Active learning is central to the teaching of Politics and International Relations. This symposium brings together a series of short teaching notes that seek to advance our understanding of effective, engaging teaching practices and their ability to cultivate active learning. This introduction provides a brief overview of active learning within the pedagogy of the field and introduces the four teaching notes in the symposium.

Over the past few decades, cyber warfare has become what the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) calls a ‘policy subsystem’. This article asks: how far can ACF explain the policy dynamics of cyber warfare? The article argues that understanding key camps in global cybersecurity negotiations as advocacy coalitions has three theoretical benefits for scholarship on cyber warfare. First, the ACF’s detailed account of coalition formation helps explain the interplay between normative and strategic considerations on cyber warfare at different levels of coalition commitment. Second, the ACF’s emphasis on internal and external ‘subsystem shocks’ as catalysts for policy change helps to identify key events in each coalition’s narrative of cyber warfare and the framing power of these events on negotiations over policy. Third, the ACF stresses the role of coalition building as a necessary step to achieve policy change, and thus sheds a fresh light on recent diplomatic initiatives related to cyber warfare, from commercial spyware regulation to counter-ransomware campaigns. Finally, we highlight some conceptual challenges posed by cyber warfare to the ACF, as cyberspace offers wider – and more effective – possibilities for coalition action beyond advocacy.

University mission statements talk about impacting the world and learning gain. In a changing political landscape, with advances in AI and increased diversity in the student body the need for us to re-consider (or redefine) how we equip students with the skills they need to be able to fulfil this mission is crucial. This presentation explores our experiences from creating a new level 1 core module that embeds skills teaching through engagement with the politics of global challenges. We will highlight how we connect the topic of global challenges to skills training, surfacing employability skills and fostering a sense of belonging. We show how the assessment is designed to encourage reflection, group work and key academic skills. The overall mission is to show students how to become global agents for change.

This article examines support for populist radical right (PRR) parties among people with ethno-religious minority backgrounds, who tend to be vilified by PRR. We explore a theoretical framework that underscores mechanisms that might be at play, including interplays between general (e.g. anti-immigration attitudes) and minority-specific mechanisms (e.g. discrimination). Drawing on 10 rounds of European Social Survey data (2004–2023), this study addresses (1) which ethno-religious minorities are more likely to support the PRR and (2) what explains their PRR voting. Our analyses show that minorities who are racialised (i.e. Muslims, people with roots in Muslim-majority and Global South countries) are less likely to vote for PRR parties than others. Second, although general explanations for PRR voting such as Euroscepticism, authoritarianism and anti-immigrant sentiments also hold for ethno-religious minorities, other socio-demographic indicators (i.e. education, employment status, political and social trust) show no similar effects among ethno-religious minorities. These findings reveal the need for a minority-specific lens when studying who among ethno-religious minorities vote for PRR and why.

Teaching politics and international relations in higher education (HE) has shifted in recent years towards a focus on soft skills, with employability as a core output. The need to improve graduate outcomes has driven sector-wide responses that focus on additional support for students to gain experience and soft skills that can be translated into statements of employability. Yet, degree programmes are still often based on assumptions of students’ pre-existing skill sets, or an expectation that students will learn academic and professional skills as a byproduct of their degree. This article argues that this is problematic as it avoids focusing on the skills gap present in students from widening participation (WP) backgrounds. It establishes that the ‘soft skills’ increasingly sought by employers, such as complex problem-solving, leadership, public speaking, resilience, and active critical thinking, are core outputs of participation in model summits that focus on fast-paced interactive learning. Embracing model summits as a teaching tool presents opportunities for the enhancement of learning by focusing on skills training through the adoption of model summits within and alongside core content, providing students with the opportunity to extract key soft skills during their degree studies, potentially bridging the wider attainment gap for WP students.

The suspension of US foreign aid by President Trump in January 2025 marked a significant shock to the global aid ecosystem, raising critical questions about the behaviour of European official development assistance (ODA) donors as media coverage of the event and public opinion might affect political decision-making. Against this backdrop, we examine the German public’s opinion on the USAID shutdown and their preferences for Germany’s and the European Union’s aid policies. A rapid survey conducted in February–March 2025 (N = 1055) shows that while Germans broadly view the Trump administration’s decision to freeze US aid negatively, expressing particular concern about its impact on humanitarian issues, a substantial majority prefers no change to Germany’s foreign aid policy. Our analysis indicates that political ideology, populist attitudes and trust in the German federal government significantly shape whether individuals view the shutdown favourably and whether they support either mimicking US aid cuts or stepping in to fill the gap. By contrast, concerns about the German economy do not translate into support for foreign aid cuts.

