IPSA at the 2026 APSA Annual Meeting in Boston

The American Political Science Association’s (APSA) 122nd Annual Meeting took place in Boston, USA, from 3-6 September 2026, under the theme Democracy Under Threat: How to Understand, Protect, and Rebuild. IPSA was once again represented by a strong delegation, including President Yuko Kasuya; IPSA Past Presidents Dianne Pinderhughes and Marianne Kneuer; IPSA Executive Committee (EC) members Elisa Chelle, Berk Esen, Min Hee Go, John Ishiyama, André Lecours, and Kenneth McElwain; IPSA Summer Schools Coordinator Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar; former IPSA Vice-President Rodney Hero; and IPSA Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski. The IPSA delegation took part in academic sessions and held official meetings during the Annual Meeting.

APSA Awards Reception 2026

IPSA Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski attended the APSA Awards Reception on 2 September 2026, where she met Ning Leng, the recipient of the 2026 APSA-IPSA Theodore J. Lowi First Book Award. Prof. Leng (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Georgetown University) received the award for her debut book titled Politicizing Business: How Firms are Made to Serve the Party-State in China, published by Cambridge University Press in 2025. 

Photo (left to right): Christian Dyogi Phillips (Chair of the Award Committee), Kimberly A. Mealy (APSA Executive Director), Ning Leng (Award Recipient), Kim Fontaine-Skronski (IPSA Executive Director),  and Min Hee Go (IPSA Executive Committee member).  

Photo (left to right): Rodney Hero (former IPSA Vice-President), Dianne Pinderhughes (IPSA Past President), Kim Fontaine-Skronski (IPSA Executive Director), John Ishiyama (IPSA Executive Committee member), and Steven Rathgeb Smith (former APSA Executive Director).

Association Leaders' Meeting and Challenges and Opportunities Facing Political Science Associations Roundtable

On 3 September, IPSA President Yuko Kasuya and Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski joined the Association Leaders' Meeting, which gathered executive directors and governance leaders from political science associations to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing their organizations and how associations can respond to a changing landscape and foster collaboration. 

Also on 3 September, IPSA Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski served as a speaker at the Challenges and Opportunities Facing Political Science Associations Roundtable, chaired by APSA Executive Director Kimberly A. Mealy. Executive Directors from several associations exchanged perspectives on key challenges and opportunities facing political science associations, continuing the discussions that had begun earlier in the day at the Association Leaders' Meeting.

Photo (left to right): Richard A. Clucas (Western Political Science Association), Kimberly A. Mealy (American Political Science Association), Kim Fontaine-Skronski (International Political Science Association), Mark S. Hurwitz (Southern Political Science Association), Meegan Isenhour (Midwest Political Science Association), and Kathie Stromile Golden (National Conference of Black Political Scientists).
 

IPSA Roundtable - Rebuilding Democracy in a Shifting International Order: Regional Perspectives on Erosion and Resilience

Chaired by IPSA Executive Committee member Berk Esen, the IPSA roundtable, Rebuilding Democracy in a Shifting International Order: Regional Perspectives on Erosion and Resilience, was held on 5 September. As democracies worldwide face increasing polarization, institutional erosion and declining public trust, the question of how to understand, defend and rebuild democratic systems has become central to political science. The IPSA roundtable featured Yuko Kasuya (IPSA President), Marianne Kneuer (IPSA Past President), and John Ishiyama (EC Member), who analyzed assaults on democratic governance and sources of democratic resilience through a comparative lens. 

Photo (left to right): Berk Esen, John Ishiyama, Marianne Kneuer and Yuko Kasuya.

Academic Sessions Featuring Current and Former IPSA Executive Committee Members

IPSA’s current and former Executive Committee members took part in academic panels and poster sessions, presenting their research and contributing to numerous roundtable discussions.

