Hey y'all. Writing this post as I am new here and feeling a bit unmoored in the process of applying for PhD programs. I specifically want to study civil wars, gender based violence in conflict, and asymmetric warfare. Here's an outline of me as a prospective student:

• Summa Cum Laude, 3.99 GPA in Undergrad, triple major in Political Science, International Relations, and English-- from an incredibly small and obscure program.
• Small program meant more opportunity to participate in faculty-mentored research. I must have participated in at least five different research projects over the course of four years-- albeit none published.
• Student leadership extracurriculars galore, founded a literary journal outside of school, sat on administrative committees as a student rep, organized against administration on DEI issues (successfully)
• Have presented four times at a regional conference (MAPACA)-- most recently as an independent scholar (not working with or from a university)
• App. would likely include letters from college dean (retired), heads of programs for my majors, hopefully a second dean.
• Worked two years post-grad in STEM communications (environmental justice), overseeing the marketing, events, communications, admin assistant duties for a small but influential nonprofit run by big names not at all relevant to Poli Sci.
• Have done a couple not too flashy internships in programs run by major institutions/entities (Smithsonian to name one)

My questions:

• How strong is my profile?
• Should I hold off on PhD applications and go for a masters and hope to have a publication by the time I graduate to bolster my application?
• I'm in my mid twenties and am hoping to have a family sometime in my early thirties, is it worth it to go directly for the PhD, despite having a slightly lackluster portfolio, in order to get my career rolling before it's too late (or too complicated?)
• What the heck do I put in my personal statement?!

Any advice is really appreciated. I know this is reddit, but please be nice!

Any advice for somebody starting on Grad school? I will be starting this fall.

As an undergraduate I did not take advantage of any networking or any other opportunities in my university. I am looking to change that. Any advice would be appreciated.

There is a somewhat pedestrian belief that part of how the elite manage to retain control is by dividing certain sections of society against each other and therefore keep them distracted from massing their strength and dislodging the elites.

This sounds like a plausible strategy, but do we have concrete examples of this actually taking place.

Let's just point to the elephant in the room and say a lot of proponents of this theory will point to Jews. Some seriously believe they engineered both World Wars in order to pick up the pieces.

Some milder examples cited are an expansion of welfareism to create a dependent poorer class and create animosity between it and a working middle class. I have heard the Chinese being allowed to spread fentanyl in order to further sow chaos in the middle class.

Again, I have no conclusive study, they are just fragments I picked up here or there.

Anybody have something more concrete to prove this theory if it has actually been implemented inside any society?

In short, it appears that through globalization increasing the prevalence of intertwining of every culture, race, and ethnicity, that it will result in more or less a uniform race that everyone more or less falls into. I believe this is likely to happen (as well as scientists who have given their consensus) in the distant future, but nonetheless, given these scenarios, it would be logical to conclude that skin colors for darker races will get lighter and skin colors for lighter races to get darker. Eventually everyone will basically be "in the middle" in comparison to today's skin colors. Given that, as well as (hopefully) advancements in human rights and other social advancements, that in the future racism might entirely be an ancient, barbaric, and ignorant concept, like how we consider things like bloodletting or lobotomies now.

What do you think though? Will racism fade away or will it just change? For example, if due to globalization and mixed race couples becoming more common, will people just find something else to "other" people with? Instead of skin color, might it simply be eye color, or something completely out of the blue?

Hey everyone. As my class draws to a close for this summer I have come to realize a few things about my course and how people take in politics. The revelation has honestly saddened me and wondered if anyone else studying political science has faced this as well. In our studies we are often taught how civics and our government play a role in how our country works to keep order and freedom, and what we learn is often neutral and simply up to date on the current political climate and events taking place.

Has anyone here faced the issue of people who do not fully understand how the government works to create laws, how the checks and balances system operates, and who ultimately calls the shots, refusing to hear us out when we try to tell then that they are placing blame on the wrong people, especially the president? This is not meant to be a “Pro Trump” or “Anti Trump” post or me stating what party I registered with and trying to convince people to join my side of the aisle. This is me wondering if others like me have faced genuine disappointment in how quickly people jump on a political bandwagon without truly understanding how things operate and refusing to learn about it, especially seeing it from people we care about and respect. I often get met with defensiveness and people shutting the conversation down.

Thank you for your time.

I’m currently a Canadian student entering my senior year in high school. For the longest time I was pretty adamant about being a lawyer, and all the classes I’ve been taking in high school reflect that. Aswell as the fact that I suck at things like math but I’m quite strong in things like socials and languages such as French, which I’m fluent in. My goal was to ( if all goes well ) get a degree in political science because that’s what most pre law students do. Recently I’ve been kind of wondering what I would do if after getting my degree If I decide I’m no longer interested in becoming a lawyer. What other options are available to me and what steps can I take to open different job opportunities in the future.

