Gary M. Segura
2013 WPSA Program Chair
Stanford University
616 Serra St.
Encina Hall West 100
Stanford, CA 94305-6044
Email: segura@stanford.edu

Section Chair:

Kim Yi Dionne
Texas A&M University
kdionne@tamu.edu

The Comparative Politics section welcomes papers and panels on a broad range of substantive topics, including the study of democracy, dictatorship and regime transitions, accountability and representation, civil war, comparative political institutions (political parties, party systems, electoral rules, legislatures, courts, and central banks, etc.), political behavior (participation, voting, and social movements), and comparative political economy. We are also interested in soliciting papers that interpret the mandate of ‘comparative politics’ in new ways, i.e., that step outside the traditional canon of established subjects. We encourage papers from a variety of methodological perspectives.

Section Chairs:

Andrew Valls
Oregon State University
andrew.valls@oregonstate.edu

and

Michael Nordquist
michael.a.nordquist@gmail.com

The section gathers together activists and scholars who are interested in what political theory can contribute to larger policy debates and intellectual discussions about environmental issues. The goal is to connect theory with practice. The numbers at EPT events have been growing for more than five years, and participants consistently are enthusiastic about the significant benefits of developing this important intellectual community. We seek proposals which employ the tools, texts, or insights of political theory to improve our understanding of the environment, the human-nature relationship, contemporary environmentalist research agendas, academic pedagogy, public policies, and ethical concerns.

Section Chair:

Chris Koski
Reed College
ckoski@reed.edu

The section invites papers that focus on the politics of environmental problems and/or the processes by which they are addressed. Proposed papers and panels that emphasize comparative environmental politics are encouraged, as are papers that emphasize theory building and empirical testing with cutting-edge political methodology. Of particular interest are papers that use environmental policy as a critical research setting to address core questions in political science and public policy.

Section Chair:

Jose Villalobos
University of Texas, El Paso
jdvillalobos2@utep.edu

This section welcomes papers that deal with executive politics, whether in terms of internal development or with respect to linkages with other institutions and phenomena. In light of the conference theme, papers that engage topics relevant to politics in the Age of Obama are particularly encouraged, especially those that provide analytical evaluations of Barack Obama’s policy leadership and his administration’s institutional dynamics. In addition, paper proposals that signify theoretical development in the study of executive politics are welcome. Potential panel topics include, but are not limited to: staffing and administrative politics, rhetoric and public engagement, post-9/11 institutional evolution, inter-branch linkages and unilateral action.

Section Chair:

Rose Ernst
Seattle University
ernstr@seattleu.edu

Intersectionality has attracted substantial scholarly attention since the 1990s. Rather than examining discourses and structures such as gender, race, colonialism, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, nation, religion, and transnationalism as separate and distinct dimensions of political life, we seek proposals which examine how they mutually construct one another. We welcome paper and panel proposals that draw on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as a variety of social groups and contexts within the US and beyond. We especially encourage submissions on: ways to further develop and push against existing disciplinary, epistemological, methodological and theoretical boundaries; the relationship between theories of intersectionality and institutional, community, and activist practices; Indigenous worldviews and intersectionality; intersections between faith/spirituality and other categories; how intersectionality operates in the production and organization of normalized and deviant bodies; and the role of intersectionality at the transnational and global level.

Section Chair:

Francisco Pedraza
Texas A&M University
fpedraza@pols.tamu.edu

The last four decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in international migration throughout the world, raising important political questions in many countries. We seek paper and panel proposals from a wide range of scholars studying and analyzing the overlapping subjects of international migration and politics, immigration policy, immigrant integration policies and their implementation, political incorporation and “citizen-making,” and the changing meanings and practices of “citizenship” in an era of heightened international migration. We seek proposals from scholars studying these overlapping subjects in a variety of settings, including global, national, sub-national, regional, municipal, using a variety of approaches, from single-state to comparative, and drawing on a variety of methodologies and methods. We would also welcome expressions of interest from those planning to attend the meeting who are not submitting papers on this topic this year but who have an interest and research background in it and would like to be involved as session chairs or discussants.

Section Chair:

Michael Koch
Texas A&M University
mtkoch@politics.tamu.edu

This section welcomes papers that address the international dimensions of political relations. Research should examine interactions between units in the international system. Papers may focus on any subfield of international relations, including (but not limited to) international organizations and law, international conflict and security, foreign policy interactions, terrorism, international institutions and regimes, global environmental relations, technology, and international political economy. A broad mix of papers is encouraged, including a variety of methods and theoretical perspectives. For this meeting, we particularly welcome papers that deal with future relations and policy considerations consistent with the conference's theme.

