In late summer of 2008, there were clear objective signs of a weakening economy. Industrial production was negative (−1.5 in August), inflation was creeping up (+5.4 in August), the unemployment rate was rising (6.1% in September). Housing starts were at a near-record low, with mortgages getting hard to come by, and hard to pay for. Consumer sentiment, as measured in public opinion surveys, was dropping to levels not seen since the 1980s. But there was no talk of an “economic crisis,” and reported conditions still did not qualify officially as a “recession.” The disintegration of Wall Street financial giants, which began in September, quickly accelerated the scale of the perceived, and actual, decline. “At that point,” as Campbell (2009, 13–14) puts it, “the economy was in crisis, perhaps teetering on the brink [of] a deep recession or even a depression,” with the stock market experiencing about a 25% drop in value over one month. By October 3, a $700 billion Economic Stabilization Act had passed through Congress, and was signed by President Bush. Despite this unprecedented emergency measure, the stock market continued to tumble. During the 2008 presidential campaign, at least one voter saw the electoral relevance of these economic struggles. Francine Caruso wanted a president who would “fix the economy.” Francine, an administrative assistant who lost her job, couldn't sell her home, and watched her husband postpone retirement, declared that Obama and McCain “need to stop knocking each other and tell us what they can do for us” (Amon 2008). Our overarching question, in this collection of articles, is how other voters linked the economy to their 2008 candidate choice.

October 2, 2008, the New York Times presidential campaign coverage carried the headline “Poll Finds Obama Gaining Support and McCain Weakened in Bailout Crisis.” Similarly, the headline on October 21 read “Obama Appeal Rises in Poll; No Gains for McCain Ticket.” The 2008 presidential election, more so than any previous campaign, was presented as a horse race between senators Barack Obama and John McCain. In the midst of president George W. Bush's plummeting approval ratings, a growing discontent among the American people about the continued U.S. presence in Iraq, and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression, the media did not cast the election as a debate about issues. Rather, the 2008 election was about the candidates' relative positioning, how they got there, and what strategies they would employ to secure victory.

Why did Obama defeat McCain in 2008? As with any national election outcome, the immediate culprit that comes to mind is economic performance. When the U.S. is prosperous, the electorate votes the incumbent presidential party back into office. When the U.S. economy sours, the incumbent (or incumbent party) loses. In 2008, the application of this rule led to a correct prediction once again. Economy up, Republicans out. It is difficult to challenge this conventional wisdom that the economy contributed to the transfer of the White House from the Republicans to Democrat Obama.

The idea that economic conditions influence election outcomes and voting behavior is hardly novel and would appear to be close to uniformly accepted, especially in the case of American presidential elections. Beginning with the early aggregate studies (Arcelus and Meltzer 1975; Bloom and Price 1975; Kramer 1971; Tufte 1978) and the important individual-level work that followed soon thereafter (Kiewiet 1983; Kinder and Kiewiet 1979, 1981; Fiorina 1981), election scholars have devoted considerable attention to the influence of the economy on voting behavior and election outcomes. Although the findings are many and sometimes disparate, a few general conclusions have emerged: economic voting is incumbency oriented rather than policy oriented (Fiorina 1981; Kiewiet 1983); at the individual level, evaluations of the national economy are more closely tied to vote choice than are evaluations of personal finances (Kiewiet 1983; Kinder and Kiewiet 1979, 1981; Kinder, Adams, and Gronke 1989); and, with the exception of 2000, the incumbent party is habitually returned to office when economic times are good and tossed out when economic times are bad (Campbell and Garand 2000). In short, we know a lot about how the economy influences voters and elections, and it would seem that there are few issues left to resolve.

We believe the economy was much on voters' minds in the 2008 presidential election. More formally, a traditional economic retrospective voting theory—electors disapprove of past economic conditions and vote against the government—should serve well as an explanation of Obama's victory (Fiorina 1981; Lewis-Beck 1988, 34).

Are professional lobbyists loyal partisans? There are thousands of professional lobbyists in Washington, D.C., who work with members of Congress and their staffs, many of whom also make contributions to congressional candidates and political parties. Although many lobbyists have backgrounds in partisan politics, they may have incentives to give money to candidates from both parties. This article finds that professional lobbyists tend to make personal contributions to their preferred party exclusively.

As of January 2008, more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in the regions of Darfur and Chad. This event has not gone unnoticed in the United States, as the 109th United States Congress (2005–2006) considered several measures in the House of Representatives to provide funding and peacekeeping forces to quell the violence in Darfur. The goal of this article is to explain individual members' of Congress (MCs') support for Darfur legislation by examining the influence of their individual, district, and institutional characteristics. The Darfur case provides the opportunity to analyze factors critical to congressional behavior in a context where there is reason to expect an MC's usual set of incentives—e.g., reelection and adherence to party—to be less prominent. In all, we contribute to congressional and foreign policy research by parceling out the determinants of congressional support for foreign policy in comparison to domestic policy.

Several countries have conducted Internet voting trials in binding public elections over the past decade, including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, Estonia—a former Soviet republic and now a full member of the European Union—has advanced the farthest in deploying Internet voting. In this article, we focus on how the Estonians have systematically addressed the legal and technical considerations required to make Internet voting a functioning voting platform, as well as the political and cultural framework that promoted this innovation. Using data from our own qualitative and quantitative studies of the Estonian experience, we consider who voted over the Internet in these elections, and the political implications of the voting platform.

