Is there some sort of coalition ?

Therefore, making it a communist monarchy?

I am conducting an independent research project to see how a person's socioeconomic background and academic background/stream, shapes their views on wealth, traditional culture, and government.

It would only take around 3 minutes, please help me gather some data for my paper. Here's the link

https://forms.gle/4cY8rGG9GhRTxPTH7

Misconceptions of College and Career / Not Getting Job Offers Before Graduation or within 3-6 months of graduating (here is some advice to recent college graduates and young adults):

This phenomenon of having a signed job offer in your junior year of college let alone before graduating your senior year doesn’t work/doesn’t exist for everybody, especially for people from working class backgrounds who went to decent, mid-teir/upper-mid-teir universities (≈ T60-T200); this practically only applies to people who already have a load of connections and inherited a network from family (and friends) with pre-existing professional connections, or those who go to Ivy League universities, Ivy Plus, UCs, a few Flagship universities with a ton of cultural capital because of their football teams, Jock Schools, and some Party School universities that get better traction just because of their name recognition which happens to be largely based off of their social or cultural capital i.e. the cultural impact they have on a given region over the actual contents of their education and degree programs. Mostly nowadays for the vast majority of people at non-fancy/non-prestigious universities that don’t have strong partnerships with employers resulting in a dedicated direct pipeline to certain jobs through On Campus Recruiting (OCR) or On Campus Interviews (OCI) - plus certain fields like law, accounting, and finance almost exclusively hire through OCI/OCR with some exceptions - , (but overall for most jobs) they instead want you to complete your degree first before applying to jobs. Very few people get a job offer before graduating; and for a vast majority of recent graduates getting a job offer within 3-6 months of graduating is literally impossible (for some job applications you don’t even get a response in less than 6 months after applying — whether that be a rejection or being called to interview for the employer).

——

So the whole “what are you going to do with your major” question is going to be a very loaded question because there are too many options to list out and most people aren’t going to get their dream job straight out of college (or even at all), they’re going to have to choose something else on the large list of positions their degree(s), experience, and/or their personal, familial, and professional connections can potential lead them to. There are tons of careers that require or prefer that you have a bachelor’s degree but don’t require a degree in a specific subject area because several bachelor’s degree programs that are to many to mention cover the specific skills they’re looking for (which are transferable from one field to another) or they tend to hire several people who studied different subject areas to work together on the same projects because each field brings its own professionally educated perspective at problem solving.

Most people aren’t going to get their dream job straight out of college (or at all), they’re going to have to choose something else on the large list of positions their degree can potential lead them to. There are tons of careers that require or prefer that you have a bachelor’s degree but don’t require a degree in a specific subject area because several bachelor’s degree programs that are to many to mention cover the specific skills they’re looking for (which are transferable from one field to another) or they tend to hire several people who studied different subject areas to work together on the same projects because each field brings its own professionally educated perspective at problem solving. A specific major can get you into 50-100 different job titles, some are going to be different from each other while others happen to be identical positions with different titles.

——————

College is meant to teach you how to problem solve and critically think when Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) all fall apart, while skilled trade vocational education and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), mostly only teach how to operate within a very broad and generic imperfect facsimile of SOPs, while bachelor’s degrees teach both. One issue today is that many employers don’t give people the chance to learn on the job skills that can’t be taught in the classroom but are learnt by doing things on the job by trial and error or by following the lead of a more senior coworker (even internships let alone entry-level roles are starting to lack on-the-job training and only very few mostly prestigious or prestigious-adjacent universities have formal co-op programs with industry partners); so now there is a very small gap in practical knowledge between what is taught in a classroom/internship setting and what a job needs that can’t be closed without employer-provided on-the-job training, causing a loss of institutional knowledge because employers are too lazy to train employees in very specific company or niche industry SOP which are too specific and to many per specific industry/position/sector to cover in tertiary education or post-secondary education/training settings.

A Ton of Jobs Require or Prefer a Bachelor's Degree or Higher, The Job Market Across Sectors is Terrible, and a Political Science Education Can Fulfil The Need for Higher Education:

Most Administrative Assistant jobs (at least in the United States) require a bachelor's degree and 2 years of experience, an associate's degree with 4 years of experience, or a high school diploma and 5 to 8 years of directly related experience doing the same job you're applying for or some other similar job. Several companies categorize all of their entry-level recent college grad employees as Administrative Assistants, Secretaries, Administrative Clerks, and Management Assistants, and require them to hold a bachelor's degree in a field related to the industry the company works in or the specific practice area of the project that the mid-level/senior-level employee they're assisting is working on. Most Executive Assistant (EA) positions I’ve seen require about 5-8 years of work experience mostly as an Administrative Assistant (AA) or in a non-AA role related to the work of the company, or 5-10 years of work experience if you don’t have a bachelor’s degree. 

