In the early 1980s historical and comparative studies began reassessing the importance of “the state.” This 1982 article by Theda Skocpol examines the trajectory of “the state” in social scientific analysis, documenting the shift from society-centered approaches to politics and government research to a focus on the state as both actor and organizational structure. This report would lay the groundwork for the SSRC’s Committee on States and Social Structures (1983–1990), which would further explore the role of the state in different settings and across a range of social, cultural, political, and economic processes.

In late February 2020 anti-Muslim riots broke out in New Delhi, India, the most recent instance of violence against Muslims in the country. To provide some historical context for this incident, as well as the recent passing of a controversial amendment to India’s citizenship law, Ashutosh Varshney’s 2002 essay on the Gujarat riots provides insight into Hindu-Muslim violence. Written soon after the March–April 2002 violence, Varshney recounts the known facts at the time, arguing that the events should be considered a pogrom. However, Varshney goes on to complicate the narrative surrounding interreligious violence, highlighting research showing that, in communities where Hindus and Muslims live more interconnected lives, violence is less likely to occur.

In the early 1950s, the nascent political science subfield of comparative politics wrestled with questions of method and whether to approach comparing nation-states via abstract concepts or a problem-oriented focus. To begin addressing these concerns, the SSRC convened an interuniversity research seminar in which political scientists began to create a framework for the field that ultimately led to the formation of the Committee on Comparative Politics. Roy Macridis, in this report, summarizes the seminar’s discussion, which included the relative merits of area studies approaches to more abstract theorizing. The conversation clearly tilted toward starting with conceptual schemes independent of context, and so exemplifies the impact of behavioralism that Michael Desch illustrates in his Items essay.

As SSRC launches MediaWell—our online platform to track and distill research on disinformation, online politics, election interference, and emerging collisions between media and democracy—Items is revisiting this 1980 report on the SSRC’s Committee on Mass Communication and Political Behavior. Focusing on the impact of news media on the 1976 presidential election, Thomas Patterson highlighted the shift in news coverage from candidates’ policy platforms to candidates’ gaffes and campaign issues and how this has affected voters’ grasp of electoral issues. Patterson concludes that stronger parties are needed to provide voters with policy information.