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Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; The development of political science since 1989; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development and major challenges.

THE CAUCUS FOR NEW POLITICAL SCIENCE WAS FOUNDED IN 1967 TO OPPOSE CURRENT TRENDS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY ITS LACK OF ATTENTION TO THE VIETNAM WAR AND MASS PROTEST MOVEMENTS. A MAJOR ITEM ON THE ORGINAL AGENDA WAS FOUNDATION INFLUENCE ON CHOICE OF RESEARCH TOPIC, AND FOUNDATION CONNECTIONS WITH POLITICAL SCIENCE MORE GENERALLY. THIS ARTICLE IS DIRECTLY A RESULT OF THE DISCUSSION HELD AT THE INITIAL MEETING. IT CONCLUDES THAT COLLECTIVE THINKING IS NEEDED ON WHAT RESEARCH IS NECESSARY TO PROMOTE DESIRED SOCIAL CHANGE, STARTING WITH THE UNFULFILLED LIBERAL GOALS, SUCH AS PEACEFUL RESOLUTION OF DISPUTES, ELIMINATION OF POVERTY, AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.

Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; The development of political science since 1989; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development and major challenges.

TIS PAPER ATTEMPTS FIVE GOALS:TO DESCRIBE AND ILLUSTRATE THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR; TO EXPLAIN WHY SOME USE MODELS IN RESEARCH; TO IDENTIFY SUBFIELDS IN WHICH MODELS EXIST AND SUGGEST OTHERS WHERE MODELS SHOULD EXIST; TO DISCUSS VARIOUS TYPES OF EXISTING MODELS; AND, TO OFFER SOME CRITICAL STANDARDS ACCORDING TO WHICH RESEARCH WHICH INVOLVES MODELS CAN BE JUDGED.

The following essays are based on presentations given by the authors during a short course on elite interviewing, held at the 2001 APSA meeting in San Francisco. The short course, sponsored by the Political Organizations & Parties organized section of the APSA, drew nearly 100 participants. Adapted from the source document.

Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; The development of political science since 1989; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development and major challenges.

Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; The development of political science since 1989; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development and major challenges.

A discipline, like an individual, may in some measure be known by the dilemmas it keeps, or more properly by the manner in which it keeps them.A central conceptual controversy, probably inescapable for political scientists because of their disciplinary heritage, is that involved in perceiving uniformities in behavior, describing recurring patterns, identifying the determinants and yet reconciling this effort and its underlying premises about the roots of behavior with the liberal, democratic faith in man's individual capacity to determine his own ends, to think rationally and to reach individual and creative decisions. On this faith rests the political structure of rights, the machinery of the democratic electorate, the party system and the values of the constitutional democratic state whose political process we are concerned to describe and analyze. Cultural anthropologists, social psychologists of many disciplinary schools, hard-boiled "realists" in political science, have recently drawn back from determinist or whole-heartedly relativist positions. Some are concerned that political science, in a fresh enthusiasm for empirical research, may become so engrossed with uniformities and determinants that it will obscure or abandon the normative commitments of a democratic polity.

The aim of James W. Ceaser's book, Reconstructing America (1997), is to save the US from the deconstructionist European thinking that has, since the eighteenth century, portrayed Americans as "inferior & degenerate." In the book, Ceaser attempts to reconstruct the US statesman. In doing so, he responds to the theories of Leo Strauss, Martin Heidegger, Alexis de Tocqueville, Richard Rorty, Mansfield, & Aristotle. Ceaser's thinking on the subject of US reconstruction reveals his belief that in post-Cold War America, the "real war for the soul of humanity has just begun." As he moves from a critique of US political life to a critique of US culture; however, it is no longer possible to blame US shortcomings on European thought. K. A. Larsen