceptance depends on bundles of features, not single attributes.
• Work location and salary act as key anchors shaping employee preferences.
• Sustainability emerges from compensatory trade-offs aligned with employees’ priorities.

Abstract
Remote and hybrid work have become enduring features of digitally mediated organizations, yet questions remain about the conditions under which such arrangements can be sustained over time. Prior research on remote work sustainability emphasizes structural and technological enablers, often assuming that flexibility, compensation, or organizational support translates directly into employee acceptance. This study extends that literature by adopting a preference-based perspective. We conceptualize sustainability as grounded in how employees evaluate and trade off multiple, interdependent job attributes. Drawing on a choice-based conjoint experiment with 627 full-time U.S. workers, we examine how employees assess bundled features related to work location, salary, monitoring, scheduling, expense reimbursement, and organizational support. The findings indicate that employee acceptance is shaped less by isolated job attributes than by how these features are configured in relation to employees’ prioritized needs, with the degree of remote work and salary serving as central reference dimensions. By foregrounding employee evaluative logic and compensatory trade-offs, this study clarifies the micro-level conditions under which remote and hybrid work arrangements are likely to be accepted and sustained.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 16

Shmuel Nili's project, The Unthinkable Fight, aims to show how a better theoretical grasp of “the unthinkable” can help address concrete moral questions concerning the relationship between democracy and violence, especially across international borders.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 16

@danigilbert.bsky.social will continue work on 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘮 & 𝘙𝘦𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯, the first systematic examination of kidnapping from the perspective of kidnappers themselves. Gilbert argues armed groups use kidnapping to enforce taxation on civilian populations.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 16

As a fellow, Arjona will study how the various phenomena that constitute civil war affect development not only in the places where armed groups operate but also in communities connected through trade routes, migration, and shared service jurisdictions.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 16

Political Science Professors Ana Arjona, @danigilbert.bsky.social & Shmulik Nili selected as 2026-27 @buffett.northwestern.edu Faculty Fellows More info: buffett.northwestern.edu/programs/fac...

Collection of headshots of the 2026–27 Buffett Faculty Fellows Cohort including Ana Arjona (Left), Dani Gilbert (Center), Shmulik Nili (Right)

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Oct 8

Please join us in congratulating Chloe Bernadaux, who has been awarded a 2025 Historical Political Economy grant from @hpe-project.bsky.social to support her project "Neoliberal Siege: How Sanctions Reshaped Power and Politics of Legitimacy in Saddam’s Iraq" www.hpeproject.org/grantees 👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Oct 5

Professor Daniel Galvin's Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers' Rights @russellsagefdn.bsky.social named 2024 Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics by the Princeton University Industrial Relations Section @ipratnu.bsky.social irs.princeton.edu/post-notewor... 👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉

Over the last half century, two major developments have transformed the nature of workers’ rights and altered the pathways available to low-wage workers to combat their exploitation. First, while national labor law, which regulates unionization and collective bargaining, has grown increasingly ineffective, employment laws establishing minimal workplace standards have proliferated at the state and local levels. Second, as labor unions have declined, a diversity of small, under-resourced nonprofit “alt-labor” groups have emerged in locations across the United States to organize and support marginalized workers. In Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights, political scientist Daniel J. Galvin draws on rich data and extensive interviews to examine the links between these developments. With nuance and insight, Galvin explains how alt-labor groups are finding creative ways to help their members while navigating the many organizational challenges and structural constraints they face in this new context.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Oct 4

Please join us in congratulating Professor Nicole Wilson (@nicolewilson.bsky.social) for receiving TWO!! awards for her dissertation, “Seeing Like an Estate: Middle-Class Political Behavior After Collective Exit.” www.nicoleewilson.com 👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Oct 3

Forthcoming book alert, now with book cover! Professor Daniel Krcmaric's new book ABOVE THE LAW: The United States and the International Criminal Court via @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org out this December! Pre-order www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

IMAGE: Book cover of ABOVE THE LAW, showing a U.S. Flag waving about the ICC flag.