IPSA President Yuko Kasuya participated in the Public Opinion & Diverse Perspectives on South Asian Politics poster session and presented her co-authored research paper, A New Measure of Country-Level Affective Polarization. Prof. Kasuya also joined the Political Methodology & Foreign Policy - Great Power Competition and Strategic Rivalry panel, where she presented her co-authored research paper, the Hybrid Discipline: Knowledge Flows in a Century of Political Science.

IPSA Past President Dianne Pinderhughes chaired the How AI is Changing Your World panel, which explored the impact of artificial intelligence on the discipline and political science education. During the session, participants also discussed in detail the results of an extensive survey on the use of AI, which gathered responses from more than 94,000 students.

IPSA Past President Marianne Kneuer chaired the Authoritarian Networks and How to Resist Them panel, where she presented her paper, Authoritarian Networks: Disrupting Democracies, Stabilizing Autocracies. She also served as a discussant on the Democratic Backsliding panel. 

IPSA EC member Elisa Chelle was a presenter at the Author Meets Critics - French Democracy in Distress: Challenges and Opportunities in French Politics roundtable, organized by the French Political Science Association, which is an IPSA Collective member. 

IPSA EC member Min Hee Go attended the Gender Politics in Taiwan panel, where she presented her co-authored paper Polarized Voices: Partisan Politics and Gendered Speech in Taiwan’s Legislature. She also participated in the Identity, Public Opinion, and Resolve in International Crises panel, where she presented her co-authored paper Security Threats, Social Values, and the Politics of Alliance Support.

IPSA EC member and APSA Past President John Ishiyama was also very active at the APSA Annual Meeting, taking part in several academic sessions, including the Revisiting “Rethinking Political Science Education” and Challenges to Democracy roundtable; the Political Science Departments and AI roundtable; the IPSA roundtable on Rebuilding Democracy in a Shifting International Order: Regional Perspectives on Erosion and Resilience; and the High Impact Practices, Student Engagement, and Student Outcomes panel.

IPSA EC member André Lecours joined the Women, Gender, and Politics Research poster session, where he presented his co-authored research paper, Women and Nationalist Violence: A Comparison of the Basque Country and Corsica.

IPSA EC member Kenneth McElwain also represented the Japanese Political Science Association (JPSA) and participated in several JPSA-APSA Working Group meetings and sessions. While some of these were invitation-only sessions, he also attended the JPSA-APSA Working Group Community Roundtable, chaired by Andrew Stinson (Senior Director of Grant Initiatives and International Programs, APSA).

IPSA Summer Schools Coordinator Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar presented her paper, Judicial Career Without Judges: Judicial Governance and Professional Trajectories after Mexico’s 2025 Judicial Election, as part of the Judicial Elections in Mexico panel. She also participated in the Institutional Transformation and Democratic Backsliding in Mexico roundtable.

Finally, former IPSA Vice-President Rodney E. Hero chaired the Race, Identity, and Immigration panel and served as a discussant.

Panels Organized by IPSA Research Committees

IPSA also presented three panels through its Research Committees. 

What Is the Future of Political Power?
Organized by RC36 - Political Power

Parties beyond the Dataset: Informality, Fluidity and Invisible Organizations in African Politics
Organized by RC06 - Political Sociology

Eventing Data: Large Language Models and Political Event Extraction
Organized by RC01 - Concepts and Methods

IPSA Booth

IPSA hosted an exhibition booth at the APSA Annual Meeting to promote the 2027 IPSA World Congress of Political Science in Rome, as well as IPSA’s other activities and publications. Visitors received a 25% discount on IPSA membership and IPSA promotional items.

Photo: IPSA President Yuko Kasuya and Past President Marianne Kneuer visited the IPSA booth at APSA 2026 to meet APSA delegates.

The IPSA delegation also visited publishing houses and other exhibitors in the exhibition hall. IPSA President Yuko Kasuya, Executive Committee member John Ishiyama, and Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski met with Lorraine Klimowich from Springer Nature to discuss opportunities for joint projects.

Photo: John Ishiyama, Lorraine Klimowich,  Yuko Kasuya and Kim Fontaine-Skronski.