I'm 16 right now, and i feel like my knowledge of politics is not too great. I want to know more, engage in political conversations in smart way, think for my own as I'll be eligible to vote soon.

Can someone tell me some apps/websites/habits to build or something to gain political knowledge? something easy and managable since i have my school work too. I just want to know whats right and whats wrong. Like if some person is doing a good deed right now for the nation, but has a past known to be trivial..(in a bad way) do we support the person? or ...? this might sound like a dumb question but im being genuine lol. anyways thank you.

Hey collegues. What political science books or research articles do you consider to be deep or profound?

Hey everyone. I'm 22 years old, and I’ve never really been into politics, but I want to change that. I think it's a topic I need to have a solid understanding of because at the end of the day, it defines how we live.

I'm from Portugal and I want to undestrand politics of my country. I have my own principles and there are certain things I stand for, but some topics and concepts are just so complex to grasp. I see people constantly bringing up policies from other countries or deep historical facts. Because of this, how can I actually start understanding more so I can hold my own in a political conversation? Do I need to study the history of my country, or just the political system? How and where should I start learning, and what exactly should I be studying or reading?

I'm honestly really confused because the whole scene is deeply complex. I know I won't learn everything overnight, but I genuinely don't know how to study this haha. Any advice would be appreciated how to start :))

I'm working on some long form writing, and have tried to pull together a section on Just War theory. We can probably all agree that it's harder to set standards for whether or not to go to war when we're in the midst of the moment, and it's harder to be objective. So I've talked some with others, and this is what I've got so far. My book is about avoiding populist leaders who use division to gain power, so you will see this is my twist on work others have done in the space.

Any thoughts? What is missing from here? Is anything confusing or wrong?

I’m a poli sci major who’s graduating in 2028. As a career, I really just want to do political research. that’s it. I have some preferences, of course, but is there a best way to prep for/get a research job? Like is it better to get a masters or a phd, will it be easier if I specialize in one field over another, etc?

I have some experience as an undergraduate researcher (in history, not poli sci sadly), and I have to write a thesis as a requirement for the program that I’m in (though it’ll probably be a history thesis, not poli sci). I also have a bit of quantitative experience, having used stata before and written a quant paper. Nothing extensive tho. Anything else I can do?

Could someone please recommend some youtube channels from where I can study political science also books? Also books from Indian writers will also do...i am in 1st year

So recently I got to messing around with chat GPT and starting asking about how realistic my ideas are. Can anyone that actually knows about political science or economics tell my if what it said is true. I know it has a problem with making every idea sound like a good one and I honestly don’t have a clue about political science or economics I was just kinda asking it what ifs. I’m leaving out quite a bit of the chat for brevity but it seems like it has some decent ideas.

How time consuming is it being a political science PhD candidate? What’s the pay like?

I saw someone say that states of the US have much more power and autonomy to govern themselves compared to the federal units of other federations such as the states (Länder) of Germany. How true is this?

How different are the power sharing and division in other federal countries?

I would really appreciate any academic reading suggestion on this topic.

There are so many different types of groups/movements when it comes this topic.

There are those who are not only completely against immigration of any sorts but they are even lobbying for to deport as many immigrants that even have citizenship (not only dual citizens) and commits crimes no matter what the crime might be.

You have those who want to only change the immigration politics and laws so that it won't be as easy to just come over to Europe/US/UK/Canada/Australia as it might have been before. But they aren't necessarily prioritizing to deporting immigrants that are citizens whether they have dual citizenship or not.

Then there are those who don't want things to change.

You even have those who wants more immigration.

And sadly (or maybe not) there are those who simply do not care or do not mind or are not aware.

My question is —> What are your thoughts about the polarization between Western nations populations when it comes to immigration?

I’m so lost, no one is hiring for anything without experience in the field nowadays, how do I get experience and also be able to live on my own…I want nothing more to move from this small town I’m in to a big city like Chicago but man I can’t find any entry level jobs. What should I even be looking for

Can anyone recommend a site where political scientist--i.e., academics--post?

I am particularly interested in seeing comments by political scientists re trump's speech.

And maybe comments by other experts in behavior, such as psychologists. I thought there were several fascinating aspects of his speech.

For background I have worked in newsrooms and on campaigns, I've also been fortunate to cover foreign campaigns in the course of my media work.

I get that most seats aren't truly competitive, that a lot of it is legacy media advertising and only spent in bursts towards the end of the cycle which.. coming from Eastern Europe is another weird thing but so be it.

The thing I can't figure out is why, in a year where so much seems to be at stake for the Democrats in retaking seats, Republicans in defensding theirs, the actual content of so many of these Instagram and TikTok and Facebook posts could've been made on a public access TV budget. Does everyone need to be Peter Magyar marching through fields for 180 days? No. But if, for instance, you hold an event.. film people cheering maybe? You maybe do the mildest bit of editing and take out all the awkward pauses? Maybe instead of a static image with the faintest bit of contrast you, I dunno, verbalize when things are happening/why?

