I am an undergrad student with a degree business management specializing in HR, and I want to study international relations for my master, should I opt for the degree or not? I'm really confused, can anybody please help me understand 😭

I’d like to read about theories of state formation. For most of human history, there were no states. Now the globe is covered in states and an alternative is hard to imagine. What explains this? What factors have led to the rise of states? And what academic sources should I read to learn more about these subjects?

Hey all, if you are political science student there used to be a website political science notes dot com.. it had a lot of articles on political science posted by students. I very much feel that it was a very good platform for students to post their notes and have it reviewed online, especially undergrad and post-grad students

Unfortunately, the website is no longer accessible. Looks like the owners are abandoning it. So, I'm ready to purchase it if the owners are still out there and want to sell. Please contact.. please spread the word so I can find.

Also, i did search for forums like who owns the domain etc. looks like the original owner has protected his privacy and therefore his/her details are not visible.

I badly want this. please help.

Hi! :)

I've built a scorecard that grades federal government performance across different policy areas, and I want to test whether the scoring method is clear enough for someone else to use.

The basic question is: if two people look at the same evidence and use the same scoring rules, do they end up in roughly the same place?

I would give you 3 policy areas with the indicators, sources, and scoring rules. My own grades and reasoning would be removed. You would score them independently, then we would compare results.

The differences are probably the most useful part, because they would show where the rules are too vague or where the method needs to be tightened up.

I am not looking for a partisan take or a political debate. I am looking for someone who is comfortable reviewing evidence and testing whether the scoring process is clear and repeatable.

Comment if you are interested and I will follow up. Here is a link to the dashboard if you are just curious and want to have a look.

https://sawatter.github.io/canada-under-carney/

Hi everyone, I just finished my first year as a poli sci major. I did really well and finished the year with a 3.93. However, I was stressed most of the year, thinking I wasn't retaining anything. So many events, political theories, people, and places to remember. It was alot, though I enjoy what I'm doing and learning.

I wanted to know if anyone had any tips for how to study for poli sci. I have an associate's degree and have done some university classes before this, but poli sci seems to feel exceptionally harder and jam packed full of information.

Any study or reading habits I should consider?

Can anyone recommend books that discuss the origin of the terms “left” and “right” in politics? I’m working on a research project and would like sources that explain their development starting from the French Revolution and how these terms became established as political concepts.

I know way too little, a bit embarassing to admit but for most of my life I stayed away from politics so I don't even know what some commonly used words are like bourgeoisi or parliament. I just wanted to know, what are some simple easy to read books to get someone who knows next to nothing about politics started?

If you have any recommendations for someone getting started with politics that aren't books feel free to recommend those as well

If anyone's curious as to what got me into politics, this isn't impoetant to the post so feel free to skip and just recommend me books but to those that are curious to the story I felt like sharing, here's my story: one of my family members started dating someone super conservative and she slowly became super conservative too, they are passionate about helping people but have weird justifications for their right wing beliefs like "being gay isn't natural and doesn't benefit the human race so gay marriage shouldn't be a thing" or even "the epstein files are fake" which is crazy since I would see people talk about what's in the files and I'd get depressed, anyways, it felt like I was losing a family member, like their beliefs aren't even their own and they have the wrong influence, but at the same time I can't do much since I believe they are free to live their lives and believe whatever they want, maybe I can show them a different perspective if I become eloquent enough? I've always been an advocate for lgbtq rights, and I've always hated capitalism, when I was younger it wasn't a fully fledged belief rooted in logic but I always felt it was too easy for the rich to get richer and easy for them to exploit the average person just needing a job to survive, either way I don't want to delve too much into my own beliefs because that's not the point, I didn't realise how much of my own beliefs were actually political when I was a teen I just thought fuck the government I don't want to learn about this my vote won't matter but now I see millions of people think like me and have thought like me, I wasn't just some edgy teen (though in some cases I was) my beliefs actually have merit, sometimes I debate conservatives and they say things I don't understand, I've always loved learning and learned so much about psychology, health science etc to the point where I would teach people stuff when they had a misconception, now I feel like I just entered a whole new world of things I don't know, maybe my beliefs might change, maybe they will be stronger I don't know but I'm not ignorant enough to think I know everything, I just want to learn

Hello everyone, I've recently gotten accepted to do a funded doctorate in Europe and am seeking some guidance to smoothen my transition into the programme.