This article explores how improvisation, role-play, and generative AI can be used to reimagine public policy education through active, experiential learning. Many students drawn to policy studies arrive with backgrounds in creative disciplines and thrive in collaborative, problem-solving environments. By incorporating hands-on methods such as simulations and improvisational role-play, the classroom becomes a space where students not only analyze policy dilemmas but also inhabit them, allowing them to grapple with complexity, ambiguity, and competing perspectives. Drawing on two case studies, this article demonstrates how experiential strategies, supported by generative AI for rapid scenario development, can enhance engagement, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving. Rather than using AI merely to streamline preparation, the approach leverages AI’s generative capacities to support adaptive, in-the-moment teaching that mirrors the dynamic nature of real-world policy work. The article foregrounds improvisation not only as a teaching technique but as a democratic stance, inviting co-creation, responsiveness, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. While challenges remain in assessing learning outcomes and managing pedagogical risks, this work contributes to broader conversations about creativity, equity, and innovation in public policy education. It offers an adaptable framework that equips students to meet the demands of policymaking with agility, imagination, and empathy.

The world faces social, political, economic, and ecological crises, and there is doubt that democratic governance can cope. Democracies rely on a narrow set of institutions and processes anchored in dominant forms of political organisation and imagination. Power inequalities sustain the (re)production of current ills in democratic life. In this context, what does the field of democratic innovation offer to the task of sociopolitical reimagining and change? The field has advanced since the turn of the century, building foundations for democratic renewal. It draws from various traditions of democracy, including participatory and deliberative streams. But there is concern that a non-critical version of deliberative democracy is becoming hegemonic. Deliberative theory generated useful correctives to participatory democracy – that is, a deeper understanding of the communicative fabric of the public sphere as worthy of democratisation; public reasoning as a bridge-builder between streets and institutions and a key precursor to democratic collective action. However, we argue that democratic innovation now needs a participatory corrective to strengthen its potential to mobilise capacity for change. We review emerging critiques in conversation with participatory ideas and practices, illustrating our argument with four gaps in democratic innovation that can become field-expanding dimensions to deliver emancipatory change more effectively: pluriversality, policy, political economy, and empowerment.

How can the power of norms triumph over material power? To address this issue this article explores the relational dynamics of structural and agential factors that enhanced the normative relevance of the Timor-Leste question between 1975 and 1999. In doing so, it contextualises the roles of the United Nations, Portugal, and Indonesia; advances a relational theorisation about power, norms, and context; and develops the concept of normative relevance. I argue that the change in Timor-Leste was related to the hierarchical and normative structural transformations of the 1990s, with the new political and ideational environment providing the conditions necessary for the change and emergence of Timor-Leste’s normative relevance. Moreover, by activating a sense of normative obligation, leaders and diplomatic officials assume the role of agents of change and reinforce the norm’s relevance. However, simply possessing normative reason for resolving an international dispute is insufficient. For normative legitimacy to be effective, norms must be relevant and collectively assumed by the international community.

It is received wisdom in political science that parties are indispensable in a large-scale democracy. However, one might think that this belief reflects path dependency or a lack of imagination of alternative democratic systems. The recent theoretical development of new alternatives to traditional forms of representative government such as lottocracy or liquid democracy therefore offers an ideal context for questioning the assumption more thoroughly. The functions usually performed by parties are well-known, but it is less clear which of them could not be taken up by a different institution or body under an alternative arrangement. What would be the deep normative reasons to preserve the party form even in a completely reformed democracy? This is the question addressed in this article by bringing together recent pieces of literature on democratic innovations and the political theory of political parties. We argue that parties allow to mobilise and politicise citizens around a positive ideology, make it easier for citizens to follow political processes, thereby facilitating popular control and accountability, and give more visibility and strength to the opposition. These extremely valuable functions should be put in the balance with their flaws and with the benefits of alternative democratic systems.