Although collaborative research has become much more common in the social sciences, including political science, little is known about the consequences of collaboration. This article uses papers submitted to the American Political Science Review to assess whether the widely acknowledged benefits of collaboration produced papers that were more likely to be accepted for publication. The results indicate that collaboration per se made little or no difference, but that the disciplinary configuration of the authors did result in differences in the success of these submissions.

This article presents the results from a survey of political science department chairs regarding the tenure procedures and standards at their colleges or universities. The findings reveal that only a small fraction of the colleges and universities in the United States refuse to offer tenure or are attempting to limit tenure. We also find general agreement regarding the standards for evaluating teaching and service and that research expectations vary according to the highest degree offered by a department.

I show herein how to develop fundable proposals to support your research. Although the proposal strategy I discuss is commonly used in successful proposals, most junior faculty (and many senior scholars) in political science and other social sciences seem to be unaware of it. I dispel myths about funding, and discuss how to find funders and target funding programs. I then outline how to write a proposal; and detail how to respond to reviews.

Many political science students struggle in quantitative methods courses because they have never been taught how to learn math. Learning math is different from learning in other fields, so the techniques students have used successfully in other classes are inappropriate in mathematically oriented classes. However, most students have never been told this, so they blame their difficulty with math on the impenetrability of the subject rather than tactical studying errors. This brief article discusses some of the reasons that common studying techniques do not work in quantitative methodology classes, and discusses some simple techniques to help students develop learning habits that are better suited to quantitative courses.

It is often a difficult proposition for introductory American government students to comprehend different electoral systems and how the rules of the game affect the representation that results. I have developed a simulation in which different proportional-based electoral systems are compared with a single-member plurality electoral system. In addition, the simulation can also serve to illustrate other concepts commonly introduced in introductory courses.

When designed and executed properly, role-playing simulations go a long way to enhance student learning. Typically, however, simulations are divided along subfields. Most exercises, whether based on real or fictitious events, either place students in various roles within a country or have them represent the international interests of one country among others. In an effort to bridge this divide and answer recent calls to internationalize the curriculum, we have designed and implemented a department-wide crisis simulation. The article demonstrates that students engaged in a large-scale, department-wide simulation gain a greater appreciation and understanding of political processes and variables including negotiation, the opportunities and constraints of institutional design, identity, and strategic thinking.

Movies have a long and distinguished history in the political science and international relations classrooms; they provide connections between abstract theories and concepts and concrete everyday practices. However, traditional approaches to teaching movies in the political science and international relations classrooms allow for passive student learning, where students watch the movie and then react. We propose using insights from simulations to help resolve these problems with using movies in the classroom. In this article, we outline the learning methods and approaches of simulations, and then apply them to movies in the international relations classroom.

Service learning in higher education is an American creature. But outside the U.S., practices that resemble American service learning or that have begun self-consciously to describe themselves as “service learning” may also be found. This article gives an account of a proto-service-learning course on civil society in Singapore and discusses some similarities and differences between the U.S. and Singapore contexts in which the practices of service learning have evolved, identifying how this civil society course in particular was both a product of as well as a challenge to Singapore's somewhat different priorities in higher education, political culture, and attitudes to social justice and cultural diversity.

Nearly all campuses are determining ways by which they could internationalize the curriculum to connect their campus with the world. While study abroad programs are quite common, a less used mechanism that makes this important connection is a global leadership program. At the University of Utah, one innovative program is the International Leadership Academy, which integrates globalization into a class that provides students with conceptual skills as they enter a global market. This article discusses the design and implementation of a program that connects globalization and leadership. The ILA not only prepares students to make use of the many international opportunities in Utah, but exposes them to competing theories and explanations of international leadership.

Publishing a research journal can be a rewarding and useful learning experience for undergraduate students. Drawing upon our experiences with The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics, we describe the benefits of producing a peer-reviewed journal. Among the benefits we highlight are gains in political science knowledge, increased understanding of research methodologies, refinement of writing and debating skills, and development of interpersonal skills. We close with a call for professors to encourage their students to submit papers to the journal.

The political science honor society, Pi Sigma Alpha, has chapters in nearly 700 institutions across the United States. The organization sponsors many programs that can contribute a great deal to students of political science; however, many students are unaware of these opportunities. This article encourages chapter advisors to make use of these programs. My chapter's experience suggests many benefits can occur to those who take advantage of the opportunities presented through Pi Sigma Alpha.

The sixth annual Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) was held February 6–8, 2009, in Baltimore, Maryland, with nearly 300 registrants. The conference uses the working-group model, permitting in-depth discussion and debate amongst colleagues on research dealing with the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition to the 11 working groups there were workshops on various topics. Michael Brintnall, APSA executive director, and Kimberly A. Mealy, APSA director of Educational, Professional and Minority Initiatives, offered welcoming remarks. John Jeffries, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was the opening speaker, and APSA president Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University, spoke at the opening reception. Joseph A. Kahne, the Abbie Valley Professor of Education, dean of the School of Education, and director of the Civic Engagement Research Group at Mills College, delivered the keynote address titled “Teaching, Digital Media, and Civic Engagement: Evidence and Strategies.” The closing program featured a short presentation from the chair of the Programming Committee, Russell Mayer. It is our hope that the ideas generated and shared at the TLC will help to foster debate, research, and pedagogical innovations within the discipline.