The 28th World Congress of the International Political Science Association ended Wednesday, June 16th, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea with the announcement of the host of the 2027 version. It will take place in Rome, Italy.
A statement to that effect stated “We are excited to announce that the 29th IPSA World Congress of Political Science will be held in Rome, Italy, in July 2027. The announcement is a product of an online meeting held on February 15th, 2025 during which the IPSA Executive Committee officially selected Luiss Guido Carli as the host institution for the event.
The Congress program will be developed under the guidance of Program Co-Chairs Vanessa Elias de Oliveira (Brazil) and Francesca Longo (Italy), the statement added.
From Seoul to Rome
This is the second time the World Congress would be going to Rome. 1958 was the first time. Promoting Rome hosting the upcoming event, the statement declared “Rome, with a history spanning over two thousand years, is regarded as the world’s first great modern metropolis”. It credits the city with playing a pivotal role in shaping the artistic and cultural heritage of Western civilization, pointing out how UNESCO designated Rome’s entire historic center as a World Heritage Site in 1980, “celebrating iconic landmarks such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, and many others”
A highlight of the just ended Seoul session was the vigorous debate that occurred about “best practices” versus “good practices” in public policy making and implementation. The congress was told how countries such as Nigeria are forced to accept IMF and World Bank prescriptions as “best practices” with universal applicability. It was also told how the prescriptions and conditionalities have not ignited development as they have rather de-industrialised and further impoverished such nations.
Political scientists from around the world had converged on Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea in Asia for the 28th World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) since June 14th, 2025.
Prof Pam Sha
Key issue areas in contemporary politics that were subjects of engagement range from Concepts and Methods; Political Elites; European Unification; Visual Politics; Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics; Political Sociology; Women and Politics in the Global South; Legislative Specialists and Comparative Judicial Studies.
Others include Electronic Democracy; Science and Politics; Biology and Politics; Democratization in Comparative Perspective; Politics and Ethnicity; Political and Cultural Geography; Socio-Political Pluralism; Comparative Public Opinion; Asian and Pacific Studies; Gender Politics and Policy; Political Finance and Political Corruption; Political Socialization and Education; Political Communication; Elections, Citizens and Parties; Armed Forces and Society; Comparative Health Policy; Human Rights; Structure and Organization of Government; Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance; Political Psychology; Comparative Public Policy; Political Philosophy; Public Policy and Administration; The Study of Political Science as a Discipline; Quality of Democracy; Technology and Development; Political Power and Rethinking Political Development.
Yet others extend to Politics and Business, Welfare States and Developing Societies; New World Orders? Geopolitics; Security, Integration and Unification; Religion and Politics; Security, Conflict and Democratization; Quantitative International Politics Migration and Citizenship; Local-Global Relations; Administrative Culture; Socialism, Capitalism and Democracy; The Politics of Language; International Political Economy; Climate Security and Planetary Politics and Indigenous Politics”
Prof Pam Dung Sha from the Department of Political Science of the University of Jos (UNIJOS) is one Nigerian academic confirmed to have attended the congress. It is very likely there were other Nigerians too but Intervention hasn’t got that information yet.
Intervention has already reported that the UNIJOS professor presented 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 accomplished, 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 was 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”
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