This article first reviews the history of political science teaching in Europe before going on to consider a range of recent developments in the teaching of political science, including cross-national joint programmes; technologically enhanced learning; placement learning and problem-based learning. The last section considers a range of issues facing political science teachers, including financial pressures; EU and national government policies; Bologna and quality assurance. The article concludes by suggesting that particular attention needs to be paid to what is taught at master's and doctoral levels.

Discourse Analysis derives from a paradigm shift in philosophy, Twentieth-century philosophy moved from taking a view about the world and its properties expressed through language, to a focus on language and its properties as such, and how the world is made for us from the meanings that language expresses, This represents an Inversion of the scientific and commonsensical world- view inherited from the scientific revolution and empiricist philosophies of the last few hundred years, In that perspective language is simply a neutral medium through which facts and meanings can in principle be transparently conveyed (Shapiro, 1985-86).

Perhaps the clearest expression of this outlook in philosophical terms is in the first chapter of Richard Rorty's (1989) Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, where he explains that - with the death of God - we can no longer assume that the universe contains meanings that are just ‘there’ to be construed by us in language. That is, we have no reason to believe that the world ‘has a human face’ which it turns to us, and which we can interpret through language as a neutral medium, Rather we use language to inscribe meanings into the world - whether into or onto objects, or experiences - and then we read those meanings back to ourselves as if they had always resided in the objects or experiences as such.

Constitutional courts play an increasing role in policymaking and the concepts of comparative politics. Traditionally, research has focused on the Judicialization hypothesis for European courts. This article argues that there is a major research gap regarding justices’ preferences, intra- and inter-institutional rules and that it is necessary to move beyond the Judicialization hypothesis to integrate courts in concepts of comparative politics. It outlines four theoretical and methodological challenges for future research on constitutional courts.

The publication pattern of EPSR confirms the findings of established scholarship on gender and publishing; women publish less than men (roughly, 30% to 70%). This gap reflects a previous submission gap; i.e., men submit even much more than women do. EPSR editorial process does not show signs of discrimination: single or leading female authors have significantly lower desk rejection rates than their male counterparts in similar configurations. Women though, are underrepresented as peer reviewers and EPSR has taken measures to redress this situation. Looking at women authors perceptions, findings (that cannot be considered representative), are consistent with existing scholarship. Women authors perceive themselves as more perfectionist and more risk adverse, they also perceive that they can dedicate less time to research, and they express mistrust in the blind review process. As a general conclusion, whilst reversing the gender gap requires structural action beyond and before the editorial process, journal editors must consider forms to secure more extensive women inclusion in publications.

At the level of regime typologies, the uncertain status and inherent weakness of the opposition mark defining features of regimes beyond liberal democracy. However, even the performance and evolution of the latter tend to be shaped by oppositions and the regime’s approach to dealing with them. This article offers a bird’s-eye view of political oppositions in contemporary electoral democracies and competitive autocracies. It focuses on patterns of strategic choices and behavior by both governments and oppositions. That endeavor forms part of a larger joint venture seeking to give center stage to those actors living in the shadows of increasingly unscrupulous power-holders.

Social scientists often face a fundamental problem: Did I leave something causally important out of my explanation? How do I diagnose this? Where do I look for solutions to this problem? We build bridges between regression models and qualitative comparative analysis by comparing diagnostics and solutions to the problem of omitted variables and conditions. We then discuss various approaches and tackle the theoretical issues around causality which must be addressed before attending to technical fixes. In the conclusions, we reflect on the bridges built between the two traditions and draw more general lessons about the logic of social science research.

In the 1990s most scholars saw European citizenship as a purely decorative and symbolic institution which added little new to the ‘pre-Maastricht’ regime of free movement rights. In addition, many felt the need to defend the primacy of national citizenship by highlighting the derivative nature and weak content of European citizenship. Accordingly, its transformative potential remained at the margins of the debate. Despite such assessments, European Union citizenship has matured as an institution, owing to a number of important interventions by the European Court of Justice and legislative initiatives, such as the Citizenship Directive (Dir 2004/38).

