Program Chair:
Tony Affigne Providence College
affigne@providence.edu

Our 2025 conference theme, A New Requiem for Politics? Racing Toward Catastrophe—or Transformation? offers a broad frame to spotlight the best new work across varied subjects, methods, theories, and pedagogies, addressing challenges and prospects for the current, turbulent moment in U.S. and global politics. Rising authoritarianism around the world confronts resistance from resurgent social movements led by workers, youth, women, Indigenous people, and marginalized communities, inspired by visions of humane and peaceful futures, democratic renewal, ecological restoration, and social equality. We seek research which explores not just crisis and conflict, but also which identifies potential transformative outcomes, stirring optimism about future prospects. To highlight this research, a small number of panels and roundtables will be selected as Theme Panels, because they most closely reflect the twin themes of peril and promise, despair and renewal, repression and resistance. All theme panels will be featured prominently in conference materials, and a select few may be livestreamed and archived as public, open-access video presentations.

Theme Panel Instructions. If you are proposing a full panel or roundtable, and your proposal is a good candidate for selection as a Theme Panel, please follow the usual submission process via the “Request to Participate Form” (https://bit.ly/3Xrl1bs), and then write directly to your section chair(s) indicating your interest in having your proposal designated a theme panel. Section chairs will forward these requests to the Program Chair, and may also nominate their own constructed panels and roundtables. In addition, the Program Chair will review the roster of completed panels, to identify other sessions which may qualify for this special recognition. Please contact Program Chair Tony Affigne affigne@providence.edu or Julio Castilleja, Conference Coordinator, at info@wpsanet.org for more information.

Section Chair:
Lewis Luartz Chapman University
luartz@chapman.edu

The Comparative Politics section welcomes paper and panel submissions exploring the complex and dynamic landscape of contemporary politics. We are especially interested in research investigating the challenges and crises facing modern politics, as well as projects that envision potentially positive transformative outcomes. We encourage contributions across various topics including (but not limited to) democracy, dictatorship, regime transitions, accountability, representation, civil war, comparative political institutions (political parties, party systems, electoral rules, legislatures, courts, and central banks), political behavior (participation, voting, and social movements), comparative political economy, and methodology. We also encourage research analyzing the backdrop of recent and forthcoming elections and their global consequences, especially amid the growing influence of populism and nativism across elites and voters alike.

Section Chair:
Kim Geron California State University, East Bay
kim.geron@csueastbay.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. This section invites papers or proposals for roundtable topics that critically examine the numerous challenges facing higher education today, including interference by external political forces that seek to delegitimize college campuses as a pillar of democracy, and eliminate diversity and equity policies. We also invite exploration of the rise of campus protests, use of time, place, and manner policies, and the contested rights of students. Other possible topics include adjunct faculty, administrative growth, and austerity policies and campus budget challenges. These issues or other relevant topics including innovative approaches in higher education are encouraged. Papers can be from any perspective or methodological approach, but we especially encourage papers that examine the many perils currently facing higher education.

Section Co-Chairs:
Peter Cannavo Hamilton College
pcannavo@hamilton.edu Matthew Hodgetts Case Western Reserve University
mkh83@case.edu

The Environmental Political Theory section gathers together activists and scholars who are interested in how political theory contributes to larger political, policy, cultural, and intellectual debates about environmental issues, and also in how our relationships with the natural world in turn shape politics and political theory. Attendance at environmental political theory events has grown enormously over the past two decades, and participants consistently are enthusiastic about continuing to develop this important intellectual community. Our welcoming community ranges from senior scholars to beginning graduate students. We seek proposals that employ the tools, texts, concepts, or insights of political theory to help understand human-nature relationships, environmental political debates, environmental activism, environmental justice, environmental policy, environmental ethics, the climate emergency, and intersections with topics like class, race, gender, sexuality, Indigeneity, coloniality, disability, capitalism, animal rights, technology, geography, and culture.

Section Chair:
Jeff Feng Northwestern University
jeff.feng@northwestern.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. Environmental and climate justice movements and rhetoric have changed the landscape of environmental politics. In recent years, we saw the Biden Administration's Justice40 Initiative, the first ever Climate Justice Pavilion and breakthroughs in the "Loss and Damage" Fund at COP27, and victories across the globe in granting rights to Mother Earth, animals, plants, and other beings. Yet, environmental and climate catastrophes rage on, as they have for hundreds of years. Building upon the conference theme, we ask whether the planet and its inhabitants will race toward further catastrophes—or transformation—and what role environmental politics scholars play at this inflection point. This section invites proposals that foreground environmental and climate justice and grapple with ostensible wins while marginalized peoples continue to bear the brunt of environmental devastation.