BOOK ABSTRACT:

The United States has traditionally been a great promoter of international justice – forging the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after World War II and leading the way in creating tribunals to address genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda after the Cold War. Yet the US views the International Criminal Court – the culmination of the tribunal-building process – as a dire threat. The US voted against its establishment, passed legislation threatening to invade The Hague, and tried to destroy the ICC with economic sanctions. Delving into the uneasy relationship between the world's superpower and one of its most prominent international institutions, Above the Law explains how the desire to shield American soldiers from unwanted ICC scrutiny is the ultimate source of tension. Offering a sophisticated analysis of the ICC's track record that shows how American fears are overblown, Daniel Krcmaric argues that a more cooperative US policy toward the ICC would benefit both sides.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Aug 14

Now in Print! Elizabeth Good (@tgsatnu.bsky.social Ph.D. & @stanfordcisac.bsky.social Postdoc), "Power Over Presence: Women’s Representation in Comprehensive Peace Negotiations and Gender Provision Outcomes" via @apsrjournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S000... #NUResearch

Power Over Presence: Women’s Representation in Comprehensive Peace Negotiations and Gender Provision Outcomes
ELIZABETH GOOD Northwestern University, United States
American Political Science Review (2025) 119, 3, 1099–1114
doi:10.1017/S000305542400073X

The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) sector assumes increasing the number of women involved in peace negotiations drives better outcomes for local women. However, empirical support for this assumption is inconsistent. This article tests how power alters the relationship between women’s formal (Track 1) involvement in peace negotiations and the inclusion of women-specific provisions in peace agreements. Using an original dataset comprised of 2,299 Track 1 delegates involved in 116 comprehensive peace agreements finalized between 1990 and 2021, I find women’s involvement in peace negotiations is positively correlated to comprehensive agreements containing provisions for women. However, this correlation is dependent on women holding positions of power—simply having women in the room is insufficient. This article offers a novel quantitative approach to WPS studies, provides nuance to theories linking descriptive and substantive representation, and casts doubt on the longstanding assumption that increasing women’s involvement inherently enhances gender equality.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Aug 14

"In the broadest sense, I study women revolutionaries who challenged what politics could be.” Ph.D. Candidate Amanda Ziyi Fu discusses her research, inspirations, and academic career in the @tgsatnu.bsky.social spotlight. Read more here: www.tgs.northwestern.edu/about/our-pe...

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 31

Nathalia Justo (www.nathaliajusto.com), @polisciatnu.bsky.social PhD & @grinnellcollege.bsky.social Prof., argues that state, United Nations, and nongovernmental organization representatives constructed human rights as moral to defer responsibility for rights realization. doi.org/10.1080/1475...

Above politics: The construction of human rights in the negotiation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Professor Nathalia Justo, Grinnell College

Journal of Human Rights, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2025.2530093

Abstract
This article contributes to the academic debates on the legacies of the negotiation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for human rights and global politics. Shifting the conversation about the negotiation beyond consensus, I argue that state, United Nations, and nongovernmental organization representatives constructed human rights as moral to defer responsibility for rights realization. I show that representatives deferred addressing the tensions in human rights by inserting them into a teleological trajectory organized around attempts to separate morality and politics. Representatives proposed to protect an abstract, internal, and thus universalizable “essence” to the detriment of external, embodied, and contextual manifestations of the human. This differentiation between the moral and political facets of the human incidentally supported the claim that rights should be declared first and enforced only in the future. By collapsing morality and law through the effacement and evacuation of politics, the declaration began to emphasize notions of moral worth as the condition of possibility for liberal rights, thus framing the potentialities and limits for international legal protection.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 23

"We use real-world data to demonstrate a counterintuitive result: precision gains from block-randomized or pre-post designs can withstand significant sample loss that may arise during implementation." @gustavodiaz.org & Erin Rossiter via @polanalysis.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/pan....