I just.. I don't get it. Someone please explain the strategy if there even is one, or the reason why this happens. There are only a few figures on either side whom I can identify as having the same style of presentation as Peter Magyar or Maya Sandu or Navalny or, you know, people running in elections they believe to be genuinely capable of changing things.

So I was looking up statistics from Pew Research center and was curious about if the republican party would be more highly associated with high income voters seeing as they're the side usually more blatantly pro-corperate and reducing financial burdens on high income. But then I noticed something peculiar, the trend seemed to be pretty linear until upper income. This was odd to me because even though I like political science, socioeconomics has always been more my forté. So this discrepancy was unexpected. But there is another subject I'm more familiar with then both which is history.

My theory explaining why using my historical knowledge is this( generalized because I mainly want to hear other perspectives more then give my own in depth or counterpoints to my hasty summarization) When you examine rulers who invested heavily in public works I feel it is often a trend these rulers have reached the point of wealth in which they have as much need for excess capital as they do need for the power/influence money cant as easily buy, like trust, loyalty, or recognition. So even though their financial power is a lot, it's not nearly comparable to emotional power. So elites are more than willing to spend excess income on philanthropic missions for society if it gets them the power over beliefs (shout-out crusades).

Because the downfall of most great nations is either it's people or it's opposition. You need to keep the people satisfied if you dont want a revolt against your power as well as troops enlisting in your army. The power of public perception is far more indomitable then the mighty dollar because if a ruler stays in favor the main threat to their rule becomes a shift in power (political rivals, allies working against them, their decendants/heir). Once enough trust is gained, governments can even restrict basic freedoms of its people saying it's for utilitarianist purposes and people will believe that whether it is or isn't true because of their reputation. This can then lead to a cascading effects where you the line between democracy and aristocracy can become blurred, not in their concepts, but the results.

Because if spending money on workers betterment gets you more loyal workers and those workers loyalty and approval is the very basis of democracy, then it can become what feels like to me an aristocracy with extra steps. Not that those steps aren't important theyre the steps that allow the people to combat against aristocracy. But as long as the "arisdemocrats" don't rock the boat to quickly and reduce rights over time, then you can theoretically get a populus that's in this kind of boiling-frog scenario on what can be gotten away with.

Now I know this might be a gross oversimplification or blindsided to many other nuisances, pls don't skewer me. But this is just my running headcanon, which is why I wanted to open this topic to other interpretations of as to why the upper class is an outlier from the linear pattern set up by the other 4 data points?

Looking for departments, centres, and professors; for conferences, PhD admissions, fellowships, networking.

Hi! I am looking to stay up to date on the latest research and important findings in the admittedly broad field of Political Science. Have not had any luck finding anything really good so far. Does anyone have any particular recommendations?

I am looking to learning about the political ties between modern day Egypt and china. Unfortunately, no matter what terms i use, All Search Engines always default to Ancient Egypt on any given topic. I wouldn't mind some fun history facts about Ancient times but i am more interested in the current political ongoing of modern Egypt.

On a more general but related note, how do Political research look up stuff on Modern Egypt? are there any scientific journals that publish on modern Egypt?

From Crawford Young’s The Postcolonial State in Africa. He was a Political Science professor at UW Madison so I thought it was appopriate for the subreddit. I’m not a social scientist but I’ve been finding this book extremely informative about the development of Africa and thinking about states in general.

“The folly of subcontracting security operations to local militias found further demonstration in both Darfur and the south. In arming irregular armed factions to assault insurgents, one provides these uncontrollable elements a license to loot, rape, and kill. The terror they may sow rarely works to effect the willing submission of disaffected regions harboring insurgent fighters to a national authority. The hatreds they create, the redoubled insecurity arising from the multiplication of weaponry in the countryside, and the risk that, thus empowered, they become in turn rogue forces finding a livelihood in continuing local violence are destructive outcomes far outweighing any short-
term benefit.”

Hi everyone,

I’m a Political Science student currently working on my final dissertation on populist leaders. I’m particularly interested in understanding the reasons behind public support for them, especially in contexts where these leaders display authoritarian tendencies or challenge democratic institutions.

My main focus is Latin America, using countries included in the Latinobarómetro surveys. At the moment, I’m considering focusing on leaders such as Hugo Chávez (as the central case), Alberto Fujimori, Rafael Correa, and Álvaro Uribe.

I would really appreciate any recommendations regarding: relevant literature on support for populist/authoritarian leaders; theoretical frameworks I should consider; methodological approaches...

Any suggestions, readings, or general guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!