Political scientists from around the world have converged on Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea in Asia. They are there for the 28th World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
The congress which is taking place at a time of intense polarities in local, regional and global politics is thinking through a large number of panel areas of interest as grouped into tracks viz RC01 Concepts and Methods; RC02 Political Elites; RC03 European Unification; RC04 Visual Politics; RC05 Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics; RC06 Political Sociology; RC07 Women and Politics in the Global South; RC08 Legislative Specialists and RC09 Comparative Judicial Studies.
Others include RC10 Electronic Democracy; RC11 Science and Politics; RC12 Biology and Politics; RC13 Democratization in Comparative Perspective; RC14 Politics and Ethnicity; RC15 Political and Cultural Geography; RC16 Socio-Political Pluralism; RC17 Comparative Public Opinion; RC18 Asian and Pacific Studies; RC19 Gender Politics and Policy; RC20 Political Finance and Political Corruption; RC21 Political Socialization and Education; RC22 Political Communication; RC23 Elections, Citizens and Parties; RC24 Armed Forces and Society; RC25 Comparative Health Policy; RC26 Human Rights; RC27 Structure and Organization of Government; RC28 Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance; RC29 Political Psychology; RC30 Comparative Public Policy; RC31 Political Philosophy; RC32 Public Policy and Administration; RC33 The Study of Political Science as a Discipline; RC34 Quality of Democracy; RC35 Technology and Development; RC36 Political Power and RC37 Rethinking Political Development.
Prof Pam Sha
As shown on its website too, the tracks extends to RC38 Politics and Business, RC39 Welfare States and Developing Societies; RC40 New World Orders? RC41 Geopolitics; RC42 Security, Integration and Unification; RC43 Religion and Politics; RC44 Security, Conflict and Democratization; RC45 Quantitative International Politics RC46 Migration and Citizenship; RC47 Local-Global Relations; RC48 Administrative Culture; RC49 Socialism, Capitalism and Democracy; RC50 The Politics of Language; RC51 International Political Economy; RC52 Climate Security and Planetary Politics and RC53 Indigenous Politics”
Political scientists of different theoretical, methodological, racial/cultural and ideological orientations will be cracking their brains over these issues between July 12th and 19th, 2025. That is an entire week of brainstorming.
Although there are no Africa specific issues or themes in the research committee’s panels unlike the Congress General tracks, Nigeria’s Prof Pam Dung Sha from the Department of Political Science of the University of Jos (UNIJOS) is attending the congress.
Intervention has it authoritatively that he is, in fact, presenting a paper titled “Public Policy Reforms and Public Protests in Africa: Understanding the 2024 Protests in Kenya and Nigeria” in the Public Policy and Administration track. In doing so, Prof Pam would be accomplishing, amongst others, the rarity of so quickly bringing an unfolding event such as the protests in Kenya and Nigeria under intellectual scrutiny.
Prof Pam’s paper is one out of papers in his track, some of the rest being “Between Neutrality and Co-Optation: Bureaucracies’ Struggle to Preserve Democratic Norms Amid Rising Autocratic Pressures”; “Digital Depolarization in India: Independent Journalism and Influencer Activism as Ontological Opposition to Hindu Nationalist Representations of Social Reality”; “Free Data Flow vs Data Sovereignty: Concerns of Digital Autocracy and Global South Responses” and “The Paradox of Freebies: Navigating Electoral Incentives and Economic Challenges in Democratic Societies with Special Reference to India”
Intervention does not have access to a comprehensive list of the presentations. However, looking at the list of tracks above, one can guess that they will capture the resurgence of illiberal tendencies, particularly right-wing populism and the racial, class and geopolitical responses to such manifestations.
Among those partnering the IPSA on the congress are Korean Political Science Association, The Dae-Jung Foundation, UNIKOREA Foundation, Seoul Tourism Organisation, Korea Tourism Organisation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seoul Metropolitan Government, The JoonAng, Inha Centre for International Studies, the National Electoral Commission of the Republic of Korea.