We seek proposals presenting environmental politics research with the potential and possibility of transforming how we think about and achieve environmental justice. Topics of interest may include Indigenous Peoples' sovereignty and self-determination in environmental governance, environmental social movements building durable and cross-cutting coalitions, power asymmetries between Global North and South nations and movements as barriers to environmental justice, representation and recognition of youth perspectives in climate justice movements and policy, experimentation and failures in abolitionist climate justice, queer and trans reckonings with the rigid affects of climate politics, and intersectional approaches and analyses of international climate policy. We especially welcome proposals that disrupt the boundaries of political science through activist-scholar engaged research, transdisciplinary collaborations, and ethnographic or interpretive methodologies. We are also interested in papers that address other core questions in environmental politics concerning Congress, public policy, rural and urban divides, methodological interventions, and climate change public opinion.

Section Chair:
Stephanie Williams University of South Florida
swilliams@usf.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. This section welcomes papers on executive politics on the federal, state, and local levels. We are encouraging scholars who are studying both threats to executive branch power and legitimacy and the successful use of executive power to protect and promote democracy and responsible governance on behalf of their constituents. We welcome papers that discuss specific controversies and questions related to the U.S. presidential administration as well as papers that explore the theoretical development in the study of executive politics. Other topics of interest may include Project 2025 and its objective to remake the administrative state under a second Trump Administration by deregulating and exchanging professional standards for political loyalty as the sole requirement for employment at the executive level. In doing so, how would the dismissal of administrative law, as well as the removal of checks and balances, impact women, immigrants, Native American sovereignty, racial minorities, children, LGBTQ+, and other vulnerable communities?

Section Chair:

Section Chair:
Jenn Jackson Syracuse University
jjacks37@syr.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. Since Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term in the 1980s, much debate has existed about what intersectionality is and who it pertains to. Rather than examining discourses and structures such as gender, race, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, and nationality as separate and distinct dimensions of political and social life, we seek proposals which examine how they create what the Combahee River Collective called “interlocking oppressions.” 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: the role of intersectionality in challenging and influencing the scope of institutional power; 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; the salience and centrality of intersectionality in the study of political science; 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:
Irasema Coronado Arizona State University
irasema.coronado@asu.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 Co-Chairs:
Melanie Fillmore University of Oklahoma
melaniefillmore@u.boisestate.edu Kouslaa Kessler-Mata University of San Francisco
ktkesslermata@usfca.edu

New Program Section in 2025. This new WPSA section focuses on Indigenous rights to self-determination and sovereignty. Indigenous peoples hold deep and continuous relationships to land and often have identities shaped by the ongoing processes of colonialism and settler-colonialism. We aim to serve as a space to foreground Indigenous politics, governance, and sovereignty and appropriate methodologies for research with Indigenous communities within the discipline.

We are committed to relational mentorship of incoming students of politics, governance, and sovereignty and creating a network of support for Indigenous political scientists. As the Indigenous Politics, Governance, and Sovereignty section in WPSA, we are committed to relationship building with the people Indigenous to the locations that host the WPSA Conference, including Indigenous or tribal leaders, advocates, and activists.

As a collective of scholars and students of Indigenous experiences of politics, governance, and sovereignty, for the 2025 inaugural IPGS meeting at the WPSA conference in Seattle, we invite proposals on these and related themes: calls to action engaging local Indigenous/Tribal leadership, activists, and advocates; new books by Indigenous authors; challenges and innovations in methodology; support for Indigenous scholars; politics of Indigenous institutions; recasting representation and leadership; and Indigenous identity. Please follow this Call for Proposals link, for more information on the scope and range of themes: Indigenous Politics, Governance, and Sovereignty—Call for Proposals: Click Here to View

Section Chair:
Michael Soules University of Houston
msoules@central.uh.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. The international community has faced significant turmoil in 2024. Large numbers of civilians have been killed in wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere; climate change poses an existential threat to a global community that struggles to address the problem; great power competition between the United States, Russia, and China is undermining global stability; human rights are in peril in many countries; and fierce debates exist over what role international institutions should play to solve these problems and others. Domestic politics also shape these issues in important ways and elections in many countries in the recent and coming months promise to have a significant effect on international politics. Ongoing scholarly research in these areas promises to help us better understand the role the international community plays in solving many of these problems, including protecting human rights, settling violent conflicts, promoting global economic stability, and helping international institutions navigate both growing global problems and domestic political backlash to these institutions.