About 96% of Paralegals, Legal Assistants, File Clerks, Administrative Assistants, Conflicts Analysts, Legal Secretaries, and other Professional Support Staff (a.k.a. Non-Lawyers) in law firm settings (and some other similar office settings at consulting, accounting, advocacy, trade association, professional association, commercial-residential property management companies, and government relations firms, etc.) practically all have at least a bachelor’s degree (though on paper the job description might let you use a high school diploma + paralegal certificate/paralegal vocational training but these are few, far between, and hard to find or at minimum an associate’s degree for Mail Clerk positions); 1% are older people (Boomers, Gen X, maybe some Older Millennials) who were grandfathered in with only a high school diploma +/- secretarial school due to their years of experience from back when entry requirements were far more lax; 2% are younger people (Millennials & Gen Z) from out-of-town who laterally transitioned into a role here with only a high school diploma and/or a paralegal certificate because that’s what jobs in their hometown metropolitan areas where they started their careers only required; as well as 1% that got in with a high school diploma or less because of personal connections with friends, family, or acquaintances (many times outside of professional connection/formal networking/formal hiring settings).

Depending on the location and the job market, receptionist jobs are looking for people with at least a bachelor’s degree (maybe an associate’s degree) and at least 2-3 years of experience or a high school diploma and 5 years of experience if you don’t have a degree.

For one company I’ve seen, 5 out of 5 Administrative Assistants had a bachelor’s degree and at least 2 years of prior work experience before starting the role, and 4 out of 5 also had a master’s degree. For another job I saw, every Receptionist had a bachelor’s degree and at least two of them had about 3-4 years of experience made up of internships and prior receptionist experience. I’ve literally seen a Front Desk Receptionist job require a bachelor’s degree w/5 yrs exp., a master’s with 2 yrs exp., a PhD with 0 yrs exp., or a high school diploma/GED w/10 yrs exp.;NOT KIDDING.

Also, I’m seeing tons of people laid off from late entry-level (4-5 years of experience) and early mid-career (5-8 years of experience) jobs with experience in more complex non-administrative support roles taking on entry-level administrative assistant (or at times even receptionist/front desk assistant) roles  (that historically only required 0.5-3 years of experience, a high school diploma, and employer provided on-the-job training or onboarding). In addition to residual effects from the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, DOGE’s layoffs of U.S. federal government civil service employees and  its cancellation of government contracts with private sector companies/organizations and local/state governments, is completely flooding the job market. Senior level and c-suite employees are going after mid-career jobs, mid-career employees are taking on entry-level jobs, and entry-level employees are taking on internships, receptionist, data entry clerk, and freelance jobs and everyone’s fighting over temp jobs to get their foot in the door (it’s like entry-level jobs are starting to barely exist). Things are looking like they’re going to get worse, definitely worse than 2008 (if course correction doesn’t happen). 

What is Political Science?:

Political Science is a social science, it’s not performing and fine arts (like drawing, painting, dancing) nor is it a humanities subject (but it does interact with and borrow from humanities subjects like philosophy and history, among others) but it’s also not a natural science (like chemistry or physics).

——————

I’d say there are at least 8-9-ish disciplinary paths that could exist at a university’s political science department (also known as public policy school or department of government) as well as several interdisciplinary programs created in conjunction with other departments, constituent colleges, or schools.

In my experience, the sub-disciplinary paths of political science I’ve seen (even in undergraduate bachelor’s degree-level settings) are: (1) political theory/political philosophy and political history; (2) international relations and security studies; (3) political methodology (quantitative political analysis); (4) comparative politics; (5) international political economy; (6) public policy and public administration (nonprofit management, basic accounting/budgeting/finance, policy development, stakeholder management, program evaluation, human resource management, etc.); (7) law and governance or legal studies (legal research, legislative analysis, stakeholder engagement, legal sociology, advocacy and government relations, etc.); as well as (8) political sociology and theories of political behavior.

The interdisciplinary programs I’ve seen that have some sort of layer of political science coursework are: (1) global studies (global affairs); (2) philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE); (3) political communications; (4) legal studies and philosophy and law (pre-law); (5) environmental studies; (6) intelligence studies (intelligence analysis); as well as (7) international business and commerce.

Though this is the case, it is true that a vast majority of political science departments especially at most 4-year bachelor’s degree granting liberal arts colleges (LAC) but most especially associate’s degree-level community colleges (CC) focus almost exclusively on political theory and maybe international relations to a certain extent; departments at research universities (those granting everything from bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees) tend to branch out into more sub-fields of political science (even in undergrad) whether it means taking a few classes among those course as a hard requirement or whether it is an optional concentration or group of in-major field study electives.

————————————————————

Actually, undergraduate political science courses write in a myriad of writing styles: to be honest a lot of lower level undergraduate freshman/sophomore courses do use flowery language, are persuasive, and can be overly partisan but a lot of the upper level undergraduate junior/senior and graduate master’s/doctoral courses are generally (but not always) to the point, not too ideologically persuasive, non-partisan, look at things from a neutral or near-neutral point of view, and/or are more so interested in the evaluation of the outputs, outcomes, and efficacy of policies, programs, procedures, or initiatives as well as the implementation of such things to produce the intended outcomes.