Section Chair:

Martin Johnson
University of California, Riverside
martin.johnson@ucr.edu

This section organizes panels and invites individual papers that examine, apply, and critique interpretive methods. Basically, interpretive methods are modes of thinking informed by presuppositions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, and some critical theory, as well as ideas from pragmatism, symbolic interaction theories, and ethnomethodology. Paper topics can range from explicitly political investigations (such as ethnographic studies of the Obama presidency or of contemporary protest in the Middle East) to explorations of more heuristic questions (such as reflections on interviewing as a social process or on reading archived documents) to general questions in the philosophy of social science (such as the place of reflexivity in research and the meaning of “intersectionality”). Panel proposals are especially welcome in which all participants apply or analyze of interpretive methodologies in a particular subfield of political science (for example, American political development, post-colonial studies, or comparative political economy).

Tom Hansford
University of California, Merced
thansford@ucmerced.edu‎

The section welcomes papers or panels that investigate the role of legal actors and legal institutions in the United States or comparative contexts as well as those that explore how politics, institutions, and ideas shape and constrain the law’s development. We particularly encourage proposals that address the theme of the conference, “Transnational Borders, Equity and Social Justice.” In what ways are legal actors and institutions responsive to transnational issues? In what ways are they constrained? How do transnational issues complicate the section’s long-running attention to equity and social justice? We hope to receive proposals with diverse theoretical, practical, and methodological perspectives using a variety of approaches, from the conventional to the creative. The section welcomes panel proposals that offer opportunities for participation by a mix of senior scholars, junior scholars, and graduate students. When proposing book panels, consider submissions that include more than one book, and submissions that link the work of an established scholar with the work of a more junior, emerging scholar

Section Chair:

Nate Monroe
University of California, Merced
nmonroe2@ucmerced.edu‎

The section welcomes papers on any topic related to the study of the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, or other legislative institutions. Topics might include congressional parties, committees, representation, leadership, rules, procedure, reform, policy making, budgeting, floor behavior, historical development, and race/ethnicity in legislative institutions. Individually, what determines the choices that legislators make, and how do the tough votes that they cast affect their electoral fortunes? How do legislative and governmental institutions shape the contours and outcomes of these policy debates, and do decisions made in hard times have a reciprocal effect on the shape of institutions? Proposals that take advantage of variation across countries, across time within a single legislature, or across sub-national legislatures will be especially welcome as well as papers analyzing the influence of lobbyists, executive branch, or bureaucracies. Both American and comparative politics scholars are welcome to submit proposals.

Section Chair:

Kim Nalder
California State University, Sacramento
klnalder@csus.edu

The section invites proposals for innovative and original research at the intersection of politics and communication, broadly conceived. The section welcomes all research methods and analytical approaches that advance understanding of the practices, processes, and policy implications of political communication in all its forms. Preference will be given to proposals that connect research with fundamental questions about politics. This includes but is not restricted to: investigations of structural and economic influences on political news content, media and campaign effects, the relationship between mass media communication and elite communication, comparative examinations of media and media systems, inter-institutional communication, regulation of the media, discrepancies between news reporting and real world events, and the impact of new media on political knowledge and behavior. Proposals for papers or panels tackling methodological and theoretical challenges in the study of political communication are of particular interest. The organization of panels will reflect the interests of those whose proposals can be accommodated.

Section Chair:

Hector Perla
University of California, Santa Cruz
hperla@ucsc.edu‎

We seek proposals that address new methodological and theoretical challenges in the study of organizations and parties and social movements. We are also interested in proposals that focus on social movements, and the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity and parties, especially with regard to theories of representation and social movements. And, we strongly encourage proposals that examine these questions in comparative perspective.

Diego Von Vacano
Texas A&M University
davacano@pols.tamu.edu

This section welcomes papers at the intersection of political theory and empirical concern, creating a critical dialogue between theory and practice in which events push our thinking further and intellectual labor is performed to conceptualize historical and contemporary developments. Papers are especially welcome that reflect upon neoliberalism, post-Fordism, communicative capitalism, the growth of executive power, torture and other forms of violence, and whether “emergency” or “institutional transformation” best describes contemporary crises. Papers also might address sub-national, transnational, or imperial forms of sovereignty, law, and resistance, in addition to innovative or “autonomous” forms of political organization. Of course, papers connecting to the conference theme of President Obama’s election and Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of equal citizenship are also welcome. How might we theorize post-rational political discourse cultivating a pluralism reduced to suspicion (birth certificates, climate change, and “post-fact” political attack)? What challenges does the principle of equal citizenship face today? Is it now time to discuss developments as tending towards “post-democracy”?

