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.
Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science (online ISSN 2414-6633) is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by the International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS). Founded in 2001, IAPSS Politikon publishes original research across all major subfields of political science by established and early-career scholars, with a particular commitment to the professional development of early-career researchers.
All submissions go through the same double-blind peer-review process, whatever the author’s career stage. Alongside peer review, the journal offers developmental support, including editorial guidance and copy-editing, from submission to publication.
IAPSS Politikon publishes two regular issues each year and accepts submissions on a rolling basis. It also publishes special issues on timely themes in political science. Prospective guest editors are welcome to send proposals to the Editor-in-Chief at politikonjournal@iapss.org.
As a diamond open-access journal, IAPSS Politikon charges no submission, processing, or publication fees. All published content is freely available worldwide under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence.
This issue brings together three research contributions and two book reviews spanning institutional design, media representation, and diaspora politics. Christopher Ebikebena traces twenty-five years of Nigerian electoral technology, arguing that biometric innovations have displaced rather than resolved fraud, generating a "trust paradox" that culminated in the 2023 IReV crisis. Hasta Aisyah Trida Pramita and Dwi Ardhanariswari Sundrijo apply a postcolonial lens to a German documentary on child jockeys in Sumbawa, showing how visual framing and production context marginalise Indonesian perspectives. Vasili Ioannidis extends hold-up problem theory to EU enlargement, using the North Macedonia–Bulgaria dispute to show how unanimity and multiple decision points incentivise Member States to extract bilateral concessions from candidate states. The issue closes with reviews of a North Korean diplomat's insider testimony and a journalistic account of elite Russian emigration since 2022, both probing how authoritarian systems shape those who serve, flee, or defect from them.
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.