Research about political science in Latin America shows good progress on issues such as the extension of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, the quality of academic production and the social recognition of the profession. Still, the status of women and diversity in the field has been scarcely contemplated. This fact is striking considering that Latin America is characterised by great inequalities, and scientific communities are not isolated from prevailing social prejudices. The article provides a first approach to the question of the status of women and diversity in the discipline in Latin America, examining women’s presence in professional associations, universities and national research systems. Journals and congresses are also examined in order to assess the participation of women as authors and panellists, as well as the extent to which diversity and gender-related issues are addressed in academic production. The findings point to the existence of a ‘critical mass’ of women in the field, although they are outnumbered by their male counterparts. This feature makes the profession in Latin America more similar to political science communities elsewhere and less like other social sciences in the region, which are feminised disciplines.

In recent years, the debate over the need to address ecological and social concerns has grown substantially. Phenomena such as the Gilets Jaunes in France or the ecological versus social disputes in industrial sites (such as, for example, the ILVA steel plant in Taranto) have constituted a trade-off in terms of potentially conflicting policies, making the understanding of the various underlying preferences very important. Furthermore, growing environmental concerns have challenged more traditional views anchored on the predominance of social and employment concerns. The article, in line with the research questions raised in the introduction of the Symposium, intends to contribute to the above-mentioned debate addressing the following questions: did the European Union take an ‘eco-social’ path? If so, how and why? The article illustrates the growing intertwining of social and environmental policies at the EU level and tries to explain its genesis by focusing on the role of the various actors involved. The main argument is that the European Commission, and in particular the President of the Commission, developed an eco-social agenda in order to obtain further institutional (i.e. internal) and socio-political (i.e. external) legitimation.

This article discusses the potential of case study and process-tracing methods for studying lobbying and framing in the European Union (EU). It argues that case studies and process tracing allow us to explore different sets of questions than large-N and quantitative approaches and to shed light on the mechanisms that contribute to policy change. Through these methods it is possible to study long-term processes and under-researched areas, to analyse the social construction of frames and to single out the conditions that lead to successful framing. In order to show the advantages of case studies and process tracing, illustrative examples drawn from the case study of EU foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are provided.

This article presents the main perspectives of the Stockholm-based research project ‘Gender Quotas: a Key to Equality?’ and analyses recent developments in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries which illustrate the new trend in demands for gender quotas even in strictly male-dominated societies. How has it been possible to place the disempowerment of women on the agenda in these post-war countries where state-building processes are dominated by external forces?

The aim of the research project ‘Gender Quotas: a Key to Equality?’ is to carry out a comparative analysis of the new global trend in the use of electoral gender quotas.’ The focus of the study is on : 1) the discursive controversies surrounding the introduction of quotas; 2) the quota provisions themselves; 3) the often troublesome implementation of different types of quota arrangement in various electoral systems, and, finally 4) the effects of the introduction of quotas on women's political representation, in both quantitative (the number of women) and qualitative terms (political empowerment of women).

This article analyses and explains the rapid electoral success of an emergent populist radical right party in Romania—the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). AUR’s definition of ‘a transnational people’ relates to a multi-layered community—native Romanians within Romania, co-ethnic communities in neighbouring countries, and Romanians living and working abroad—that create, together, a Romanianness in need of representation, and preservation. By focusing on AUR’s definition of ‘the people’ and on (trans)national mobilization, we unwrap a new dimension of populism which refers to broader fields of connectedness across borders in which bottom-up and top-down dynamics co-exist, acting as rhetorical and operational openings for the party’s development and success in the homeland arena.

Do academic publication standards reflect or determine research results? The article proposes minimal criteria for distinguishing useful ‘unpublishable’ results from low-quality research, and argues that the virtues of negative results have been overlooked. We consider the fate these results have suffered thus far, review arguments for and against their publication and introduce a new initiative – a journal to disseminate negative results and advance debate on their recognition and use.

Promoting renewable energy sources (RES) has been addressed a key strategy for mitigating climate change, the governing in which has turned out a challenging and protracted task for the EU. There is often an implicit assumption that concern for climate change drives energy policy, but a closer look at the development of European RES policy indicates how EU governors have had to confront a range of governance dilemmas in trying to balance various objectives and conflicting interests. Therefore, while energy security and environmental concerns have provided a rationale for crafting renewable energy as a specific EU policy domain, the main driver for RES policy coordination has been internal market concerns, and not the concern about an impending climate catastrophe. More recently, rising concerns about energy insecurity and climate change have forced the EU to seek greater policy coordination in the context of more integrated energy markets. Although seemingly propitious for further harmonisation, it is doubtful whether the Member States and their citizens are yet prepared to accept new efforts towards deeper integration of European energy policy.

