Correction: volume and issue numbering, 2023–2026
Volume numbers of IAPSS Politikon now correspond to the year of publication. The issues published between 2023 and 2026 have been relabelled, and their PDFs reissued. All DOIs are unchanged.
This issue covers international relations, comparative politics and political theory, and makes a case for interdisciplinary work in political science. Cecilia Lwiindi Nedziwe examines how non-state actors in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region have organized around gender security. Drawing on interviews and policy documents, she argues for a socio-historical approach to regional organization that recognizes the role of civil society alongside states. Cara McLaughlin analyzes how Scottish political parties frame the issues they own on Twitter and Facebook before elections. She shows that parties use threat and victim frames strategically, in ways shaped by their parliamentary strength and whether they are in government.
In the Conversations section, Vladimir Rosas-Salazar reads Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009) as an allegory of apartheid-era segregation, showing how science fiction can engage with historical injustice. The issue closes with two book reviews. Samuel De Brouwer reviews Marcel Gauchet and the Crisis of Democratic Politics, which introduces Gauchet’s theory of democracy to English-language readers. Vojtěch Pohanka reviews Sarah Engler’s Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties and Their Struggle for Survival.
Volume numbers of IAPSS Politikon now correspond to the year of publication. The issues published between 2023 and 2026 have been relabelled, and their PDFs reissued. All DOIs are unchanged.
On 11 May 2026 (10:00 GMT+1, London), Domenico Andrea Schiuma, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Milan, will present a seminar on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The talk traces the history and foundations of this method, developed by Charles Ragin in 1987 as a way to bridge the longstanding divide between qualitative and quantitative research traditions. Drawing on his own experience using QCA in comparative political research, Schiuma will explain how the method works and what makes it distinctive among mixed-methods approaches.
How are world leaders responding to the United States’ changing diplomatic posture? As Washington adopts a more transactional approach to alliances and engages more openly with authoritarian governments, political leaders across democratic and non-democratic systems face difficult choices. Some accommodate the shift, others resist it, and many attempt to navigate the tension between strategic partnership and the defence of democratic norms.
The Conversations section invites short analytical contributions that place political leadership at the centre of this debate. We welcome essays and reflections examining how individual leaders’ personalities, strategic visions, and domestic constraints shape their responses to an increasingly authoritarian-leaning U.S. foreign policy. Submissions (500–1,000 words) are due 15 April 2026.