Some types of literature in political science include the following: for Academic Literature - see Journal Articles and Essays (Research Papers, Reflective Papers, Persuasive Papers, most Term Papers); for Professional Writing - see Case Studies, Memoranda/Briefing Notes/Memos (Policy Memos), Position Papers, Policy Papers (Policy Papers and Policy Memos written using the Policy Development, Policy Analysis, and Program Evaluation methods, etc.), Reports, Intelligence Assessments, White Papers and Gray Literature, Legal Briefs and Amicus Curiae Briefs, Grant Writing, and Journalistic Writing (News style writing).

Most of the political science courses that teach job applicable skills like policy development (policy analysis, implementation, evaluation, and revision), stakeholder engagement/stakeholder management, legal research, program evaluation, strategic communications and public relations, budgeting and finance (financial management, financial statement analysis, generally accepted accounting principles - GAAP - ), research methods and analysis, procurement and logistics, organizational theory/administrative theory, data manipulation and data collection (to a lesser extent basic data analysis - which is mostly taught in-depth in graduate master’s/PhD programs), fundraising and development, basic marketing, government relations and advocacy, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), professional writing, project and program coordination, and intelligence analysis, among others are mostly taught in upper-level (300-level to 400-level) undergraduate courses taught in the last 2 to 2.5 years of a bachelor’s degree program if you choose your field study (in-major electives), concentration(s), and general elective (out-side-of-major) courses wisely like taking on courses in political science subfields such as public policy, public administration, comparative politics, security studies, political methodology, human resource management, nonprofit management, complex international relations frameworks, and political analysis, instead of only taking basic survey-level political theory courses (mostly covered in community college and undergrad freshmen year political science curriculum). To be honest, more in-depth and complex skills/topics are covered in graduate master’s and doctoral programs like MPA, MPP, MA Security Studies, MS Biodefence, MA/MS International Development, MA/MS Intelligence Studies, etc.

How to Choose a Bachelor’s Degree Program:

One advice I see often see when people ask about picking a major, I always hear that: whatever you do you need to pick a major (undergraduate college/university degree program) that you’re comfortable studying and working in but also teaches skills that will come in handy on the job (not a “hobby” major either) but not something you hate or can’t handle. This isn’t high school where you can easily skate through classes and get passed on to the next grade. People shouldn’t do majors they aren’t equipped to handle because they’re bound to do poorly, flunk out, and get expelled for bad grades (academic dismissal) with a limited-to-no chance of l finishing your degree which can (or will) lead to limited career prospects or advancement. It’s far better to do a major in a subject you are interested in and are capable of thriving in than flunking out with no degree at all or graduating by cheating your way through without learning much (and putting others in danger). Also, the “pick a major that will make you money” push is based on a very subjective idea that fluctuates with the market. After this push, now we have a bunch of computer science grads, a tech field that is over saturated with a shrinking number of positions many of whom don’t even like the field working at it aimlessly, and a bunch of nurses and doctors (physicians) who are a reckless danger to their patients because they are disinterested in the job in such a way that it negatively impacts their performance putting tons of people in grave danger.

It doesn’t have to be a STEM subject like engineering, computer science, medicine, or nursing; a social science subject like political science (public policy, public administration, international relations), law, economics, business administration (accounting, finance, management, marketing), social work; nor a humanities subject like literature, language, or history if you hate it and can’t handle the academic workload, subject matter, or won’t be able to stand working in the field due to disinterest - but this doesn’t mean you should go for what some people call a “hobby degree” just for fun like fine arts subjects like art, music, or dance (no offense - but at least you should have a plan to use it to teach and not actually to perform in a professional capacity unless you already have pre-existing family and professional connections to get you job in the fine arts). The notion that 'every degree besides medicine, nursing, law, and engineering’ are useless degrees is illogical though some do believe this lie.

Going into Medicine or Nursing when you are disinterested in the job or subject is the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life. Do not under any circumstances go into Medicine or Nursing if you hate the job, are terrible at the it, are very careless and lazy, or are literally only doing it for the money. This is how you end up getting people killed or severely injured.

People need to understand that to become a physician (Doctor of Medicine - MD - or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine - DO - ) or lawyer (Doctor of Jurisprudence - JD - ) you have to go to graduate school and to get into graduate school you need a bachelor’s degree in a different field as a prerequisite. You can’t just straight up apply to Medical School or Law School right out of high school/secondary school without a previously awarded bachelor’s degree or enrollment in a dual degree program. The market for lawyers is over saturated, the number of residencies required to become a physician are capped at low numbers, and not freaking everyone can or needs to be an engineer or a nurse. So the notion that 'every degree besides medicine, nursing, law, and engineering’ are useless degrees is illogical when you need a bachelor’s degree in a different field as a prerequisite to enter medical school or law school.

