Guest Editor: Anja Neundorf, University of Glasgow
Guest Editor: Robert Pape, University of Chicago
Guest Editor: Nicholas Tampio, Fordham University

In recent years, universities around the world have been at the center of political controversies. In this call for papers of Perspectives on Politics, we invite political scientists to use their expertise to explain what is and ought to be happening at institutions of higher education. We encourage papers from a range of perspectives, subfields, and approaches within the discipline.

We welcome all kinds of political science research focusing on universities, including both established research agendas investigating universities as political phenomena and work in which scholars apply disciplinary concepts and theories to the case of universities for the first time. Here is a noncomprehensive list of themes and questions that would be appropriate for this issue.

Call for Papers Extended Deadline - October 1, 2025

Universities’ impact on social and political change

States often create and fund universities to produce knowledge and train the next generation of leaders. Universities, however, often have missions that put them at odds with political actors outside of the academy. Many academics consider academic freedom essential to do their job well, but politicians and social movements sometimes seek to curtail academic freedom. The editors of the journal are interested in political science analyses of the often-tense relationship between professors, administrators, funders, regulatory agencies, social movements, students, athletic programs, and the public.

Submissions might address the following questions:

• What is the role of the University in promoting and/or resisting political and social change?
• What explains the emergence, diffusion, character, and varied outcomes of the 2024 encampment protests?
• How do recent waves of student activism compare to prior waves and why?
• How does university education shape political attitudes and behavior?
• How does higher education change gender norms?
• How has the authoritarian turn in many democracies affected higher education in those countries?

Universities as means of political control and global diplomacy

Governments around the world seek to control their higher education systems. Examples include Erdoğan’s politicized appointment of the rector of Boğaziçi University in Turkey, Orbán’s forcing of Central European University to relocate from Hungary to Austria, and DeSantis’s appointment of conservative trustees to New College of Florida. Universities are laboratories in which to trace processes of democratic backsliding and are key to shaping the political and social order of a country or international politics.

Submissions might address the following questions:

• How do authoritarian regimes support and control higher education?
• What explains variation in government interventions in university processes, policies, and curricula choices?
• How has neoliberalism shaped the modern university? Who is resisting this trend and why?
• How did the pandemic affect higher education?
• How does the international movement of students impact global diplomacy?

Politics of higher education and higher education as politics 

Universities are not only facing political challenges from the outside but also from the inside. In the United States, wealthy donors have an outsized influence on university governance, and governors can shape curricular and hiring decisions. Student movements also act as a force for change, as do administrators' responses—ranging from negotiation to violent repression.

Political science can illuminate what universities are, what they should be and why, and how they are or should be governed.

Submissions might address the following questions:

• What do theories from fields such as governance, oligarchy, political institutions, and democratic deliberation teach us about how universities are governed or should be?
• What do free speech and academic freedom mean in the context of the modern university?
• What explains the role of money or external parties in shaping university affairs?
• How has the meaning of “student safety” changed over time?
• What ought to be the protections or the limitations of free speech on campus?
• What is the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives?
  What is the future of liberal arts colleges? 
• What is the role of the research university in the nation-state and the international order? 
• What types of knowledge are considered legitimate and worth pursuing in the academy?

Call for Papers Deadline

August 1, 2025: deadline for submitting manuscripts on Editorial Manager.

**Please note: Accepted papers will be published individually on FirstView, following the same process as regular submissions and prior to the special issue being published as a complete collection.**

Submission Guidelines

Research articles: traditional academic journal articles. Length: must not exceed 12,000 words, excluding the title, abstract, tables/figures, and the references list.

Reflections: contemplative, provocative, or programmatic essays that address important political science questions and controversies in interesting ways. Length: 6,000-10,000 words, excluding the title, abstract, tables/figures, and the references list.

Style, Format, References, and Endnotes: Please refer to the style guide for Perspectives. As explained in the “Instructions for Authors,” tables, figures, and appendix materials may be included within manuscripts or uploaded as separate files.

Submission instructions: Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the online manuscript processing system called Editorial Manager. First-time users should register and create a profile. Returning users may log in and continue using their existing profile, and may update their user information at any time. Please be sure to indicate that your submission is for this special issue through Editorial Manager.

Submissions must include a 200-word abstract, keywords (for indexing), and a brief author's biographical note (100 words or less) at the time of initial submission.

Review of Submissions

Articles submitted for consideration in this Special Issue will undergo Perspectives' standard review process. The first step in this process is a double-anonymous assessment by the editorial staff to determine whether the submission is of sufficient quality and an appropriate fit for both the journal and the Special Issue. Those submissions that fall within the thematic focus for this Special Issue and clear the internal review process will be sent out for external review according to a standard doubleanonymous referee process. Finally, based on referee reports and their own careful readings of the article, the editors will then decide whether to accept a submission, reject it, or offer the author(s) the opportunity to revise and resubmit the manuscript.

Questions

Please direct questions about this Special Issue to perspectives@apsanet.org.

Please do not propose papers to the editors or write directly to them with questions. This compromises anonymous review. You will know on the basis of in-house review within several weeks if your paper has been rejected without
external review.

You can download a copy of this Call For Papers here.