This section thus welcomes papers that address the plethora of problems that the international community currently faces. Papers may address any subfield in international relations, including (but not limited to) global climate change, international conflict, great power politics, terrorism, civil wars, gender and international relations, human rights, domestic politics and foreign policy, globalization, international trade, international investment, international monetary politics, and international organizations. A broad mix of papers is encouraged, including a variety of methods and theoretical perspectives. Indeed, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies, as well as critical and positivist perspectives, are all welcomed.

Section Chair:
Guillermo Caballero Stonehill College
gcaballero@stonehill.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. The Interpretation and Methods Section focuses on expanding the interpretivist paradigm of research that guides various empirical methods.

The paradigm of interpretivism derives from phenomenology and hermeneutics as well as critical theory, feminism theory, critical race theory, critical legal studies, pragmatism, symbolic interaction theories, and ethnomethodology. Although diverse in their modes of generating and analyzing data, research processes in the interpretive tradition are united by an empirical and normative prioritizing of the lived experience of people in the research settings. The Interpretive paradigm has informed various subfields like public policy, IR, comparative politics, and American politics.

The section invites submissions for papers, panels, and roundtables on various methods informed by the interpretivist tradition. These methods include, but are not limited to, ethnography, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, semiotics, visual analysis, oral history, intersectional feminist analysis, hermeneutics, phenomenological research, and participatory action research. Given the interpretive paradigm, this section is not a good space for traditional positivist political research or traditional political theory of canonical and contemporary texts.

Papers may critically analyze the theoretical and philosophical traditions and presuppositions that inform interpretive empirical inquiry, address the practical challenges of conducting interpretive empirical research, or examine the interpretive methodological questions and assumptions or interpretive methods procedures raised by a specific political topic. Papers may also discuss how interpretive inquiry can provide valuable insight into current pressing political matters, e.g., state, racial, and sexual violence, global health pandemics, environmental policy and politics, cyberpolitics, political polarization, and the political mobilization, organizing, and representation of marginalized communities.

We especially encourage proposals that address this year's conference theme, "A New Requiem for Politics? Racing Toward Catastrophe—or Transformation?" We also invite individuals to indicate their willingness to serve as session chairs and/or discussants even if they do not submit paper or panel proposals.

Section Co-Chairs:
Sarah Cate Seattle University
scate@seattleu.edu Daniel Moak Connecticut College
dmoak@conncoll.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. 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. For example, in what ways are legal actors and institutions responsive or resistant to the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging social movements, widening inequalities in health, housing and labor markets, and contentious politics? 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, early career 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 an emerging scholar.

Section Chair:
Jason Casellas University of Houston
jcasella@central.uh.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 Speaker McCarthy’s unprecedented difficulty in becoming speaker and subsequent ouster, party polarization in Congress, the role of committees comparatively across time and institutions, representation, leadership, rules, procedure, reform, policy making, budgeting, floor behavior, historical development, and race/ethnicity in legislative institutions. Papers on the conference theme exploring how Congress and legislatures will affect or be affected by the rapid changes in society and worldwide events would be especially welcome. What will the role of legislatures be navigating the turbulent times we are in? 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.

Section Chair:
Brian Calfano University of Cincinnati
brian.calfano@uc.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, effects of media coverage on racial stereotyping, 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.

Section Chair:
Anna Sampaio Santa Clara University
asampaio@scu.edu

New Section Name and Theme Statement in 2025. Political movements continue to transform our social-cultural, economic, and political landscape - pushing for more equitable, responsive, and inclusive policies and practices while pushing back against increasing violence, widespread inequality, and targeted political repression. Movements advancing abortion access, Black Lives Matter, #Me Too, climate change, DACA, indigenous rights, gender affirming care, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice, labor, immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, have been joined most recently by student-led mobilizations for the people of Gaza. Buoyed by interest groups and affiliated organizations some of the largest movements of the past two years– including successful labor strikes among United Auto Workers, health care workers, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA – secured historic reforms in the face of entrenched and well-funded opposition and rising authoritarianism.