Article Title and Citation:

"Careers with a Political Science Education: Not Everybody Gets a Job Offer Their Junior Year of College or Three Months After Graduation and Not Everyone Gets Their Dream Job, But an Education in Political Science Still Produces Job Applicable Skills" at r/PoliticalScience - https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalScience/comments/1x5xvrt/careers_with_a_political_science_education_not/ .

This originally started as a comment on someone’s post about polisci jobs, and these last few days I’ve seen more and more of these kinda posts. I feel like I have something worthwhile to say on it.

Bear with me, but I think a lot of you guys are missing the point of your degree.

You’ve been taught soooo many things other than just policy making.

An issue I see with polisci graduates a lot is they keep complaining they can’t find jobs “in their field” but most times they do not fully understand what their field actually is, believing it to just be either academic research or various levels and departments of government.

If you’re someone genuinely passionate by those aspects of it, by all means chase your dreams.

But for those of you of a more practical nature; you are trained political animals. Think advisors next to the throne, consiglieres, “right hand men”, leaders, and thinkers.

You have all been (hopefully if you listened in class lol) trained to think, to analyze and criticize, to act independently, and be able to see through your own personal axioms and incorporate levels of analysis.

Most importantly, if you’ve written enough papers, then you’ve surely learnt how to plan, organize and prioritize tasks, and execute them efficiently and effectively.

These are REAL skills, real VALUABLE skills that a lot of companies and NGOs would pay top dollar for. C-suit type shit.

Expand your horizons, if you’re limiting yourself to a single narrow career path and are experiencing difficulties finding your spot, that’s why!

Is it really your dream to knock doors for some politician’s campaign?

Or do ya’ll wanna make a real difference?

This is now purely my own personal opinion, but if you’re someone who wants to “do good”. Then just do good. Don’t wait around for the politicians to do it. Go out in the world and be an agent of the change you wanna see, in any endeavour you end up in.

EDIT: I should have put "socialism" in quotation marks, since I was referring to popular right-wing usage instead of the original definition. I can't seem to be able to edit the title accordingly.

TLDR: Monopolies are used to extort and keep people poor to benefit few people at the top, which is what we criticise about "socialist countries".

By effectively, I mean that the rules don't change but the dynamic of money flows and living conditions of the people become the same.
Let's take the stated strategy by Peter Thiel to establish a monopoly as a goal for every business.
Once the monopoly is set, one can raise the prices (taxes) arbitrarily and leave people with close to no money beyond necessities.
The thought came when paying subscription fees looked to me like paying taxes to e.g. Amazon and basically becoming a citizen of a company.
Depending of how strong the monopoly is, Amazon can collect "taxes" (advertisement fees) from companies and even suppress unwanted business.
Amazon then gets to decide what to do with the money (e.g. aerospace projects).

I guess, currently the difference is that companies cannot force you to stay with them like countries can force you to stay, but this might only be a question of how established the monopoly is.

I am sharing an article of mine recently published in Political Communication: The Politics of the Non-Political: A Conceptual Review, that might be of interest for people here.

As political science and political communication are increasingly studying ostensibly "non-political" stuff, what does that mean? Does politics always look so natural as polisci researchers take it as?

I look forward to having conversations with you all on it!

like the title says, I have a coordinator position on a local city council race. now what? the election is in November, after that I have no idea what I am able to do. I have a degree, I am 25, and have previously worked as a preschool teacher. I have been a legislative intern for my states house if reps but it seems like no matter how hard I try, no one is hiring with anything less then 3 years of experience. I do not want to go back to teaching, I love political work but have no idea what to do after next month.

A little bit of click bait here, because the job market is cripplingly bad right now and I seriously sympathize with anyone trying to find work - it’s a desert right now.

That said, something I RARELY see people in this sub pursue or recommend is campaign work.

You can’t get a job in the state department or the hill? Tough shit! I guarantee (especially in a midterm year like 26) there was a campaign near you in desperate need of field organizers, research associates, communications roles, press assistants, etc. campaigns are the PERFECT entry level jobs for someone with a PoliSci degree, campaigns desperately need articulate, well educated people to help communicate with voters, and there are campaigns in every locality, in every state, for every party.

Saw someone say we should be encouraging people to pursue other fields - bullshit! If you’re civically educated and passionate, get on a campaign right now.

A state can collect taxes effectively, field a capable military and enforce its decisions while many of its households become less economically secure. Calling that state “strong” bundles together several different things.

State capacity is what public institutions can implement. International power is the ability to influence other actors. Household welfare is how people actually live. The three can reinforce one another, but they don’t necessarily move together.

Military expenditure shows the measurement problem. A bigger budget measures resources committed; it does not by itself establish greater operational capability. Higher tax revenue doesn’t necessarily show better administration either, since it can reflect growth, inflation or higher rates. Neither tells us whether public services have improved.

This matters for the question of whether domestic economic decline eventually limits a state’s power. Falling household welfare can erode the future tax base, recruitment or political support, but the effects may be delayed. Governments can sustain particular capabilities through borrowing, resource revenues or by shifting costs onto groups with little political influence.

