While the stability of legislation is one of the fundamental issues in political theory, comparative and quantitative analyses on the subject are in short supply in the political science literature. In this article, we propose a novel measurement scheme for legislative stability, and we also introduce a Legislative Stability Index (LSI) developed to this end. In terms of empirical evidence, our index relies on the number of legislative amendments adopted within the span of an electoral cycle, as well as the breadth of issues the amendments touch on. It is based on the frequency with which laws are amended after their adoption. Our approach uses a new law-amendment edge-type network for a new Hungarian legislative database. Amendment-type connections are discovered by an automated dictionary-based text mining method. We tested the applicability of our index in various regression models. Results show that the legislative term, the length of the law and the way it was adopted were the most significant variables in explaining variation in the stability of legislation.

A long tradition in political science holds that political institutions are designed for the benefit of the politicians who create them. Prominent among explanations for the creation and maintenance of effective judiciaries is the political insurance theory, which predicts higher levels of judicial independence where there is robust political competition. In this article, I consider the implications of political insurance theory for one of the most consequential organizational decisions for courts, the provision of panels or subsets of judges for rendering decisions. Identifying the ability of panels to provide political insurance, I contend that higher levels of political competition motivate the creation of panel systems in national high courts. An empirical analysis using an original dataset on the organic statutes of 106 high courts reveals a positive relationship between political competition and the use of panel systems, while further analysis shows that this relationship is limited to democracies.

The phenomenon known as emergency eLearning saw many institutions of higher education switch from face-to-face learning to virtual or online course delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition posed a unique suite of challenges to instructors and students alike, especially in the case of active learning pedagogy. This article reflects on the experiences of a multi-institutional, multi-term pedagogical project that implemented peer review assignments as opportunities for asynchronous but nevertheless active learning. We shared instructor experiences through the course design and application stages of courses in International Relations and political economy, discuss the ability of peer review assignments to create active learning opportunities in online courses, and reflect on our own pedagogical development benefited from the community of practice.

This article compares political science to another discipline, with which it has much in common. That discipline is architecture. The political-science-as-architecture analogy has a long history in political thought. It also has important implications for the ends, means, and uses of political science. It follows from the political-science-as-architecture analogy that political science is necessarily a heterogeneous and pluralistic discipline. It also follows that political scientists have a common purpose, which is to conceive of institutional structures that allow humans to live together in societies, just as the purpose of architecture is to conceive of physical structures in which humans can live together.

Based on data on 67,000 articles published in 100 high-impact journals in the twenty years between 2000 and 2019, I analyse the scientific contribution of European political science scholarly communities in the global context. The scholars contributing to the global scientific production are largely concentrated in a few countries, with the US and UK alone accounting for more than half of the articles published in high-impact journals. However, the tendency is towards increasing diversity in the geographic basis of the international scientific production; and European countries are central to this change. Contributing to international collaborative publications has been a key engine of the increased scientific production of scholars based in Europe. This was a generalised global tendency, and a spectacular one for certain national scholarly communities. The network analysis of international collaborations points to the consolidation of three clusters within a growing and increasingly dense network. The US, followed by the UK, are central to a global cluster of collaborations. European countries are primarily clustered in two groups: a larger and growing cluster; and a smaller but even more integrated, highly productive and connected cluster of scholars based in seven northern European countries. All bibliometric indicators consistently point to a generalised growth in the output and internationalisation of the scientific contribution provided by the European political science community.

This article examines selected system-level variables. Its premise is that a better understanding of how and why scholars may, or may not, choose an international orientation in their career requires taking into account factors beyond personal preferences or constraints. We suggest that characteristics of national systems shape prospects and strategies of internationalisation and look at two broadly defined variables: resource availability and career incentives. With respect to the first, we study the absolute level of national resources and their relative importance vies-a-vis those provided by the EU. With respect to the second, we consider the rules and norms governing the progress of academic careers, especially the extent to which international collaboration is significant and necessary for initially attaining a stable academic position and career advancement. We explore these questions through targeted comparison of four national cases, selected to ensure crosscutting variation across the selected variables. A comparison of two relatively low-resource cases (Bulgaria and the Czech Republic) with two relatively high-resource ones (France and Finland) is followed by a comparison with respect to career incentives. This allows to conclude that both factors should be considered as necessary conditions for internationalisation, and to suggest how this hypothesis might be further tested in subsequent research.

The internationalisation of political science is an uneven process. Existing studies have shown that it is characterised by centre-periphery relationships, with dominant Western countries setting the international standards of the discipline and scholars from the East and the Global South struggling to adapt to these standards. Fewer studies, however, have been devoted to the tensions that internationalisation creates within the Western world of political science. Through a study of the case of France, this article argues that some of the countries that enjoy a rather dominant position globally may still be internally divided by the changes brought about by internationalisation. The article portrays French political science as divided between institutions and scholars that are strongly connected to international venues, and others that are not. It concludes that the internationalisation of political science is best portrayed as a conflicted process and a point of contention, rather than a smooth process of gradual convergence.

The concept of internationalisation, when referring to the work of social scientists within academic institutions, takes on different meanings and involves different activities. This contribution aims to shed light on the international activities of political scientists across Europe and to investigate the various meanings and practices of internationalisation. The analysis relies on the PROSEPS survey, involving some 1,800 political scientists across 37 European countries. We identify three distinct profiles of international scholars: the networked researcher, the editorial manager, and the traveller. These profiles differ according to 1) the building of international research networks, 2) the involvement in the activities of the international publishing industry, 3) the research and teaching exchanges with foreign academic institutions. Determinants, such as gender, family status, career stage, availability of institutional and financial support, and geographical location, are considered as potential drivers or inhibitors of internationalisation. Our analysis shows that the internationalisation of academic practices follows contrasting paths according to the type of international profile.

Internationalisation among European political scientists is not uniform and while research emphasises variations between Western and Eastern Europe, we known less about the contrasting patterns of internationalisation among countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This contribution aims to identify if there are different patterns of internationalisation among groups of countries in the East and what factors influence diverging or converging trajectories. We look at how historical institutionalisation of the discipline, European Union membership, and levels of national funding impact internationalisation in four groups of countries, for three different profiles of international scholars. Relying on data from the 2018 ProSEPS survey among European political scientists, we find that historical legacies have a significant negative impact on levels of internationalisation for all profiles of international scholars. On the other hand, higher access to national funding and EU resources has a positive impact on internationalisation, but not as significant. We conclude that legacies matter and that Europeanisation and access to resources leads to a slow convergence in internationalisation of political scientists form Eastern and Western Europe.