“Balancing Precision and Retention in Experimental Design.”
Political Analysis, 2025, 1–10.
https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2025.10008

Gustavo Diaz and Erin Rossiter

In experimental social science, precise treatment effect estimation is of utmost importance, and researchers can make design choices to increase precision. Specifically, block-randomized and pre-post designs are promoted as effective means to increase precision. However, implementing these designs requires pre-treatment covariates, and collecting this information may decrease sample sizes, which in and of itself harms precision. Therefore, despite the literature’s recommendation to use block-randomized and pre-post designs, it remains unclear when to expect these designs to increase precision in applied settings. We use real-world data to demonstrate a counterintuitive result: precision gains from block-randomized or pre-post designs can withstand significant sample loss that may arise during implementation. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating researchers’ practical concerns into existing experimental design advice.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 20

What corruption is most harmful? Unbundling citizen perceptions @aaronerlich.bsky.social (McGill), @jgansmorse.bsky.social (Northwestern), Simeon Nicther (@ucsandiego.bsky.social) & @aholver.bsky.social (@polisciatnu.bsky.social) via World Development doi.org/10.1016/j.wo...

What corruption is most harmful? Unbundling citizen perceptions
Aaron Erlich, Jordan Gans-Morse, Simeon Nichter, Arne Holverscheid

World Development Volume 194, October 2025, 107001
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107001

Abstract
To combat corruption, many countries employ information campaigns aimed at citizens. When designing such campaigns, practitioners often consider citizen perceptions of corruption’s harms, but typically lack data about two key questions: Which forms of corruption do citizens deem especially pernicious? And how do citizens’ perceptions differ when considering distinct types of harms? This article introduces a diagnostic approach to investigate these questions, drawing on a conjoint experiment conducted in collaboration with Armenia’s Corruption Prevention Commission. This approach maps citizen perceptions of corruption’s consequences across four distinct types of harms: economic, political, moral, and personal. It not only identifies forms of corruption viewed as particularly damaging, but also reveals how findings may diverge across harms. For example, our findings suggest that Armenians perceive high-level embezzlement as especially harmful for all four types of harms we examined. By contrast, they deem healthcare corruption to inflict more personal and moral harm — but less economic and political harm — than corruption in other sectors. While citizens’ perceptions of corruption harms are context specific, our approach has broad applicability both for practitioners designing campaigns, and for scholars seeking to conceptualize corruption and its consequences.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 19

🔥Hot off the press & #OpenAccess !!! "Diverging Trajectories of Post-Soviet Constitutional Courts" by J.D./Ph.D. candidate & TGS Presidential Fellow Alisher Juzgenbayev (@alisher.bsky.social) & Alexi Trochev (Nazarbayev U) via @constlstudies.bsky.social #NUResearch doi.org/10.15781/43f...

Diverging Trajectories of Post-Soviet Constitutional Courts
Alexei Trochev, Alisher Juzgenbayev
Vol. 11 No. 1 (2025): State of the Field
https://doi.org/10.15781/43f33f59

ABSTRACT

Three decades of constitutional law in the former non-Baltic Soviet republics reveal significant variation. Almost all post-Soviet states—whether autocracies or not—have established constitutional courts with judicial review powers to uphold their constitutions, but these tribunals operate differently: some are relatively invisible, while others are central to heated political disputes. We examine this variation across three areas. First, we consider the roles of constitutional courts in high politics, noting that in autocracies, pressured courts lack the authority to protect outgoing leaders. In freer regimes, courts face attacks from various political factions, leading to rulings based on temporary alliances rather than stable principles, complicating alignment with European democratic standards. Second, we analyze how these courts contribute to nation-building efforts, including decolonization and de-Sovietization. Some shape national identities through language, gender norms, and citizenship, displaying a range of judicial agency from autonomy to compliance with the regime. Finally, we explore how post-Soviet constitutional courts address fundamental rights disputes—encompassing social, criminal, and civil rights—which significantly influence the trajectories of constitutional law. While many tribunals still lack rigorous reasoning and broad public backing, a minority now serve as credible forums for constitutional debate and decision making---incrementally strengthening accountability and the protection of human rights.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jul 18

Forty Acres and a Mule: Symbolic Politics and the Pursuit for Black Reparations in the United States @mattnelsen.bsky.social, Ph.D. candidate Monique Newton, & @asdurso.bsky.social via @poppublicsphere.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S153... #NUResearch #polisky

Forty Acres and a Mule: Symbolic Politics and the Pursuit for Black Reparations in the United States

Nelsen, Matthew D., Monique Newton, and Amanda Sahar d’Urso
Perspectives on Politics, 2025, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725000751.