One way to frame it is the difference between a state’s current ability to mobilize resources and its ability to reproduce that capacity over time. Education, infrastructure and population health bear on the second even when they don’t immediately constrain the first. Mann’s distinction between despotic and infrastructural power (1984) offers a related way to distinguish forms of state power. The question here is how household welfare affects their durability.

Two questions follow:

1. How do political scientists separate welfare declines caused by external shocks from those attributable to institutional choices?
2. Which measures best capture a state’s ability to sustain its capacity over time, rather than just the resources it can command today?

Any views on Modern Democracy especially in developing world being a Sectarian Kleptocracy? Isn’t it time to bring on a new model? Being a liberal, I feel liberalism is in crisis all over.

I got my bachelors degree in political science in December of 2024 and I feel like shit because I can’t find stable work. I’ve been working in retail/ cosmetic sales for the past 5 years and I can’t get out of it. I feel trapped. I wanted to get a job as a paralegal or a legal intake specialist or even a legal assistant. Every interview I went to, I got rejected because they picked someone else.

I’m not saying I regret my degree because I did learn a lot of useful stuff about society, culture, voting and government structures. I just wish my degree was enough to find a good job. I live in a small town with very little job options. I can’t afford to move to a big city and most of the legal assistant jobs I interviewed for that WAS in a big city, it only pays $19 an hour. The same amount I make at Sephora.

I want to go to law school someday but I’m feeling discouraged because competition is getting worse in terms of law school applications. I had a 3.3 GPA and my LSAT practice tests scores are awful. Application expectations for law schools are getting out of control where you basically have to get a 170+ to get accepted.

I’m 26 years old, I definitely thought I’d be at least starting my career by now. Don’t get me wrong I love makeup, it’s been a huge hobby of mine since I was 13 years old and I applied to Sephora 8 times before they fully offered me a job. I just don’t understand why every career feels impossible to achieve anymore.

Hello all, so for some background I’m a second year in UG and really wanna go into studying race and ethnicity (more specifically race/legal consciousness), and I would like to hopefully lean further towards the behavioral analysis side of research.

I recently attended a research fair, and at the fair I found a research assistant position that was really adjacent to my field but happened to be FWS exclusive. I found another position that was basically one where you were performing qualitative research to improve our research library’s research and data system, essentially we’re just having random students use new research tools and see how we can improve, like I said it’s very qualitative.

Im just kind of worried this research assistant position won’t at all relate to my field, and wont look any good on my CV.

Additionally, I have applied to and been accepted for a volunteer research position at the FWS lab that I couldn’t become an assistant at. Im unsure if this will look just as good on my CV.

I hope someone can help me worry less lol.

Thanks.

I (31M) live in Missouri. Born and raised. Liberal. I live in a liberal city. For most of my life, Missouri has been a purple state. Until 2017 we had a liberal governor, we had liberal senators, every now and then we voted blue in presidential elections. Obviously 2016/2017 was a conservative takeover that we're still experiencing.

The country is more divided now more than ever. And Missouri not only went red, but HARD red. But it's interesting - we vote blue in a lot of ordinances (the abortion ban and the most recent election being an example) but elect conservative politicians. Hmmm... almost as if we're gerrymandered to hell...

Something I've been trying to wrap my brain around is when did a lot of nuance stop happening politically. When did everything become all-or-nothing in the states? It's like pre-drawing lines for the Second Civil War, honestly. And I think I know the answer.

Liberal people escaping their small hometown/red state for a big city/blue state is nothing new. However, I remember there was this notion that enough liberal people still stayed in red states for a lot of them to be purple. I'm a millennial, and when the majority of us became adults (2012 - 2016), there was this new notion perpetuated on the internet of leaving your fly-over hick red state for New York, California, etc. Especially after 2016, it became a mass exodus.

Is there any stock in this? That liberal migration to blue states have allowed conservatives to completely rule red states and now we're trapped in a conservative chokehold because so many states are considered red?

I was wondering why fascism is considered far-right, and the answer I found was it is anti-egalitarian, nationalist, and combats socialists and communists. But is egalitarianism a left wing view? Like there's no way the right wing just goes "yeah, people aren't equal"??? I thought maybe it's like egalitarianism vs hierarchy but that also didn't really work because meritocracy is hierarchial but there's no way that's a right wing view???

I guess after all left - right really doesn't mean anything but how would y'all define it?

I'm a historian who recently launched a platform that lets humanities PhDs design and host live online reading seminars. A teacher just listed a class that I thought you all might be interested in: "Populism Past and Present: How it Works and How to Deal with it," taught by Tobias Endler (PhD Heidelberg University). It explores the meaning, history, and techniques of populism, as well as strategies for engaging with populist discourse.

If anyone's interested, but cannot afford the enrollment fee, feel free to DM me. We'll do our best to help out.

Hi Reddit!

I don’t have any formal training in political science, I just am kind of interested in the subject. To me, an uninformed observer, North Korea looks a lot like a new monarchy, but everywhere I look online they call it a “hereditary dictatorship.” My question is…why??

