Welcome to the Western Political Science Association

A Message from WPSA President Tony Affigne

We are a unique community of scholars. As a large, regional scholarly association, WPSA offers unique opportunities. Our membership and annual conferences typically involve about 1,000 political scientists (professors, graduate students, and undergraduates) working in every subfield of the discipline. Our regional focus in the American West, including western Canada and México as well as the U.S., makes travel to our events more accessible and affordable for many participants living in the western states. Thus, we offer a special blend of geographic accessibility, collegiality, and intellectual rigor.

We foster cutting-edge research. In fact, since the 1970s WPSA has developed a distinctive identity and role in the discipline, with a well-earned reputation for inclusive and innovative scholarship. For example, over the years we’ve been first home to emergent communities in feminist theory, environmental political theory, Latinx and Asian Pacific American politics, and interpretive methods, among others, while still honoring the very best political science approaches established in earlier generations.

Prestigious awards inspire our community. Our scholarly communities provide both intellectual exchange and public recognition, conferring political science's most prestigious awards in the areas of women and politics (Betty Nesvold Award), the politics of the American West (Charles Redd Award), environmental political theory (Clay Morgan Award), scholarship and service in Asian Pacific American politics (Don T. Nakanishi Award), and democratic political theory (William E. Connolly Award). Our scholars are outstanding in every way!

Always current, always relevant. More recently, we’ve hosted groups focused on political violence, authoritarian politics, and political science at community colleges. Our newest conference section on Indigenous politics, governance, and sovereignty, and our renewed emphasis on racial and ethnic politics, promise continued relevance in coming years as the national discourse turns again to political exclusion and marginalization.

Innovative new modes of remote collaboration. Our ten WPSA Virtual Communities are a first in political science, linking like-minded scholars in online collaborations for original subjects including critical disability studies, economic democracy, embodied social change and healing justice, inclusive teaching and pedagogy, and more. At our 2026 conference in San Diego, we will pilot a series of livestreamed, hybrid research panels and roundtables, making our conference accessible to a far-flung audience of scholars, journalists, policymakers, and the public.

Our scholarly journals. WPSA publishes two of the best-known academic journals in political science—Political Research Quarterly (Sage) and Politics, Groups, and Identities (Taylor & Francis). Available both online and in print, our journals offer authors notable opportunities to publish rigorous, peer-reviewed research across the entire scope of political science subjects, using interdisciplinary, multi-method, and interpretive approaches, in addition to the broader range of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Join us! If you’re not yet a member of the Western Political Science Association, we invite you to consider joining our association and attending our 2026 conference in San Diego. Do you have an idea for a virtual community? Are you looking for other political scientists who share your interests? Can you envision new ways to participate in 21st century scholarly exchange, using modern technology to transcend geographic and intellectual boundaries? If you answered yes to any of these, we welcome you to bring your ideas to the most exciting, accessible, and forward-looking political science association in the U.S. For details, please follow the links on this page, and feel free to contact our staff and leadership with your questions or suggestions. We look forward to welcoming you to our community of political science scholars!