Facing their own challenges, political parties have straddled the line between catastrophe and transformation as they simultaneously advance policy interests and chase inflated fundraising targets while encountering unprecedented tests to their core constitution. Increasing polarization, expanding disinformation and AI generated content, along with ongoing calls for greater efficacy and representation have both consolidated power in some circles while opening up state and national parties to significant changes. At the same time, the MAGA inspired movements and anti-democratic backlash have led to a proliferation of attacks on activists, public servants, office holders and political candidates, threatening to erase decades of change and exclude marginalized communities from key political institutions.

The section on Political Movements, Parties, and Interest Groups seeks submissions for papers, panels, and roundtables which engage the current political environment with a particular eye to work that examines challenges, tensions, and transformations in the political landscape using innovative approaches and methods that invite a broad audience. Research that builds upon existing literature as well as work that engages intersectional and interdisciplinary research are especially welcome.

Section Chair:
Christopher Berk George Mason University
cberk@gmu.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. This section welcomes proposals in applied political theory, broadly understood. What do our theories reveal about the world? What, in turn, does the world tell us about our theories -- normative, empirical, or otherwise? With pressing issues like authoritarian populism, decaying legal norms, climate change, and sectarian violence, theory can help us navigate a political landscape marked by both peril and possibility. Aligned with the conference's overarching theme, we encourage proposals that not only question current political arrangements but also illuminate paths forward. More than ever, we need insight into how informed policy decisions, alternative institutional designs, and democratic norms can promote equitable and sustainable futures. Works that draw on unexpected or unconventional sources, explore lesser-known dimensions of political life, or situate contemporary events within broader theoretical debates are particularly welcome.

Section Co-Chairs:
Derefe Chevannes The University of Memphis
dkchvnns@memphis.edu Michelle Rose California State University, Chico
mrose2@csuchico.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. The Political Theory: Critical and Normative Theory section of the WPSA welcomes proposals in all areas of contemporary political theory including but not limited to decolonial theory, feminist theory, democratic theory, Africana/Black political theory, liberalism, Marxism, critical disability theory, political aesthetics, Indigenous political theory, 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, fascism, 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. Finally, in light of the 2024 election in the United States, we are particularly interested in papers on democratic catastrophe, repression, renewal, transformation, and revolution.

Section Co-Chairs:
Larry George California State University, Long Beach
larry.george@csulb.edu Bonnie Sheehey Montana State University
bonnie.sheehey@montana.edu

The "Political Thought: Historical Approaches" section of the WPSA seeks papers that interpret and theorize the canon, other political literatures, 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 freedom, equality, justice, authority, modernity, liberalism, individual rights, republicanism, virtue and private interest, enlightenment, science and reason, democracy, race, gender, federalism, libertarianism, populism, nationalism, power, sexuality, luxury, sovereignty, representation, punishment, revolution, friendship, and so on. Papers that focus on specific political thinkers are also welcome.

Section Chair:
Ann-Marie Szymanski University of Oklahoma, Norman
ams@ou.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. 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. While much of the work on institutional change focuses on elite actors, we also welcome studies which illustrate "state-building" from below whether through social movements, litigation, media campaigns, or otherwise. 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.

Section Chair:
Allison Rank SUNY Oswego
allison.rank@oswego.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. This section welcomes proposals at the intersections of politics and aesthetics broadly conceived. The theme of this year's conference, "racing toward catastrophe—or transformation?” seems especially suited to literary and filmic representation. We are especially interested in papers and panels that examine the connections between popular culture and political imagination. What political futures does art allow us to preview? When/how does art help expand what we perceive as possible? Do different genres (horror, dystopia, romance, afrofuturism, ecological art, procedures, etc.) encourage a particular kind of imagining? We also welcome papers that explore particular texts or films either as forms of political rhetoric or in conversation with political theory or other forms of political expression.

Section Chair:
Edward F Kammerer Jr Idaho State University
edwardkammerer@isu.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. The section welcomes proposals that address the conference theme by considering the changing status of sexuality and gender identities in the United States and globally. Is the broad field of sexuality and politics, at this particular moment, racing toward catastrophe or transformation? We are especially interested in papers that take an intersectional approach to the location of LGBTQI people at the fault lines of recent political contests. But, as the conference theme suggests, we also welcome proposals that look to “potential transformative outcomes inspiring greater optimism, when warranted, about future prospects” for sexuality and politics. Among the wide range of topics worthy of exploration are the ever-shifting terrain of LGBTQI rights developments (e.g., anti-trans legislation in the U.S.), fluctuations in societal attitudes toward sexuality and gender, LGBTQI movement organizing, backlash and opposition to such movements/rights (e.g., the growing momentum of “gender ideology” around the world), the nature of sex work in the global political economy, and public health crises and their disproportionate impact on queer communities. Additionally, work exploring new frontiers in pedagogy and research that centers sexuality and gender identity in the profession is also welcome.

