Category: News

Podcast #3: Consultant Lobbyists and Public Officials – Maxime Boucher

“When we first reviewed the literature on lobbying, we quickly realized that there was more than one definition of lobbying and that these different definitions can be grouped into two main visions of lobbying. Our main objective in our paper was to empirically test this central theoretical distinction between well-connected generalist lobbyists that specialize in navigating the political process and issue specialist lobbyists that specialize in a specific policy sector and provide substantive expertise to policymakers.” – the third episode of our PSR 140-sec short podcast series by Maxime Boucher. The author speaks about the article: Consultant Lobbyists and Public Officials: Selling Policy Expertise or Personal Connections in Canada? by Maxime Boucher and Christopher A Cooper.

Maxime Boucher – his research focuses on two complementary aspects of lobbying and corporate political activities. By making use of “big data” sources such as the lobbying registry, it shows how Canadian political institutions affect the relations between organized interests and policy-makers. He is also interested in the regulation of lobbying and other forms of corporate political activities in North America and Europe. His research on the topic shows how lobbying regulation affects the state of corporate political rights in contemporary democracies.

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Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London

Podcast #2: Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity and fact-checking – Sakari Nieminen

“The fact-checking industry has grown enormously in recent years. Because the practice is becoming more and more well known, Lauri Rapeli and I conducted a literature review about the issue, to find out, what research has to say about the subject”- the second episode of our PSR 140-sec short podcast series by Sakari Nieminen. The author speaks about the article: Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity: A Review of Fact-checking Literature by Lauri Rapeli and Sakari Nieminen.

Sakari Nieminen is a doctoral student in political science at Turku University, Finland. His current research interests include fact-checking, argumentation, and political rhetoric.

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Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London

Podcast #1: Populist Peril to Democracy – Yunus Sözen

“In the last two decades, parties, or leaders widely claimed to be populist have come to power in different countries beyond populism’s traditional stronghold of Latin America, such as Thailand, United States, and Turkey” – the first episode of our PSR 140-sec short podcast series by Yunus Sözen. The author speaks about his article: Populist Peril to Democracy: The Sacralization and Singularization of Competitive Elections.

Yunus Sözen is a Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University’s Institute for International and Regional Studies. He is also a faculty member in the International Relations Department of Özyeğin University, Istanbul. He received his BA from Boğaziçi University, Department of Political Science and International Relations, and his PhD in Politics from New York University. Sozen’s areas within Political Science are Comparative Politics and Democratic Theory. His research focuses on the relationship between populism and political regime dynamics.

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Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London

A Note from the New Editorial Team

We are delighted to have been awarded the editorship of Political Studies Review. The previous teams have ensured that the journal has gone from strength to strength and we will endeavour to ensure that this success continues. 

Political Studies Review has a clear identity and under our editorship, the original aims of the journal will remain. But, we also want to build on the journal’s identity and aims. To that end, we will shortly be introducing some new innovations to the journal alongside the existing long-form articles, review articles and special issues, which will continue to form the core of the journal’s identity. More broadly, we are particularly keen to involve Early Career Researchers and PhD students in the life of the journal – both as authors and reviewers – and will be working closely with the PSA’s Early Career Network to assist in this goal. The new sections will be as follows.

Early Results â€“ We will introduce an Early Results section, limited to 3000 words, where authors can release early findings from projects, as a precursor to longer articles. It will provide not only a means by which early findings can be published, but also an arena in which new ideas can be explored, promoted and tested. We will expedite speedy publication through a review process that will be limited to one peer reviewer and an editor. The underlying principle will be peer-reviewed accessibility, which will not limit papers to any particular sub-field or methodological tradition.

Symposia and New Ideas â€“ We will retain the symposia section but again, will see papers published as being early versions of what may become more extensive articles. It will be a forum to represent the real benefit of symposia – exploring and fleshing out new ideas and directions for study. A word limit of 3000 words will prompt authors to outline their key thoughts. As with the Early Results section, we will expedite speedy publication through the same process of review.

The Null Hypothesis â€“ Many research projects produce results where the hypotheses are rejected, but where the results are nonetheless relevant. Yet, these papers are rarely published because the null hypothesis is confirmed. We propose an outlet for these very interesting findings, and by limiting articles to 3000–5000 words, we will make the journal an attractive destination for those who had sound theoretical reasons for their hypotheses but had to reject these. Again, we will operate on the principle of peer-reviewed accessibility.

In the meantime, we are delighted to launch our editorship of the journal with an article based on the inaugural lecture of the Regius Professor of Political Science at the University of Essex, Professor Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, which was delivered in October 2018.

Justin Fisher, Martin Ejnar Hansen, Steve Pickering and Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt, Brunel University London