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The dominant belief among both teachers and graduate students of political science seems to be that political theory constitutes the heart of their subject; yet political theory is not, in practice, the core of political science teaching. Such is the schizoid condition of political science and political scientists that is revealed by the investigations of the Committee for the Advancement of Teaching of the American Political Science Association. The hypothesis advanced in this note presents a dual reason for the unfortunate situation: it is partly that political theorists have failed to keep up with the times and have not engaged in sufficient value-free theoretical study of the raw data of politics, and partly that vast numbers of political scientists have falsely concluded that one of the most important parts of the traditional study of political theory—political ethics—is not susceptible of scientific treatment and should rigorously be eschewed.

First, a summary is offered of Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP) as a relatively cohesive field of emphasis in political science that has emerged from European events largely impelled by European political scientists. The second part considers how FCP fulfills the standards for an effective political science. In arguing for the significance of FCP for European political science, the paper seeks overall to highlight a subfield that has been commonly overlooked or regarded in a parodic or stereotyped fashion. This contribution participates in the ongoing challenge of these pervasive sexist & trivializing attitudes by demonstrating how feminist comparative research is practiced & the role of FCP scholarship within current European political science. References. K. Coddon

Despite increasing interest in recent years, disability remains a neglected area of study within mainstream political science. Beginning with a brief overview of the ways that disability studies scholars have defined disability, I address the issues that have arisen in trying to measure disability as well as the limits and possibilities that follow from thinking of people with disabilities as a minority group with defined political beliefs and interests. To the extent that much of the work on disability in political science looks to the research on gender, race, ethnicity, and class as a touchstone, I consider the lessons that might be drawn from this work both as it relates to disability as a social category and regarding efforts to conceive of disability and ability in more structural and ideological terms. Turning to the literature on disability in political theory, I examine the ways that disability has been deployed to reveal the ableist assumptions that pervade canonical and more contemporary texts. I conclude by highlighting avenues for future research, including whether it is possible—or, indeed, desirable—to move beyond the civil rights and identity-based frameworks that have so defined disability politics and organizing. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 27 is June 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

If at one time we thought that the movement to science would yield unification of the discipline, it is now apparent that there are many roads to science. Still it is important for us to consider yet again what the appropriate goals are for our scientific enterprise. What works in theory building; induction and deduction; prediction and control; the search for useful principles to guide us - examining these questions, we can build a better science. Political science has come so far as a discipline that different schools and scholars have different interpretations of science in the study of pol

Criticism of trends in political science centers on specific methodologies—quantitative methods or rational choice. However, the more worrisome development is scholasticism—a tendency for research to become overspecialized and ingrown. I define that trend more closely and document its growth through increases in numbers of journals, organized sections in the American Political Science Association, and divisions within the APSA conference. I also code articles published in the American Political Science Review to show a growth in scholastic features in recent decades. The changes affect all fields in political science. Scholasticism serves values of rigor. To restrain it will require reemphasizing relevance to real-world issues and audiences. To do this should also help restore morale among political scientists.

ActivitiesChun-tu Hsueh, Huang Hsing Foundation, was elected a
foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and
honorary fellow of the Institute of East European, Russian and
Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The current debate in political science over methods and fundamental
theoretical stances recalls similar debates in other fields. Part of
the debate focuses on the merits of the use of statistical methods
or the use of mathematics and quasi-mathematical reasoning, as in
game theory and much of rational choice. Among the critics of those
who use these approaches are many who focus more on interpretive
approaches to understanding social institutions and behavior. In
some ways, the debate seems dated in that the largest and most
compelling body of quasi-economic work is broad studies of the
relationships between political and economic development. Such work,
often with relatively sharply defined statistical models, spans more
than two generations of scholars in political science. Such work has
given compelling answers to many questions about the workings and
workability of democracy. It typically abstracts from culture and it
fits congenially with rational choice theory in its focus on
microfoundations for various claims.

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."

Among political scientists, even among political theorists, there is a widespread conviction that political theory has entered upon a time of troubles. Few, however, regard it simply as a "dead dog," and political theorists continue, as they should, to administer critical self-analysis, and to define and defend their methodological and philosophical positions. The basis for a unity of opposites is still a subject for dispute. This paper is offered, not as a solution, but as a statement of one conception of the role of political theory.A time-honored technique of dialectic is to seek well-reasoned objections to the view one does not hold. A medicine often commended to the political scientists is a body of systematic, scientific theory akin to economic theory in approach and methodological sophistication. Accordingly, this article takes issue with that interpretation which conceives of political theory as, ideally, the master discipline whereby the science of politics is to be unified and systematized, and empirical investigation oriented and guided. A few definite and carefully developed proposals for reconstruction along these lines, familar to political scientists, are G. E. G. Catlin's The Science and Method of Politics, Harold D. Lasswell's and Abraham Kaplan's Power and Society, and David Easton's The Political System. These works can serve as an initial point of purchase for analysis and discussion.

This introductory textbook provides the ideal basis for students coming to Politics for the first time. The book opens with thequestion 'What is Politics?' and then explores the four major 'elements' : Comparative Institutions, Political Ideologies, Public Administration and International Relations. The book has been divided into five easy-to-use sections, each with a guide to literature for further study. Each chapter ends with two essay questions, making this an ideal teaching and revision tool. Key features -- Covers the core elements of a Political Science undergraduate degree -- Ideal for revision of the subject: includes 50 essay questions -- Offers helpful guides to the literature in each area. Written by a distinguished team of authors with many years of teaching experience. -- Provided by publisher

If disciplines can be likened to living things, then perhaps political
science is best characterized not by familiar symbols—e.g., the
elephant, the donkey, or the eagle—but by a small sea creature: the
hermit crab. Rather than generating its own protective cover, the hermit
crab adopts the foreign shells that it comes across; it makes a home for
itself by utilizing the previous works of other crustaceans. For many
years, the discipline of political science—like other areas within
the social and behavioral sciences—built its own frameworks using
the analytical tools found in outside disciplines. Borrowing heavily from
econometrics, psychometrics, and biometrics, political scientists examined
empirical data as they tested theories about individual behavior,
organizational dynamics, and governmental processes. The substantive ends
were of primary interest, and therefore less attention was paid to the
means of inquiry. The authors wish to thank
Michael Brintnall for sharing the American Political Science
Association's data on job postings, and David Campbell, Tom Carsey,
Suzanna DeBoef, Jeff Gill, John Jackson, Jonathan Nagler, Herb Weisberg,
and Sarah Wilson for helpful comments and suggestions on previous versions
of this article.

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.