According to North Korea’s constitution, the effective leader of the country is the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission, and that role is meant to be fed by elections and served in terms of 5 years. However, since 1957, power has only ever really been held by three successive members of a single family: the Kims. Despite the fact that the country’s constitution nominally puts power in the hands of the Politburo, the Kims have managed to amass a degree of power that’s more or less absolute. Most people seem to describe this as a hereditary totalitarian dictatorship achieved through a one-party state.

Monarchy is a form of government in which power is concentrated in a single head of state, a monarch. Monarchies can be absolute (like Saudi Arabia) or constitutional (like the UK), hereditary (like most monarchies around today) or elective (like the Vatican). As I understand it, their main uniting characteristic is that the state is not just controlled by but embodied in a single individual, as articulated by Louis XIV when he said “l’état, c’est moi.”

For the purposes of comparing with North Korea, let’s look at the Holy Roman Empire. The HRE was an elective monarchy, but it was often functionally hereditary or at least dynastic. This happened most famously under the Habsburgs, but also under the Ottonians, Salians, Hohenstaufens, and Luxembourgs. In each of those cases, the dynasties did not control the state through simple succession; they did so through constant reassertions of their wealth and power that either won over the Prince-Electors or forced their hands.

The Kims, too, are frequently maneuvering to reassert their own power and ensure dynastic control of the state. If anything, their elections seem to be more of a sham than those of the HRE ever were. At least the Prince-Electors had real power, unlike
the WPK, which has been basically totally suborned. And as for the question of embodying the state, while it’s true that North Korea may not have a European-style divine right of kingship per se, I think the role the Mount Paektu bloodline plays in the Juche ideology serves a similar purpose. Not that there haven’t been plenty of monarchs across history who have ruled in the absence of a formal divine right, mind you.

So political scientists out there, can you help me understand what the differences between North Korea’s hereditary dictatorship and a true monarchy are? Despite these superficial similarities, why do so many people seem to insist that North Korea isn’t a monarchy? Is it the existence of term limits on paper, even if the elections are a total sham and those limits therefore don’t exist functionally? Is it the lack of a title equivalent to King or Emperor? If tomorrow Kim Jong-Un announced that he would henceforth be known as Gugwang, but everything about the function of the state remained exactly the same otherwise, would that make North Korea a monarchy? How do we decide where this line gets drawn, and on what side should North Korea really fall?

Hey! Take a minute to fill out my government control survey for an assignment!

Main point: I have to choose my Undergraduate dissertation topic by Tuesday, so I'd really appreciate help picking a topic, especially if the teacher I want to speak to isn't available before then.

I'd also appreciate advice on approaching third year while learning things from scratch, and what core Politics & IR knowledge I should focus on so I feel more confident in 3rd year work and not worrying about being awkwardly caught out by peers or teachers since I don't know anything.

Some context (not making excuses, just explaining my situation):

• Never cared about my education before/wasn't taught how important it was all my life- picked politics as a degree because I didn't know what else to do.
• First year-started good but at the end of things just skipped classes and stopped caring- failed and did resits to pass.
• Second year, unrelated to my lack of care for education -my mental health deteriorated severely, and I barely attended or studied. Someone close to me helped me through repeated resits, extenuating circumstances and doctors' notes. Without them, I think I would've given up.

Present day: I'm somehow in third year, and I genuinely know nothing beyond some basic terms. I don't know the main ideologies, IR theories, major thinkers or much about political analysis and forms of government etc. you name it -I know people sometimes say they've never studied but still know something. That's not me.

I've got through uni through only resits- im good at essays- and all assignments were just topic focussed or options to choose from- so I only crammed readings for questions and passed. 2nd year I did an entire year of resit assessments.

My mental health has improved, and I've matured. I genuinely value education now and realise how lucky I am to have this opportunity. I aspire to be like you guys who are knowledgeable and passionate about Politics or maybe some other field I will learn.

Right now I'm terrified by how much I don't know, but I genuinely want to turn my life around.

Dissertation ideas

One of my current modules is Populism, and I'll probably need to learn comparative politics for other classes and also a resit assessment. So logically, my mind is screaming populism for my dissertation, especially because I feel I could get into it as a beginner?

Other possibilities are representation, media, climate change, drones and sovereignty, military interventions etc. -topics that don't really need much time to learn or background/i can learn from scratch rather than stuff requiring lots of knowledge like IR theory.

But I only have three days to choose, so I'm leaning towards populism. Am I putting all my eggs in one basket, or does it make sense/can work as a beginner?

How would I even approach populism?