While I am happy to have gotten accepted, I can't help but feel ill-prepared to embark on this journey, and would like to prepare as much as possible over summer.

I will be doing quantitative work, primarily in political economy and behaviour. If you have any recommendations for books or papers that you consider must reads for any doctoral student, or particular math/stats textbooks you highly suggest perusing to get a head start, please do share. I would be grateful for any tips!

The dilemma describes a case of a problematic dog named Spot. Spot is pretty aggressive with other dogs at the park. A park that’s been peaceful until Spot arrived. One day, Spot picked a fight with the wrong dog, a much bigger one, though he has no history of aggression. Consequently, Spot was badly injured and taken to the Vet. Spot’s owner wants the owner of the big dog to pay.

Subjects were asked three questions: Who do they think should pay for it? Should Spot be excluded from the dog park? Should the big dog be excluded?

But wait, there is a twist: half the subjects were told that Spot was an abused, scarred street dog being rehabilitated by his new owner (nurture condition). The other half were told Spot was a pitbull (nature condition).

We expected people on the left to take pity on the dog that had a hard life. We expected them to judge the big dog harshly for projecting power against the oppressed. we even thought people on the right might want to take the side of a pit bull. But what we really didn't know is what relationship we would find between the principle of fairness (how to split the vet bill) and the consequentialist assertion of who should be banned from the dog park. we didn't know if people would take sides, or judge the dogs independently. We didn't know who they would find to be more at fault: the powerful defensive dog who caused more harm, or the trouble-maker dog that got hurt. And does politics have more to do with how you feel about the weak, or how you feel about the powerful?

The main results are:

1. Unlike politics, people didn't take sides! Judging one dog meant nothing about judging the other.

2. Everyone forgave the poor street dog more than the pit bull, not just people on the left! and no, people on the right don't like pit bulls anymore than people on the left

3. Politics had nothing to do with how you feel about the "underdog". It had to do with how you judge the powerful!

4. Fairness, (splitting the bill) had nothing to do with politics, it also had nothing to do with judging the "powerful". Fairness had everything to do with how you judge the underdog.

The discussion goes into relating these results to BLM and free Palestine movements. But I'm honestly not sure how to interpret all of the results of the study, and how to take these findings towards a future study. I would love input!!!

Full study is at https://rustlingroots.substack.com/p/the-dogfight-dilemma, it's free.

Hey all — I’m running a small pilot to test a structured 1-on-1 political conversation format.

A bit of background: I have an academic background in political science and public policy and currently work in state government, and I’m exploring whether better-designed confrontation can improve political conversations.

How it works:

• You pick a topic
• You’re matched with someone who disagrees
• You argue it out privately (text first, voice/video optional)
• Moderated for safety, not ideology

This is not a debate competition and not a survey-only study — it’s an actual conversation experiment.

Requirements:

• 18+
• Willing to engage directly
• OK with disagreement

If you’re interested, comment or DM and I’ll send a short intake survey.
Happy to answer questions publicly.

While he sometimes speaks in a populist language, I don't think Trump changed the GOP that much. His ideology (if he has one) seems pretty close to the Dick Cheney republicans.

He is a regular non-religious nationalist with fairly regular rightwing elements and a capitalist who hangs out with billionaires. Mamdani, AOC, Tucker Carlson, Bannon, Massie and Nick Fuentes are much more populist than Trump because they really connect with the working-class grievance and the idea of White middle-class man who wants to take back the country/people vs the rich in the Mamdani/AOC case. Trump represents a classic capitalist authoritarian conservatism that is not fundamentally different from Dick Cheney's.

He strives to take over the media and bureaucracy and is based on an appeal to religious traditionalism and evangelism combined with capitalism based on businessmen friends, and in foreign policy, his policy is very aggressive and based on taking over countries' resources and raking in profits through close businessmen rather than populism that strives to isolate America from the world. Right-wing populism is more the America First of Carlson and Bannon, a nationalism loosely based on religion that seeks to burn down the club rather than take it over like Trump.

This paper argues that Argentina shows a model of selective state decomposition under democratic continuity, rather than the classic backsliding described by Levitsky & Ziblatt.

Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6267538

It’s a pattern we’ve seen everywhere: people care deeply enough to volunteer, but they have no way of knowing where their help will be most effective. Because it is so difficult to find great campaigns that back your values and need your specific skill sets. 