The article aims at opening a debate by offering some ideas about how we can avoid analytical confusion in future inquiry on European collective identity. I discuss two important theoretical deficiencies that impede advancement in the research on this topic. These shortcomings are: (1) the two-level problem in analysing collective identities; and (2) the issue of equating ‘belonging to’ with ‘belonging together’. In doing so, I will also make some proposals on how we can deal with these problems. Finally, I present a few considerations on further research questions and point to several empirical desiderata.

On 13 January 2016, for the first time in its history, the European Union launched an investigation against one of its full member states, Poland. The dispute is about new Polish laws that allegedly disempower the Constitutional Court and the public media, thus breaching EU democracy standards. The dispute reaches far beyond Poland and questions the further perspectives of integration of the Central Eastern European (CEE) states within the EU. At the same time, it is closely connected with the current multidimensional European crisis. This article argues that the EU-Poland dispute is an outcome of the combination of the specific problems of governance in CEE with a superficial institutionalism of the EU. Poland’s governance controversies show that new attention of the EU to its CEE member states is needed, as they were for many years marginalized because of other concerns such as the economic and financial crises since 2007, the threat of a ‘Brexit’ and currently the refugee crisis. In order to salvage the European integration project, it will be crucial for Europe’s credibility to support the CEE countries to reform their socio-economic systems. At the same time, the case of Poland offers a chance for a debate about how the EU can cooperate more effectively and in extended manners.

Often overlooked by political scientists, Foucault's later work on ‘governmentality’ has much to offer political analysis. This paper does three things. First, it highlights three different meanings that Foucault and others give to this term. Second, it reviews some of the key debates – such as the nature of liberal governance – surrounding studies of governmentality. Finally, it illustrates the analytical promise of a governmentality perspective through a short discussion of recent developments in European governance.

In civic education and political science classes, simulation games are increasingly recognised as a teaching tool to promote active learning, expecting them to enhance participants’ motivations and to convey transferable knowledge and skills. Furthermore, they have been described as a promising teaching approach with regard to the complex multi-level system of the European Union (EU). Empirical studies have underlined positive effects of simulation games; however, they usually either use purely qualitative or very small-N quantitative approaches. More systematic studies conducted recently didn’t focus on causes of the measured effects and have lacked depth due to a closed items design. The study presented here uses a mixed-method approach, analysing the effects of simulations of European Parliamentarian decision-making conducted with secondary school classes in Germany on students' political knowledge, motivations and attitudes. In addition to a standardised questionnaire with pre- and post-tests (N = 308), qualitative interviews were conducted (n = 12). The paper focuses on the relation between participants' conceptual changes and changes in perceived responsiveness of the EU. The results highlight relevant learning effects students experience in EU simulation games that are not yet captured appropriately by questionnaire studies and can stimulate the development of measurement tools for assessing process-oriented learning outcomes more adequately.

Drawing on the insights of critical security studies, this article argues that an understanding of emancipation as a process of freeing up space for dialogue and deliberation enables a focus on crucial questions, experiences and practices neglected in most orthodox accounts of security and terrorism. In particular, emancipation has the potential to serve as a philosophical anchorage for a nascent critical terrorism studies research agenda. The paper goes on to outline what a critical terrorism studies informed by a concern with emancipation might look like, focusing on a series of key questions that such an approach might encourage in the context of the post-2001 ‘war on terror’.

Increasingly, simulation-based teaching and learning is finding a place within politics and international relations (IR) programmes. The majority of literature on this style of teaching and learning has positioned it as both an aid to content delivery and as a response to the many challenges facing contemporary higher education. Little guidance is given, however, to the practical considerations of using simulations as a component of assessment or as informing assessed tasks. This article draws upon the experience of the authors in adapting the well-established Model United Nations (MUN) simulation programme for delivery as an assessed module at a British university. This has involved balancing institutional teaching, assessment and validation requirements with the successful simulation of diplomatic practice. The article introduces the MUN simulation and explores the extant pedagogic literature encouraging the use of simulation-based learning in IR curricula, before moving on to provide an overview of the rationale for the various decisions the authors have made in adapting the simulation for delivery as an assessed curriculum component. The article asserts the value of introducing assessed simulations within IR coursework and provides guidance on how student performance in pedagogic simulations might best be assessed.