Antonio Vazquez-Arroyo,
University of Minnesota
ayv@umn.edu

The Contemporary & Normative Theory section of the WPSA welcomes proposals in all areas of contemporary political theory including but not limited to feminist theory, democratic theory, liberalism, Marxism, political aesthetics, comparative political theory, legal theory, critical race theory, queer theory, cultural studies, critical geography, and environmental political theory. This section also encourages proposals that adopt normative-philosophical and/or critical-theoretical approaches to major topics in political science including, among others, multicultural politics, neoliberalism, nationalism, transnationalism and globalization, state power, technologies of security, civil society, social movements, representation, democratic governance and citizenship, and political identity. Papers that develop a contemporary perspective on enduring theoretical concepts, such as equality, justice, domination, sovereignty, rights, the subject, civic virtue, and moral judgment, are also welcome.

Mark Lutz
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
mark.lutz@unlv.edu‎

The "Political Thought: Historical Approaches" section of the WPSA seeks papers that interpret and theorize the canon, other political literatures, and archives from all periods, and that explore the political dimensions of artistic and cultural products in historical perspective. Papers that adopt critical, transformative, and/or comparative perspectives on these historical materials are welcome, as well as those that address the political dimensions of classical and modern themes of intellectual history. Such themes may include affect, authority, class, education, equality, enlightenment, epistemology and methods, freedom, gender, ideology, individuality, interest, justice, language, luxury, race, power, propaganda, punishment, representation, revolution, secrecy, sexuality, slavery, sovereignty, solidarity, and so on.

Section Chairs:

Daniel HoSang
University of Oregon
dhosang@uoregon.edu

and

Joe Lowndes
University of Oregon
jlowndes@uoregon.edu‎

The section welcomes proposals for papers or panels covering the broad scope of the study of politics, policy and institutions using historical perspectives to address issue areas of contemporary concern. In particular, the section encourages submissions from scholars whose work focuses on developmental themes related to major political processes including institutional reform and policy change and concepts, such as democratization, citizenship, political representation, and political parties. We especially encourage research that locates American political development in comparative and historical frameworks and that addresses the intersection of major group identities, such as race, class, gender, and religion.

Mark Sawyer
University of California, Los Angeles
msawyer@polisci.ucla.edu

and

Regina Freer
Occidental College
rfreer@oxy.edu

Section Chair:

Tony Smith
University of California, Irvine
casmith@uci.edu

The section welcomes proposals that address politics and sexuality broadly conceived, in an empirical and / or critical manner. Especially interesting would be proposals that address the conference theme of “(Re)Imagining Our Future(S): Obama’s Election, Global Crises, And Political Science Practices” by considering the changing status of sexuality issues in the United States and globally. Among the topics worthy of exploration are such as the changing acceptance of gay marriage, the nature of sex work in the global political economy, intersectionality and sexuality, and exploring political science assumptions about the conduct of research in studying sexuality. In addition to traditional proposals for research papers and panels, the section welcomes proposals that address issues of sexuality and politics creatively. Feel free to contact the organizer with questions and / or ideas.

Section Chair:

Alisa Hicklin Fryar
University of Oklahoma
ahicklin@ou.edu

This section invites paper proposals that address questions related to public management and governance. Consistent with the conference theme, proposals addressing transnational administrative questions, or comparative studies of public administration, are particularly welcome. The field of public administration has a history of confronting challenging questions related to geographic and organizational boundaries. Public administration scholarship engaging questions about networks, collaboration, policy implementation, and governance relationships can advance the dialogue on boundaries during the conference. Papers addressing citizen engagement in public affairs, public workforce diversity, technology, the role of non-profits in service delivery, and other questions relevant to public administration are also welcome. The section encourages and will highlight diverse and rigorous research methodologies and empirical analysis.

Section Chair:

Adrian Pantoja
Pitzer College
Adrian_Pantoja@pitzer.edu

The section welcomes proposals that are related to the political perspectives and preferences of members of the public. This includes but is not restricted to investigations of the sources of public opinion, processes of opinion formation, the relationship between context and public opinion, the relationship between public opinion and public policy, and the relationship between public opinion and elite behavior and decision making. We also seek proposals that use a psychological lens to examine political decision-making and behavior as well as proposals that examine political phenomena in the service of developing and enhancing psychological theory. Proposals that focus on information processing, identity formation and its consequences, the role of emotion and affect, personality at the elite or mass level, socialization, media and campaign effects, intergroup relations, and leadership are welcome as well.