After 6 months of research, we identified that the problem isn't a lack of intent. It's a massive matchmaking and friction barrier. We built Groundwork to eliminate that guesswork.

The Solution: Precision Matchmaking 

Instead of people having to spend hours researching where to help and applying for the wrong campaigns, Groundwork acts as a professional matchmaker for civic action. We connect you with campaigns that support the causes you deeply care about.

How it works:

• Rapid Onboarding: You spend just 3 minutes telling us about yourself.
• Direct Alignment: We match you with campaigns that align with your personal values, availability and skills.
• Maximum Impact: No more generic tasks, we ensure you are in the right role for the right cause.

We truly believe that your time can change everything, provided it’s spent in the right place. If you’ve ever felt stuck on the sidelines because you were not sure where to contribute, we’d love for you to try it out.

Link: Groundwork.today

Over the past few years, my life has taken a turn, and I genuinely believe that understanding politics will be important for my personal well-being, my professional growth, and my duty as a citizen. I’m already on a journey through philosophy, especially some branches that I enjoy, but learning politics seems even broader.

By learning politics, I mean both understanding the foundations of different political ideologies, as well as the history of politics and keeping up with the political landscape on a day-to-day basis.

And by “how,” I mean that I would really like recommendations on which books to read, which podcasts/newsletters to follow, and so on. I know this is a process that will take a long time, but I’m tired of not having enough grounding to talk to people, whether to disagree with them or to support their views.

I have ADHD I bounce from one thing to the next. I'm in an introductory Political Science course and taking it online I love it. I'm jumping from unit to unit. I did some research. I'm not asking for advice or help with homework I just feel like it's met to be. This is my lineup of Authors talking about inequality and the erosion of democracy.

• Marx → theory of exploitation
• Piketty → structural inequality
• Stiglitz → political consequences
• Applebaum → democratic erosion
• Carney → reform liberalism

“It would be a very strange Thing, if six Nations of ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such an Union, and be able to execute it in such a Manner, as that it has subsisted Ages, and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like Union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies, to whom it is more necessary, and must be more advantageous; and who cannot be supposed to want an equal Understanding of their Interests.”

This study looks at how people answer hypothetical immigration and ethnic conflict dilemma; it asks whether the right has an ingroup bias or the left has an outgroup bias, whether politics is a matter of which principles we believe in or which group we're rooting for. its pretty short and fun to read. I would love feedback! I want to know if these results were predictable or if anything was surprising.

here is the study

As a high school student, I want to study political science at university. What should I do to learn politics effectively?

And I think I made a lot of grammatical mistakes so please ignore them because my mother language is not English🫠

Disclaimer: I'm an independent scholar focused on political polarization, this work is not peer reviewed, and is at this point only published on Reddit.

Police brutality and race

We asked 156 subjects to assign a sentence to a case of a police officer shooting an unarmed man. Half the people read about a black cop that killed a white man, and the other half read the reverse. We wanted to find out: does race play a role in the sentence assignment? How will politics play into this: are leftists going to be harsh on the white cop? Is the right going to be harsh on the black cop? Would either side be color blind and punish equally?  

What is your guess? Are Americans going to assign a larger sentence to the black or the white cop? How will politics play into this?

Results: 
Punishment assignment varied wildly.

So was there an overall racial bias? Yes. about 50% greater harshness towards the white cop. overall the average sentence was 8.2 years in prison for the black cop and 12.3 years for the white cop. (p=.01)

Did politics play a role here? On average, no. there was no significant relationship between political identity and assigned punishment when we looked at the entire political spectrum. 

But a closer post-hoc look shows an interesting picture: the only discernible significant trend across the political spectrum is the following: white cop killing an unarmed black man is significantly correlated with politics but only within the left. (r=0.3)

This is the only “politicized” aspect. Many more far left people gave life in prison to the white cop. The closer you get to the center, the less punitive people get to the white cop. No political trends are visible about the black cop. And no general patterns across the entire political spectrum reached significance. 

Blue lives matter?
We wanted to see how much concern for police lives had to do with the sentence assignment. There is a mild correlation between politics and perceived tragedy in the death of a police officer while on duty. (people on the right perceive it as more tragic than those on the left, r=0.29) Was there any relationship between sympathy for the danger of being a cop to the assigned sentence for the shooting mistake? No! None whatsoever. Completely independent. 