Section Chair:
Tony Affigne Providence College
affigne@providence.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. While much of the work on institutional change focuses on elite actors, we also welcome studies which illustrate "state-building" from below whether through social movements, litigation, media campaigns, or otherwise. 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.

Section Chair:
Evan Sandlin University of Southern California
esandlin@usc.edu

Updated Theme Statement for 2025. The section welcomes proposals related to either the determinants or consequences of political perspectives, political preferences, and the political decision-making 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, the role of identity in public opinion, and the relationship between public opinion and elite behavior and decision making. The section particularly welcomes proposals that engage the conference of theme of “catastrophe or transformation,” identifying psychological drivers of social justice movements (broadly defined) and the backlash against them while envisaging future prospects. Submissions that engage the 2024 US elections and connect public opinion, emotions and affect, media, and campaigns to either psychological processes or voting behavior are also greatly appreciated.

Section Chair:
Julie Novkov University at Albany, SUNY
jnovkov@albany.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; broad understandings of policy, policy history, and critical policy analysis; and practically oriented policy analyses and program evaluations. We encourage authors to incorporate empirical, theoretical, and critical and/or normative concerns in their papers. Keeping with the conference theme, papers addressing urgent policy concerns with political implications, 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. Full panel proposals will be considered, and preference will be given to those that incorporate a diverse range of scholars at different career stages.

Section Chair:
Zahra Ahmed Saint Mary's College of California
zga1@stmarys-ca.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. Race, ethnicity and politics scholarship continues to provide a lens through which we can and should study all aspects of political life. As scholars and citizens, we are currently experiencing an interplay between political structures that serve to strengthen democracy and those that contribute to its weakness. As students and teachers of politics, this leads us to scholarly questions seeking to understand all aspects of political experience, including those that challenge the meaning and practice of democracy, especially in the United States. For the 2025 WPSA conference, we call for diverse presentations that address the challenge and the potential of the moment, especially those with relevance to the North American western region.

We invite proposals that address both the difficulties and the possibilities presented by the times. Possible questions include, how might current conceptions of political partisanship be expanded by delving into racial and ethnic political traditions of kinship and community? What are the implications of anti-woman and anti-LGBTQ policies from an intersectional perspective? How can we address systemic challenges to the veracity and quality of Black women’s scholarship and respond effectively to the backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion? How might Indigenous cultural practices support us in mobilizing to address the spiritual, physical, and mental challenges created by White supremacy? What can the leaders and participants of social movements teach us about sustainable struggle? How can grounded feminisms and Afro-futurist politics help us conceptualize and implement new ways of knowing and being in the world? This section welcomes proposals on these and other topics with analyses grounded in racial and ethnic politics in various contexts.

Our strength stems from our diversity, so all methodological practices are welcome. We encourage proposals from scholars at all levels and representing a range of approaches, from the theoretical to the empirical. We also welcome papers focused on creative practice, pedagogy and innovative classroom technologies, including critical interrogations of the strengths and challenges of artificial intelligence. Proposals that demonstrate collaboration, interdisciplinarity and partnership among practitioners from outside the academy are warmly welcomed.

Section Chair:
Robin Jacobson University of Puget Sound
rjacobson@pugetsound.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. This year, we are especially interested in papers that explore the themes of catastrophe and transformation through research on federalism or state and local politics. WPSA’s call for papers highlights questions about transgender policies, abortion, gun violence, housing, and other issues that cannot be understood without centering states and localities. Cities are sites of humanitarian crises, states are targets for partisan warfare and manipulation, and contestation over federalism remains at the core of many contentious political struggles. Exploring state and local politics not only helps us understand catastrophe but also presents opportunities for transformation. When crises hit labor markets, threaten human rights, or challenge democracy, how do local governments react? Can federalism act as a safeguard against tyranny in today's landscape of highly centralized politics? Amidst our nationalized politics, shifting our attention towards state, local, and urban politics alone is a transformative step. Therefore, we encourage submissions that tackle a wide array of questions utilizing diverse methodologies such as comparative, historical, interpretive, and quantitative approaches.