Section Chair:

Caroline Tolbert
University of Iowa
caroline-tolbert@uiowa.edu

This section invites paper proposals in all areas of public policy studies, including but not limited to: theory-based research on the processes of policy making and change, and public engagement in those processes; and practically oriented policy analyses and program evaluations. In all cases, authors are encouraged to incorporate empirical, theoretical, and normative concerns in their papers. Keeping with the conference theme, papers addressing recent and future policy issues, and those incorporating interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary perspectives and methods are strongly encouraged. All policy issues will be considered, as will all levels of policy making from the local to the international arena.

Section Chair:

Stella Manrique Rouse
University of Maryland
srouse@gvpt.umd.edu

The Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section invites papers that examine the political implications of issues of equity and social justice along transnational borders, particularly as they are related to the politics of race and ethnicity and to the intersections of race and ethnicity with other identities and axes of inequality. Individual papers, full panels, and roundtables are all invited. In addition to traditional paper and panel formats, we welcome proposals that bridge theory and practice by bringing together scholars, activists, and other practitioners; that examine the contributions of political science to policy development; that develop resources for community members, advocates, policy makers, and other political actors; and that develop pedagogical tools and resources for students. We also encourage proposals that examine intersecting inequalities and political identities, and that bring work together from across subfields, methodologies, and epistemologies.

Section Chair:

Laura Evans
University of Washington
evansle@uw.edu

Past WPSA meetings have been characterized by especially rich work in the area of state, local, and urban politics. We hope to continue and expand upon that tradition for the 2012 meeting. This section welcomes papers on a wide variety of topics, addressing different types of questions, using varied methods, and specifying different units of analysis. We strongly welcome work that is comparative in nature or addresses larger questions of federalism, but these are not requirements. Given the conference theme we especially encourage research on sub-national politics that might shed light on how American politics more generally has changed (or not changed) since the election of Barack Obama.

Section Chair:

Roger Rose
University of Minnesota, Morris
rprose@morris.umn.edu

The section welcomes proposals on all topics related to educating both undergraduate and graduate students. Proposals could explore such topics as: advising, assessment, civic engagement, curriculum development, diversity within the classroom, educational goals, experiential learning, applied learning, internships, pedagogic responsibilities, service learning, simulations, teaching strategies, and technology. The focus may be on pedagogic practice or the scholarship of teaching and learning. Qualitative, interpretive, quantitative, theoretical, or philosophical approaches will all be considered.

Section Chair:

Pamela Fiber-Ostrow
California State University, Fullerton
pfiber@Exchange.FULLERTON.EDU

Undergraduate students are invited to present posters on research they are conducting under the supervision of their Political Science faculty advisors. Any topic appropriate to the political science discipline – broadly conceived – is welcome.

Section Chair:

Elizabeth Bergman
California State University, East Bay
elizabeth.bergman@csueastbay.edu

The section welcomes panels and papers on topics related to important theoretical, substantive, and/or methodological issues dealing with electoral behavior in the United States and in comparative perspective. Among others, topics could include campaign effects, election forecasting, campaign finance reforms, alternative voting technologies, voter registration, mobilization, and turnout. This section welcomes panels and papers on topics related to campaigns and electioneering in the United States and in comparative perspective with particular attention to whether and how the behavior of candidates affects outcomes. Topics include campaign effects writ large, advertising, mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts, strategy, primary election campaigns, and media coverage of campaigns. Proposals examining the role of fundamentals in relation to campaign efforts are especially welcome, along with proposals that highlight the use of new or novel data, observational or other, that are well-suited to study campaign efforts.

Section Chairs:

Celeste Montoya
University of Colorado
montoyc@colorado.edu

This section welcomes papers and panels that examine the interaction of gender and power in both political institutions and society. While all proposals related to women and politics are invited, we especially seek proposals connected to this year’s conference theme: transnational borders, equity, and social justice. Such topics might include, but are certainly not limited to, gendered dimensions of immigration and education reform; women’s grassroots mobilizing in relation to immigration, economic equity, budget cuts to social services affecting women of all races and ethnic groups; women’s political mobilizing to mitigate the long-term challenges of gendered divisions of labor and economic restructuring; women’s transnational environmental activism, etc. Proposals that broadly define all three elements of the conference theme, and proposals that conceive of “women and politics” as including political activism and activity at the public policy, institutional, cultural, and/or grassroots levels are welcome. We encourage proposals for “women and politics” papers from a range of theoretical and empirical approaches, as well as interdisciplinary proposals. In addition to individual paper submissions, conference theme and non-theme related panels that bring together junior and senior scholars are invited.