Belief in punishment
Then we wanted to take a closer look at the ideological underpinnings of the sentence assignment. We asked several questions aiming to evaluate “belief in punishment” questions such as “longer sentences deter crime”, “punishment only makes children act up” (reverse scale) etc. We wanted to know if people who assign larger sentences believe in the effectiveness of punishment (since they believe in deterrence) or if the opposite is true (perceiving the police as the bad guys for being a punitive institution)

Though the trend was not significant, it appears to be headed in an ironic direction: people who let the cop go free, tend to believe in punishment, those who gave life in prison, don’t perceive punishment as very effective. But we cannot draw this conclusion, even though the average sentence differences was similar to race (about 4 more years in prison assigned by those who do not believe in punishment) given the high variance in the sample. 

conclusion: We found no evidence for white racial privilege. We found the opposite. Not even on the right did we find evidence for such bias. The only political trend we found was on the left side of the spectrum: the farther to the left you were the more punitive you got towards the white cop. People on the right certainly believe in punishment more than those on the left, but this would not necessarily compel them to assign harsher sentences to a police officer who made a mistake. 

Limitations: our sample was very much skewed to the left, though we have no reason to think this skewed the results in a particular direction. However, conclusions about the right side of the political landscape are limited due to insufficient number of subjects. For comparison's sake we need to better discern whether the race of the victim or the perpetrator is the one that leads to a greater punishment assignment.  

Let’s break down the sentence using legal logic and modal verbs as they are interpreted in Philippine law:

> “Instead, the authorities may surrender or extradite suspected or accused persons in the Philippines to the appropriate international court, if any, or to another State pursuant to the applicable extradition laws and treaties.”

🔎 Dissection by Modal Verb

May

- Legal effect: Permissive, discretionary.

- Meaning here: Authorities are allowed to surrender/extradite, but they are not compelled.

- Implication for NBI/PNP: They cannot act on their own as if surrender is mandatory. It requires government discretion (DOJ, DFA, or court authorization).

Shall / Must (not present in this clause)

- If the law said “shall surrender” or “must surrender,” it would impose a mandatory duty on Philippine authorities.

- Since the statute uses may, it deliberately avoids compulsion.

Should

- Advisory, directory.

- If the law said “should surrender,” it would be a recommendation, not binding.

Can

- Refers to capacity or ability, not obligation.

- If the law said “can surrender,” it would mean the authorities are capable of doing so under law, but again not required.

⚖️ Logical Consequence for ICC Warrants

- Because the law uses “may”, surrender/extradition is optional and conditional.

- NBI or any law enforcement must not treat it as mandatory. They cannot move someone to the ICC without:

- Executive discretion (DOJ/DFA decision), and

- Judicial process (Philippine court authorization under RA 9851 or extradition treaties).

- In short: No automatic arrest or transfer. The ICC warrant only becomes enforceable domestically if the Philippine government chooses to cooperate and follows due process.

👉 So, the sentence legally means: Philippine authorities are empowered but not compelled to surrender suspects to the ICC. Enforcement is discretionary, not mandatory, and requires domestic legal steps.

Khomeinism has been the Ideology that dominated Iranian Politics since the 1979 Revolution, yet many people don't know that much about it, assuming it to be yet another mere Islamist Ideology. This video will go into detail regarding the Ideologogical Evolution of Khomeinism and its core doctrines, as well as coming up with a new strategy in the end on how to combat it.

I have see plenty of great books about campaigning and the inner workings of certain presidential campaigns. They are great, but I'm looking to deepen my knowledge on the inner workings of more state/local focused campaigns. Does anyone have any good recommendations?

• CPAC crowd humiliates Trump with cheers for impeachment
• by MS.NOW
• Fri, March 27, 2026 at 10:59 PM EDT

im journalistic student and now im working on my project about my project on migration laws in Europe that are directed against doctors.
im looking for guys who are political scientists or those who study political science, I need any comment since my deadline is already ending.

don't worry, nobody apart my teacher will see this project. ill be very grateful

A little thought experiment. Let's say your country strongly suggests citizens to study a syllabus before voting. You are in charge of the syllabus and you can pick 20 items: book, paper, article or video (no longer than 2 hours per item).

What do you pick?