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C. P. Snow, in his Rede Lecture on the scientific and literary worlds as separate cultures, lists four groups needed by a country if it is to "come out top" in the scientific revolution. First, as many top scientists as it can produce; second, a larger group trained for supporting research and high class design; third, educated supporting technicians; and "fourthly and last, politicians, administrators, an entire community, who know enough science to have a sense of what the scientists are talking about."It seems increasingly clear that the growing army of "political" scientists—meaning natural scientists in politics—is more likely to be aided by students of politics prepared to understand the effects of science in political terms than by most of the recent efforts to understand politics in scientific terms. When one looks over the journals in political science, and in related areas of public opinion and social psychology, searching for significant conclusions in articles where much time has been spent on the elaboration of method, it is difficult to avoid V. O. Key's conclusion "that a considerable proportion of the literature commonly classified under the heading of 'political behavior' has no real bearing on politics, or at least that its relevance has not been made clear."

Like Rachel, Jacob's beloved but still childless bride, who asked herself and the Lord each morning, "Am I?," or "Can I?," so presidents of this Association on these annual occasions intermittently ask, "Are we a science?," or "Can we become one?" My predecessor, David Truman, raised this question last September applying some of the notions of Thomas Kuhn in his recent book on scientific revolutions. I shall be following in Truman's footsteps, repeating much that he said but viewing the development of the profession from a somewhat different perspective and intellectual history. My comments will be organized around three assertions.First, there was a coherent theoretical formulation in the American political theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Second, the development of professional political science in the United States from the turn of the century until well into the 1950's was carried on largely in terms of this paradigm, to use Kuhn's term. The most significant and characteristic theoretical speculation and research during these decades produced anomalous findings which cumulatively shook its validity.Third, in the last decade or two the elements of a new, more surely scientific paradigm seem to be manifesting themselves rapidly. The core concept of this new approach is that of the political system.

Ostensibly theoretical disputes in political science often involve competing approaches to explanation, including skepticism, covering law arguments, reconstructions of propensities, system models, and explanations featuring causal mechanisms. Mechanism- and process-based accounts, including cognitive, environmental, and relational effects, deserve more attention than they have received in recent political science. Analyses of democratization illustrate these points.

The first of a four-volume survey and explorations in political science conducted by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, this volume while referring to studies before and after the period 2003-2009 does nonetheless focus more specifically on the literature of this period by analysing four key themes - the social character of the Indian state; political economy; social policy; and law and rights.

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, will take place in Glasgow in November. Can it succeed? What does 'success' actually mean in the context of the climate crisis?

Includes: Constitution of the Canadian Political Science Association. ; Date from text. ; Cover title. ; Electronic reproduction. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; 44