University of Kentucky Department of Political Science

Robert Kahne, a UK Poli Sci undergrad alum, has announced that he's running for Louisville's Jefferson County School Board.

“Whenever we have a competitive race, the money floods in,” said Stephen Voss, a professor at the University of Kentucky and expert in Kentucky politics. “What’s unique about this race is that the forces pumping money into Kentucky aren’t the usual ones. Usually it’s sort of standard left-right attempts to take down our Republican incumbent, or in the case of Gov. [Andy] Beshear, take down the Democratic incumbent. This one, we’re sucking in money for different reasons.”

Out-of-State Money Helped Take Down Thomas Massie The Kentucky house primary was hugely nationalized, with money pouring in from across the country.

Prof. Voss (at left) is live and in the studio with Spectrum News 1, acting as their political analyst as Kentucky primary election results roll in.

Voss, the professor of politics, said the senator’s team knows the candidates have to walk a fine line.

“McConnell’s people are realistic enough to understand that the candidates need to distance themselves from McConnell,” he said, “but that’s different than openly disrespecting or attacking him.”

Kentucky Republicans race to replace McConnell while carefully keeping him at arm’s length Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell is becoming a test of the Republican Party’s transformation under President Donald Trump. Rep.

Congratulations to newly minted UK Poli Sci Ph.D. Alex (Smith) Farone, recipient of a prestigious internal teaching award.

UK honors 2026 Outstanding Teaching Award winners The University of Kentucky recently recognized exceptional faculty and graduate teaching assistants with Outstanding Teaching Awards during the 2026 UK Faculty Awards Ceremony April 30.

UK Poli Sci Ph.D. Ridvan Peshkopia continues to pursue his research agenda on political-science education:

Qualitative versus quantitative: how personality explains political science students’ preferences for their studies’ epistemological orientation The traditional qualitative–quantitative debate in Political Science often overlooks a deeper question: how students’ individual dispositions shape their methodological preferences. We argue that personality traits may influence whether students …

We're especially grateful to Reggie Thomas, the state senator who represents the center of Fayette County, for taking on several of our students as legislative interns. He even enhanced their educational experience by letting his interns propose a resolution - which, we're told, passed unanimously last week. Pictured here with Sen. Thomas are two UK interns, Lucia Saravia and John Riley Kaufman.

Former UK Poli Sci grad student Rajan Kumar discussing the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

No nation deserves Ukraine’s fate: A war it cannot win, a peace it cannot accept As Russian forces tighten their grip and Donald Trump pushes a pro-Moscow peace plan, Kyiv faces an “impossible choice” between national dignity and losing crucial Western support

Research by UK Poli Sci Ph.D. Ridvan Peshkopia just out, exploring the linkage between personality traits and support for human rights.

Differential personality predictors and contextuality in human rights support: how the Big-Five personality model predicts support for human rights in a post-ethnic conflict society In the debate between the universal versus contextual dimension of attitudes toward human rights, we argue that personality can explain differences in support for human rights, and that different p...

The Kentucky Supreme Court came to UK's Rosenberg College of Law, and Prof. Mike Zilis' Constitutional Law cohort went to the Kentucky Supreme Court! The group pictured here watched oral arguments for Beshear v. Coleman. Other political science majors, for example those in UK-BLUE, watched an earlier hearing for a contest between Gov. Beshear and Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell.