So APSA announced the winners of the dissertation awards. Take a look at the topics:
Communication as Power: Effects of the Internet on Auth. Politics
Growing Closer or Further Apart: Exposure to Social Media in Ethnically Divided Societies
The Political Economy of Assassinations
Forged in the Fire: Racially-Targeted Violence and Implications for Political Behavior in the United States
Making Foreigners: Citizenship and the Legacies of Colonialism and Nationalism in India
Gender Matters in the Judiciary: Adjudicating Sexual Assault in Korea
Public Pressure Campaigns and Bureaucratic Policymaking
Yellow Peril Revived? The Rise of China and Anti-Asian Racism in the United States
States of Merit: The Politics of Civil Service Recruitment in Asia
Left-Behind or Left Ahead? The Implications of Male Migration on Women’s Political Participation in India
Institutionalized Rent-Seeking: The Political-Business Revolving Door in China
Languages of National Politics in Kenya and Tanzania
Extractive Industries, Indigenous Autonomy, and the Governance of the Commons in Mexico
Women, Power, and Networks: The Gendered Politics of Economic Empowerment
The Effect of Party Leader Gender on Voter Expectations of Cabinet Composition
The Normalization of State Violence at the Mexico-U.S. Border
The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized
Taking Perspective: Prejudice Reduction and Political Attitudes
No Strangers to Hardship: African Americans, Inequality, and the Politics of Resilience
Detention and Democracy in the American Midwest
Prosecutorial discretion: district attorneys, public opinion, and localized rule of law
The Impact of Computer-Modified Visual Information on Political Beliefs
The Invisible Hand of Networked Repression
Notice anything similar about the vast majority of these dissertations?