What I Learned at APSA 2023

A few post-poli-sci-conference thoughts.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

As the 2023 American Political Science Association (APSA) annual meeting wraps up in downtown Los Angeles, a few thoughts about what I saw and what I heard:

First, the state of political science is weird. On the one hand, it was very energizing to see so many graduate students and post-docs presenting interesting, policy-relevant research. I read, listened, or talked to at least a dozen young, aspiring political scientists who were researching fascinating questions, producing scholarship that I wanted to read once it’s been polished up a bit. I came home with a half-dozen books that I will probably not have time to finish but really wish I did. It was also interesting to note that the younger generation of political scientists seem way more diverse than my aging cohort.

That said, attendance at this conference was considerably lower than expected, due to a strike announced by the hotel workers of UNITE HERE Local 11. Back in July the Union requested that APSA cancel the entire convention, or move it all online. APSA decided to go ahead with the in-person conference but move all the meetings to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

This was not enough for either the union or some political scientists. NPR’s Danielle Kaye explained, “Thousands of workers at downtown Los Angeles hotels walked off the job on Wednesday, just before the start of the APSA event.” The union picket lines had something of a chilling effect on attendance: according to Kaye, “At least hundreds of scholars have withdrawn from the event in solidarity with the striking hotel workers.” This includes the entire Latino Caucus of Political Science.¹

A high-ranking APSA official who shall remain nameless told me that the withdrawals were indeed in the hundreds. For a conference that in the pre-pandemic years had 7,500 attendees, that does not sound like much. The vibe at the conference, however, was that it was significantly underpopulated. It seemed as though many of the attendees decided to go virtual. Panels that should have been packed given the topics and presenters were… not so packed.

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is in no position to judge those who decided not to attend, nor the APSA officials who decided to proceed. I get why the union is striking (more about the union in a moment) and I get why APSA decided not to cancel the conference a mere six weeks before the scheduled date. The only thing I’ll note is that this is the fourth annual meeting in a row in which APSA has not been able to muster even average attendance levels. This is almost entirely due to forces way beyond APSA’s control. Still, these meetings are extremely important for the professional development of junior scholars, and I can’t shake the feeling that there will be an entire cohort of political scientists that winds up underperforming in their careers relative to those who preceded and followed them.²

Second, the state of downtown LA is also weird. My vague sense is that downtown LA (DTLA) is not quite as important to the city as, say, the Loop in Chicago or Midtown in New York City. Still, the entire downtown seemed radically underpopulated compared to what I was expecting. It was far less crowded on the streets than at APSA’s 2022 conference in Montreal. No doubt, the hotel strike complicated matters, and maybe even the SAG-AFTRA strikes acted as an additional damper on business activity. Still, there were way fewer people than the last time I was there.

The obvious conclusion to draw is that this is the effect of the semi-permanent shift to a “work from home” culture from professionals who otherwise would have been populating DTLA’s many skyscrapers. This is understandable. It’s also a shame, for two reasons. First, there are some great restaurants and businesses in DTLA and I sure hope they do not go under from the lack of patrons. Second, I wonder if the punditry about the decline in American cities is based on a misplaced, inductive generalization of what is going on in a few atypical central business districts.

Third, and last, the state of local labor seems pretty strong! My primary political takeaway from the conference is that you don’t want to fuck with Local 11. It was impossible to navigate DTLA without passing a hotel that was being picketed by the UNITE workers. They were on the picket lines beginning at around 5 AM and stayed until well after dinnertime. Their strategy was clearly to come out in large numbers during peak periods of hotel entry and egress. Even during the off-peak times, however, they had large inflatable rats at some of the hotels. They played vuvuzelas or automated noise machines connected to loudspeakers to disrupt hotel functions. For all the talk about AI and automation displacing service-sector jobs, it was interesting to note that the same technology also facilitated a more efficient, more militant labor response.

I wish all the striking workers in Los Angeles the best of luck. The city will be hosting some important events in the next few years. The hotel workers definitely deserve their fair share of the pie.

1. The membership of UNITE HERE Local 11 is overwhelmingly Latino.

2. Yes, I know that’s a really interesting natural experiment. No, I don’t want to write that paper.