{"id":20,"date":"2025-12-10T22:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2026-03-17T08:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T08:23:16","slug":"theme-statement","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/theme-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"Theme Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:32px\">Theme Statement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\"><strong>2026 APSA Virtual Research Meeting Theme | \u201cCollaboration in Times of Crisis: Polarization, Populism, and Political Science in a Changing World\u201d<\/strong> <strong>| April 15th and April 16th<\/strong> <strong>(ET)<\/strong> |<em><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/members.apsanet.org\/EVENTS\/Event-Calendar\/APSA-Event-Registration\/EventID\/1666665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Register Now!<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:15px\">The past five years have challenged long-held assumptions about how individuals, groups, and institutions influence\u2013and are influenced by\u2013political life. Deepening divides have complicated how scholars interpret contemporary social dynamics, how the public evaluates the resilience of democratic institutions, and the role of academic scholarship itself. At the same time, rapid technological change and widening generational gaps are transforming both political engagement and the ways we teach, learn, and conduct research. These shifts raise pressing questions. How do states, communities, and individuals adjust to such volatility? And how should we, as scholars and educators, adapt to a changing world?<br><br>This virtual conference invites political scientists to reflect on these challenges and to consider how we can work together to navigate, engage with, and better understand the political, economic, and societal transformations underway. The program committee welcomes proposals for research groups that bring together diverse perspectives and methodological approaches, including projects that do not focus explicitly on crisis politics but speak to the broader moment of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:15px\">We encourage scholars worldwide to submit Research Group workshop proposals spanning a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Polarization and generational divides<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">AI, changing technology, and new research tools<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Climate change and widening inequalities<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Eroding trust in science and expertise<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Resource constraints in academic work<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Data-driven innovation for real-world problems<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li style=\"font-size:15px\">Collaborative models for research and teaching<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theme Statement 2026 APSA Virtual Research Meeting Theme | \u201cCollaboration in Times of Crisis: Polarization, Populism, and Political Science in a Changing World\u201d | April 15th and April 16th (ET) | Register Now! The past five years have challenged long-held assumptions about how individuals, groups, and institutions influence\u2013and are influenced by\u2013political life. Deepening divides have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54651,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/vrm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}