Section Chair:
Pei-te Lien University of California, Santa Barbara
plien@polsci.ucsb.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:
Andrew Aoki Augsburg University
aoki@augsburg.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:
Nathan Chan Loyola Marymount University
nathan.chan@lmu.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. 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 advertising and finance reforms, media effects, alternative voting technologies, voter registration, mobilization/get-out-the-vote efforts, turnout, and vote choice. We especially welcome papers that propose novel theories and present new data/analyses on voting behavior in recent elections, such as the 2024 presidential election in the U.S. The section invites papers that additionally center race, ethnicity, and identity in their study of election dynamics in the United States and across the world.

Section Co-Chairs:
Regina Branton University of North Carolina at Charlotte
rbranton@uncc.edu Ashley English University of North Texas
ashley.english@unt.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. Following the gendered challenges of the pandemic and the rise of policies rolling back the achievements of women’s movements, women are facing profound political crises and challenges. However, in recent years, women have also risen to meet those challenges. For example, women’s movements have been reinvigorated following the election of Donald Trump, #Me Too, and the fall of Roe v. Wade. In the US, women have elected record numbers of women and women of color to office. Building on these themes and the broader WPSA call for papers, we seek proposals that examine these developments through the lens of feminist theory, women’s political participation and behavior, women’s movements and organizations, and/or women’s representation. We are open to proposals from a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches.

Section Co-Chairs:
Nicole Filler University of Massachusetts, Boston
nicole.filler@umb.edu Tanika Raychaudhuri Rice University
tanikar@rice.edu Fan Lu Queens University
fan.lu@queensu.ca

New Theme Statement for 2025. The Asian and Pacific Islander American Caucus (APAC) and the WPSA Status Committee for Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession invite you to submit individual paper, full panel, and roundtable proposals to the mini-conference on Asian and Pacific Islander American politics (typically held on Friday). In line with the 2025 conference theme, we welcome proposals that confront the current conditions facing Asian Americans in the midst of ongoing struggles for transformation and backlash against social justice progress.

We also encourage submissions from scholars whose work centers the lived experiences of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in America and transnationally, as well as works that are attentive to the intersectionalities of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, immigration history and status, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and/or other dimensions of identity and structural inequality across various topics in political science. Scholarship that works with and for the communities interrogated is also encouraged.

To submit your proposal, please select “Mini-Conference: Asian Pacific American Conference” as your first choice in the drop-down menu of the Request to Participate form. In addition to various types of submission opportunities, we also welcome volunteers for chairs and discussants. Please also kindly inform us if you have submitted a proposal on APA politics but did not check the mini-conference as your first choice.

Section Co-Chairs:
La Della Lyn Levy College of Southern Nevada
ladella.levy@csn.edu Rogelio Garcia East Los Angeles College
garciar3@elac.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. The WPSA Community College Committee invites proposals for its 8th annual mini-conference, which will explore the role of community colleges in revitalizing American democracy. The 8th Annual WPSA Community College Mini-Conference will take place during the 2025 meeting of the Western Political Science Association at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Seattle, Washington, from April 17 to 19. The exact time and day of the mini-conference is TBD.

Background:

American democracy faces significant challenges, including political polarization, declining voter participation, and a perceived disconnect between citizens and their representatives. Community colleges, with their diverse student bodies and commitment to access and civic education, hold immense potential to bridge this gap and empower future generations to be active participants in the democratic process. This potential is even greater when we consider the theme of "Rebooting Democracy: From Gridlock to Grassroots in Our Community Colleges." By fostering open dialogue, critical thinking, and a commitment to community engagement, community colleges can become incubators for a more informed and engaged citizenry.

The WPSA Community College Committee is seeking proposals for presentations, panels, workshops, and other formats.

Submit your proposals to the WPSA submission page and select “Section 31: Miniconference: Community College.”

