From Jun 7-8, 2025, an international workshop on “AI in Political Science: Past, Present and Future”, co-organized by the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences (Fudan IAS), Fudan School of International Relations and Public Affairs (Fudan SIRPA), and the Editorial Board of Chinese Political Science Review and Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, was held in Fudan University. More than thirty scholars from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore, etc. attended the workshop.

The conference was co-chaired by Prof. Sujian Guo, Dean of Fudan IAS, and Professor Changhe Su, Dean of Fudan SIRPA. Prof. Guo first gave an opening speech. After warmly welcoming all the scholars attending the conference and emphasizing the far-reaching impact of AI on political and social science research, Prof. Guo introduced Fudan IAS briefly to the participants: Fudan IAS has two iconic interdisciplinary research projects: Annual Theme Project and Global Justice Evaluation and Database Project. The Global Justice Index Report was first published globally in 2019, and has been continuously published for five consecutive years, which has made an important contribution to the development of China's social sciences in the field of global justice theory and quantitative research. Prof. Guo further introduced the two research centers (Contemporary China Research Center and Research Center for Chinese Modernization at Fudan IAS), two international academic exchange programs (international visiting scholars and international conferences), two research book series in Chinese and English, and two international journals of Fudan IAS. Additionally, Fudan IAS is also preparing for the Center of AI for Social Sciences, and looking forward to exploring various possibilities for further exchanges and collaborations with scholars both at home and abroad.

Prof. Changhe Su, Dean of Fudan SIRPA, the co-organizer of the conference, then made a welcome speech. Prof. Su highly affirmed the theme of the conference. He introduced to the participants the scientific research progress of Fudan SIRPA in exploring and promoting the combination of AI and political science, international relations and public administration, and expressed his eager anticipation for the transnational and interdisciplinary discussion and exchange in the future. Prof Guo thanked Prof. Su for his speech and announced the official start of the conference.

The topic of the first session was Reimagining Social/Political Science Research in the Age of AI. Prof. Randall W. Stone from Rochester University chaired this session.

Prof. Jefferson Gill from American University made a presentation entitled AI, Machine Learning, and the Impact on Social Science Research. Prof. Dwayne Woods from Purdue University talked on The AI Revolution in Political Science: Transforming Research, Theory, and Practice. Asst. Prof. Le Bao from City University Hong Kong delivered a speech on Large Language Models for Social Science Measurement.

Prof. Jefferson Jill from American University then chaired the second session, AI-Powered Language Tools for Social Research.

Dr. Simone Paci from Stanford University spoke on Generative AI For Bayesian Process Tracing. Prof. Qiqi Gao from Fudan SIRPA delivered a speech on The Coexistence and Dual Alignment of Humans and Large Models: A Future Generative Approach.

The third session was on Generative AI in Political and Social Research, and Prof. Dwayne Woods from Purdue University was the chair.

Asst. Prof. Ethan C. Busby from Brigham Young University made a presentation entitled Looking under the Hood: How LLMs Attempt Political Persuasion and Microtargeting. Prof. Ga?l Le Mens from Pompeu Fabra University talked on Beyond Black Boxes: Reporting Standards for Generative AI in Political and Social Science. Assoc. Prof. Zhongyu Wei from Fudan University gave a speech on SocioVerse: A World Model for Social Simulation Powered by LLM Agents and A Pool of 10 Million Real-World Users.

The fourth session of the conference, AI's Role in National and Global Research, was chaired by Professor Jieli Li of Ohio University.

Prof. Randall W. Stone from Rochester University talked on Machine Learning and US Trade Policy. Assoc. Prof. Jue Wang from Nanyang Technical University delivered a speech on Bridging or Widening the Gap? The Role of AI in Shaping Global Research Performance.

The conference continued on the morning of June 8 with the fifth session on Algorithmic Authority: AI's Role in Digital Governance, chaired by Asst. Prof. Ethan C. Busby from Brigham Young University.

Prof. Jieli Li from Ohio University spoke on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Politics of Disinformation: Challenges for Digital Governance and Implications for Political Behavior Research. Prof. Li Tang from Fudan SIRPA talked on Innovation and Diffusion: Assessing the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Knowledge Dynamics in Public Administration. Prof. Tianguang Meng from Tsinghua University made a presentation on Digital Legitimation and Compensation: The Source of Legitimacy for AI-assisted Decision-making in China.

The sixth session of the conference, Machine Media: AI, Algorithms, and the Future of News and Public Discourse, was chaired by Assoc. Professor Zachary C. Steinert-Threlkeld from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Asst. Prof. Maneesh Arora from Wellesley College gave a speech on Evaluating Emerging Machine Learning Applications for News Media Analysis. Dr. Ljubisa Bojic, Senior Research Fellow at University of Belgrade, talked on Playground for LLM-Based Recommender Systems: Investigating Polarization and User Engagement in Simulated Social Media.

Asst. Prof. Maneesh Arora from Wellesley College then chaired the seventh session of the conference, Generative Governance: AI’s Role in Military, Political Communication and Civic Data.

Prof. Yanto Chandra from City University Hongkong made a presentation entitled Warring States or Peace with AI? Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Military AI. Asst. Prof. Blake Miller from the London School of Economics and Political Science talked on Measuring What’s Missing: Technological Barriers to Automated Content Moderation. Assoc. Prof. Zhongyuan Wang and Asst. Prof. Wen Qu from Fudan IAS delivered together a speech on Pulse of People: Comparing Megacity Hotline Data in Shanghai and New York using LLMs.

The eighth session of the conference was AI-Powered Political Science Research. Prof. Tianguang Meng from Tsinghua University chaired this session.

Assoc. Prof. Zachary C. Steinert-Threlkeld from UCLA spoke on Generating Social Conflict Event Data from Secondary Material. Prof. Yu Wang from Fudan IAS talked on Selecting Between BERT and GPT for Text Classification in Political Science Research. Asst. Prof. Joan Timoneda from Purdue University made a presentation on Memory Is All You Need: How Memory Approaches Outperform Few-Shot Classification in Supervised Classification Tasks.

At the end of the two-day conference, Prof. Sujian Guo thanked all the scholars for their cutting-edge and innovative speeches in the field of AI and political/social science, and discussed with the scholars on matters related to the publication of the papers after the conference. He expected that the papers reported in the conference will be published by Chinese Political Science Review, Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Journal of Chinese Governance in the form of special issues after review. The conference ended with a round of applause.