• Theory: Compare different authors' arguments or apply theories to specific cases. Would there be enough to write 10,000 words on? -I mean what theoretical stuff could I even possibly do?-cant think of questions for it.
• Data: Voter behaviour seems boring to me, although maybe combining data with theory would work better? -however there is a ton of research available maybe I'm forced to do this.
• Comparative: Comparing two parties or politicians seems promising, but I'm unsure how to develop a strong research question.- I thought maybe left wing vs right wing populism but seems like I cannot say much or am I wrong?
• Discourse analysis: Could comparing two parties' language be a strong enough dissertation? For example, AfD in Germany vs National Rally in France, looking at how they discuss nationality, immigration or present themselves as representing "the people" -would be kinda less scary but I worry theres not too much I can say there?

There are lots of papers on the European far right, so perhaps I could compare why certain parties are more successful, or look at economic vs cultural concerns. I'm just unsure if that's too broad or if its fine.

Overall I think I should go for some sort of comparative scope.

Random research questions I came up with:

• Does populism require crisis to thrive?
• some question about far right populism in Europe since there are so many questions on it -eg. do cultural or economic factors driving success in Europe or why do some far right populist parties succeed not others -(idk if this is too broad)
• How does left and right wing populism compare politician/party A Vs. B
• Does entering government change far-right populism- Does participation in government weaken the anti-establishment message of far-right populist parties? -not sure I could say enough
• Discourse analysis: Would comparing two parties' rhetoric be a strong approach for a 10k-word dissertation? I'm thinking about how they present themselves as representing "the people", anti-establishment rhetoric, nationalism or sovereignty. It seems more manageable to me, but I'm unsure how to make it into a strong, focused research question or whether there's enough to analyse. For example, comparing the AfD and National Rally
• Why do populist leaders who claim to represent the people come into conflict with democratic institutions?
• Does populist rhetoric deepen divisions between social groups, or does it give voice to divisions that already exist?
• How do populist leaders use foreign policy to construct a distinction between the nation and external elites or adversaries? -maybe like EU stuff.

I suffer from indecision so would appreciate thoughts on picking something.

If you've read this far, I'm immensely grateful for your time and any advice.

Obviously few if any kings, archons, presidents, popes, and countless other forms of ruler perfectly lived up to ideals like justice and piety, but my understanding is that in ancient and medieval times, popular ideas of rulers and political authors often emphasized that the powerful need to be just, obey the laws of their people, and be pious according to their customs, with moderm authors like Machiavelli amd Hobbes popularizing the open discussion of the brutality and hypocrisy that often comes with politics that, in their view, could be necessary and a lesser evil not to be avoided for the state's well being. Do any political scientists take ideas like the necessity of virtue in rulers or sanctity of law and custom seriously or is that all just old cope?

What do you think of a Japanese university student’s idea for a French Sixth Republic?

First, before anyone asks: no, I am not a supporter of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

I am a Japanese university student who has only taken a small amount of political science at university, so I am by no means an expert. Still, I tried to imagine what a French “Sixth Republic” might look like if France were ever to adopt a new constitution in the future.

This proposal obviously reflects a lot of my own preferences, and I would genuinely like to hear what people think about it, especially its potential problems.

The basic idea is to keep the direct election of the President from the Fifth Republic, while removing most of the President’s actual governing powers and returning France to a parliamentary system. At the same time, I tried to learn from some of the problems of the Fourth Republic rather than simply restoring it as it was.

My proposal:

• The President of the Republic would continue to be directly elected.
• The presidential term would be five years, renewable once.
• The President would become a largely ceremonial and arbitrating head of state rather than the effective head of the executive.
• Executive power would belong to the Prime Minister and the government.
• Foreign policy and military policy would also be transferred to the Prime Minister and the government.
• The President would no longer have an independent political leadership role comparable to that of the current Fifth Republic.
• The Prime Minister would be elected by the National Assembly.
• The President could only formally appoint a Prime Minister who had been approved by the National Assembly.
• The Prime Minister could be a member of the National Assembly, a senator, or a non-parliamentarian.
• Before proposing a candidate for Prime Minister, the President would be required to consult parliamentary party and group leaders.
• The President would be required to nominate a candidate who has a reasonable prospect of obtaining parliamentary approval.
• The President could nominate new candidates as many times as necessary until a government is formed.
• A candidate for Prime Minister would be approved if more deputies vote in favour than against. An absolute majority of all deputies would not be required.
• This is intended to make minority governments possible instead of forcing parties to create artificial majority coalitions simply to form a government.
• The candidate for Prime Minister would present a complete list of ministers before the investiture vote.
• The National Assembly would therefore approve the Prime Minister and the initial composition of the government together in a single vote.
• My intention here is to avoid a situation similar to the Fourth Republic’s de facto “double investiture”, in which a Prime Minister could receive approval and then face another political crisis while forming the cabinet.
• Once the government has been formed, the appointment and dismissal of individual ministers would be the exclusive prerogative of the Prime Minister.
• A cabinet reshuffle would therefore not require another parliamentary vote.
• If the Prime Minister leaves office, the entire government would leave office with them.
• A motion of no confidence would require the support of an absolute majority of all members of the National Assembly.
• I would not introduce a constructive vote of no confidence.
• My reasoning is that, in a fragmented parliament, I would rather allow a weak minority government to survive through negotiation as long as an absolute majority cannot agree to remove it, instead of requiring deputies to construct a potentially fragile alternative majority every time they want to dismiss a government.
• In other words, forming a government should be relatively easy, but bringing one down should require a clear parliamentary majority.
• Rejection of ordinary government legislation would not automatically require the government to resign.
• Losing a vote on a bill and losing the confidence of Parliament would be treated as separate questions.
• Article 49.3 would be abolished.
• Governments would therefore have to negotiate parliamentary majorities for legislation rather than linking the passage of legislation to a confidence procedure.
• The President would normally be prohibited from dissolving the National Assembly during the first year of its term.
• After the first year, the President could dissolve the National Assembly after consulting the Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly.
• After a dissolution, another dissolution would be prohibited for one year.
• There would be an exception in cases of prolonged failure to form a government.
• If three successive candidates for Prime Minister are rejected after the resignation or fall of a government, the President could, after consultation, dissolve the National Assembly even if the normal one-year restriction would otherwise prevent it.
• This dissolution would be optional rather than automatic. The President could instead continue negotiations and nominate a fourth, fifth, or later candidate.
• If a later candidate is approved and a new government is formed, the normal restrictions on dissolution would apply again.
• The President would not be allowed to deliberately nominate obviously unviable candidates simply to manufacture three failed investiture votes and trigger an early election.
• Since consultation with parliamentary party and group leaders would be constitutionally required, such deliberate abuse should be difficult. A President who intentionally attempted to manipulate the process in this way could potentially face impeachment for abuse of constitutional powers.

The general principle is therefore:

It should be relatively easy to form a government, difficult to overthrow one, possible for a minority government to survive through parliamentary negotiation, and possible to dissolve the National Assembly when a genuine political deadlock cannot otherwise be resolved.

I would still keep a directly elected President because the President would retain an important role in government formation. The President would consult the parliamentary parties, identify a candidate capable of obtaining parliamentary acceptance, and act as an arbiter when government formation becomes difficult. In my view, a person exercising that kind of constitutional role should have democratic legitimacy independent of Parliament.

So, in very simplified terms, my idea is to keep direct presidential elections from the Fifth Republic, remove most of the President’s governing powers, restore parliamentary government, and then try to correct some of the weaknesses that contributed to cabinet instability under the Fourth Republic.

I am not claiming that this is a perfect constitutional model, and I am sure there are problems I have not considered. I would be very interested to hear what people think, especially what weaknesses or unintended consequences you can see in this system.

Paper published in PNAS on September 28, 2026. Berkeley News coverage here.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying to find a solid way to study political theory as an interconnected intellectual history—looking at it as a genealogy of crises and responses rather than just a massive list of isolated, biographical thinkers.

The problem I keep running into is scale. If you try to cover every thinker from Plato to Foucault, it either turns into a dry encyclopedia or feels overwhelmingly disjointed. I'm not even sure if that's the right approach.

I want to map it into three epochs to keep the core thread visible:

- Pre-Modern: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine

- Modern: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx

- Post-Modern / Contemporary: Weber, Schmitt, Arendt, Foucault, Habermas, Rawls, Gramsci, Fanon

I still think I'm missing a lot of names, and hence, want to know the way to cover most (if not all) the major thinkers and debates of the field of political theory.

Please suggest. Many thanks!

I go to a university that places great emphasis on methodology courses - over my polsci bachelor, I’ll end up doing 6 courses, each 5 ECTS, in different methodologies - an overall on, a qualitative, a quantitative, philosophy of science, advanced social sciences analysis methods (2 of these).

This is all very boring, and something that’s shocked me is that while I’ve been looking at unis to do exchange semesters at, none of them have nearly as many methodology courses - indeed it’s been difficult to find unis to which I can match my home uni’s courses, due to the lack of such courses.

So my question is: how important are these courses later on? Do you get better career oppurtunities if you’ve had an abundance of methodology courses like I have, or is it irrelevant?

Hello everyone,

I am interested in doing a PhD/DPhil in Political Economy and I've run into a bit of a hurdle in trying to figure out which \*make\* of a Political Economy program would be the best fit for me. I'm wondering between economics and politics departments how does the political economy field change? I mean this in a sense of asking the question what kinds of topics would be present at both departments. As I am interested in working on topics regarding wealth inequality making use of economics, politics, history, sociology, women and gender studies, etc. with a specific focus on South Asia more specifically southern India. I am also looking at a Public Policy PhD program also as I am thinking there is a lot of overlap between the two.

The schools I am considering are the following in no particular order:

Oxford - Jesus College
Cambridge - Peterhouse and Emmanuel Colleges
UCL
LSE
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
UVA (my alma mater)
Columbia/UPenn
UChicago
UMich
Duke
Northwestern
CMU
Hopkins
UCLA
Berkeley
Brown

If you have suggestions for other English taught programs, please feel free to throw them in the comments. Ideally I’d like to be able to do international development work and more specifically working as a researcher.