Reparations for African Americans reflect both material concerns aimed at eliminating the Black–White racial wealth gap and symbolic political aspirations, including the end of structural racism. But do material or symbolic considerations drive policy evaluations across racial and partisan divides? What knowledge and experiences undergird processes through which individuals weigh the symbolic importance of a policy against its actual benefits? Leveraging a set of forty-one in-depth interviews with Black and White residents of Evanston, Illinois—the first municipality in the United States to approve a publicly-funded reparations-related ordinance—we highlight a mechanism through which individuals develop their opinions about reparations: political socialization. Black interviewees linked their understanding of reparations to robust financial compensation while White Democrats viewed their support for Evanston’s policy as symbolic of their longstanding, affective commitments to racial equality. Drawing from these observations, we present a framework highlighting policy attributes that frame how different constituencies respond to reparations-related policies. We test this framework using a conjoint experiment about reparations policies fielded in the 2022 Cooperative Election Study. We find Americans—especially White Republicans—possess less familiarity about reparations and remain strongly opposed to these policies, regardless of the form they take. While White Democrats are more familiar with reparations and more supportive of policies mirroring Evanston’s, Black Americans—those who are most familiar with reparations—support direct cash payments regardless of their political identification.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 9

How do voters respond to elected officials wielding their powers of office for retributive purposes? Prof Mary McGrath, Evan Myers & Anna Wander, "Electoral costs of political retaliation: bipartisan rejection of attacks on corporate speech" doi.org/10.1017/bap.... #NUResearch @ipratnu.bsky.social

Electoral costs of political retaliation: bipartisan rejection of attacks on corporate speech
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2025
Evan S. Myers , Anna M. Wander and Mary C. McGrath

Abstract
Overt political retribution, typically considered outside the bounds of American democracy, has recently risen to the surface of American political discourse. How do voters respond to elected officials wielding their powers of office for retributive purposes? In the current partisan political climate, do voters’ views of retribution depend on whether the official is a member of their party? Politicians in both parties have demonstrated willingness to threaten or pursue retaliation against corporations for using their political voice to publicly express opposition. Due to the American public’s ambivalence about the role of business in politics and the rights of corporations to political speech, the scenario of corporate political speech provides a useful case in which to test for partisan acceptance of the use of political retaliation. In an original and replication experiment, we find strong bipartisan rebuke of an elected official’s employment of “abusive legalism” in response to corporate political criticism. Strikingly, the negative consequences are greatest for an in-party official. The drop in support suffered by the official is equivalent to the effect of partisanship, such that an in-party official using their powers of office to “keep business out of politics” is viewed as unfavorably as a non-responsive out-party official.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 5

How can we ground political theologies in feminist, ecological, & Latin American epistemologies? How can Latin American ecofeminist liberation theologies contribute to illuminating & addressing the politics of our time? PhD candidate Ely Orrego Torres @elyorrego.bsky.social doi.org/10.5840/pga2...

Beyond Boundaries
Exploring Transnational Ecofeminist Political Theologies and Solidarities in Latin America

This paper centers voices that have not yet been explored in academic debates over political theologies. It does so by relocating the central terms of contestation in ecofeminist ideas of the Americas for the sake of exploring possibilities of building transnational solidarities to propose alternative notions of “the political.” How can we ground “political theologies” in feminist, ecological, and Latin American epistemologies? How can Latin American ecofeminist liberation theologies contribute to illuminating and addressing the politics of our time? The first section delves into the different conceptual priorities of ecofeminism and ecofeminist theologies in the context of Latin America to argue that sharp distinctions between these projects should be blurred. The second section challenges the ideas of “First” or “Third” world as proposed by Chandra Talpade Mohanty as potentially causing obstacles to building transnational feminist solidarities in a global context. The third section examines the collective, Con-spirando, in Chile as an exemplar of new possibilities for how reshaping political theology can enrich resistance and solidarity in the religious and spiritual context of Latin America and beyond.

Political Science Department at Northwestern University@polisciatnu· Jun 4

"QCA relies on case knowledge and existing theories to select conditions and calibrate sets. ... This article proposes machine-learning enhanced QCA (mlQCA) for condition selection, set calibration, and iterative model development in large-N QCA." read more: link.springer.com/article/10.1...