For a full list of preferred proposals click here: Click Here to View

Section Co-Chairs:
Archana Kaku William & Mary
abkaku@wm.edu Shai Gortler SOAS, University of London
shai.gortler@soas.ac.uk

New Miniconference for 2025. Our current political moment poses urgent questions about the meanings, implications, and limits of violence. At the same time, it is clear that we cannot think about contemporary violence separate from the histories that produced it or the legacies that it might leave behind. Conversations about the relationship between violence and politics are scattered across the field of political science and beyond. Within political theory, these discussions take diverse perspectives and objects of study. In naming violence as our explicit object of inquiry, we aim to cut across the divisions imposed when we organize our discussions by time period, geographic focus, or analytic framework, with the hopes that such crosspollination might offer us new or renewed lines of inquiry and fresh tools for analysis.

We invite papers, panels, roundtables, and author-meets-critics panels that address the confluence of violence and political theory, broadly construed. We welcome submissions dealing with the intersection of violence and a wide range of issues including but not limited to: immigration, incarceration, torture, surveillance, self-defense, colonial regimes and decolonial practices, indigenous epistemologies, resistance, feminist and queer theories, trans studies, critical race theories, crip and disability studies, abolition, and non-violence.

To submit a proposal, select “Theorizing Violence” from the drop-down menu on the WPSA online application. View the full CFP here: Click Here to View

For more information, contact Archana Kaku (abkaku@wm.edu) and Shai Gortler (shai.gortler@soas.ac.uk).

Section Co-Chairs:
John M. Meyer Cal Poly Humboldt
john.meyer@humboldt.edu Jason Lambacher University of Washington Bothell
jlambach@uw.edu

The Environmental Political Theory (EPT) group gathers together scholars and activists who are interested in what political theory can contribute to larger debates and intellectual discussions about environmental challenges. Since 2002, we have hosted a daylong workshop (generally, 9am-5pm) on the Wednesday before the WPSA annual meeting begins. Workshop sessions enable participants to share their projects and scholarship, to discuss pedagogy, and to address shared challenges. Past workshops have also invited local authors and activists to share their work and hosted walking tours and other forms of community engagement. A detailed agenda will be posted in advance. A group dinner will be planned for Wednesday evening.

For more information, please contact the 2025 workshop organizers:
John Meyer, Cal Poly Humboldt, john.meyer@humboldt.edu
Jason Frederick Lambacher, University of Washington Bothell, jlambach@uw.edu

Section Co-Chairs:
Vicki Hsueh Western Washington University
hsuehv@wwu.edu Lisa Beard Western Washington University
lisa.beard@wwu.edu

We invite nominations for books and/or recent or forthcoming articles for discussion at the Feminist Theory Pre-Conference Workshop in April 2025. Our workshop embraces a wide range of approaches in feminist theory, including explorations of race, gender, sex, migration, decolonization, environment, sexuality, ability, and class in discussions of freedom, justice, order, sovereignty, autonomy, kinship, rights, democracy, liberalism, nationalism, the state, militarization, war, peace, and other topics.

To nominate an article and/or book, please submit the author/title of your nomination and brief rationale to lisa.beard@wwu.edu AND hsuehv@wwu.edu. You can make multiple nominations in one email.

Section Chair:
Chris Olds Fort Hays State University
cpolds@fhsu.edu

New Theme Statement for 2025. The Latina/o/x Politics Pre-Conference Workshop affords an opportunity for robust discussion on intriguing research puzzles surrounding Latina/o/x Politics, as well as professional mentoring opportunities for scholars engaging in research on Latina/o/x Politics.

The Workshop embraces methodological and substantive diversity. Normative political theory, mixed methods, and qualitative or quantitative empirical research presentations are encouraged.

In alignment with the 2025 WPSA program theme, research that analyzes the 2024 election cycle, discrimination, hate crimes, marginalization of undocumented or unhoused individuals, misinformation and disinformation facilitated by technological change, and democratic engagement with an emphasis on the current Latina/o/x social and political experience will assist in learning about challenges that warrant continued exploration. Research that explores questions tied to the study of heterogeneity along aspects like language, distance from country of origin (generational effects), growing up during specific periods of time (cohort effects), sexual orientation, gender identity, economic/financial health, and education can continue a fruitful dialogue about multiple areas of opportunity in exploring Latina/o/x Politics.

Along with original research, a mentoring session will be held where graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty can discuss topics surrounding teaching, research, and service with tenure-track and tenured faculty. The Workshop will welcome the opportunity to host panels on professional development and career opportunities for scholars with specialization in Latina/o/x Politics.

The workshop will be held Wednesday, April 16th in-person at the Seattle WPSA. Please send your presentation or panel ideas, mentoring session interest, and general questions to Christopher Olds at cpolds@fhsu.edu