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This article examines the role NGOs have played in placing and controlling the landmineban issue on the international arms control agenda, which eventually changed state behavior toward landmines. It develops a framework for agenda setting to examine how and why NGOs were successful in this role. More importantly, the article also examines how NGOs were able to generate state action toward the support of the Ottawa Treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, which marked the first time a weapon in widespread use has been banned. The article makes two interrelated arguments. First, NGOs initiated the landmine ban by placing it on the international arms control agenda, which gained intense media and public attention for the cause. The NGOs accomplished their goal by utilizing cognitive attribution strategies to educate the public about the minimal military utility of landmines and the humanitarian problems they pose. Second, NGOs changed states' perception toward the legality and use of landmines once the issue was on the agenda by highlighting the horrible effects and disproportionate consequences of landmine use, playing leadership games with influential individuals and states, and claiming that antiban states were using incoherent arguments. In comparison, NGOs have not been included in the agenda-setting processes of most other major arms control and disarmament treaties, which typically are negotiated at the behest of major powers. These arguments address the broader question of agency in world politics by showing potential conditions of how NGOs can instigate governments to address issues in a way that may culminate in international law.

Surveys 2,207 articles from 10 leading US political science journals & graduate methodological courses offered in 30 top political science departments to assess the representation of methodological approaches in empirical research & publications. Key findings indicate (1) no apparent increase in the prevalence of formal modeling in published research; (2) a disjuncture between the high proportion of qualitative research performed & low proportion of courses offered on the subject & departments requiring them; (3) a steep decline in qualitative or case study research in US politics as presented in the top journals; & (4) specifically, the highly unrepresentative publication mix in the American Political Science Review, considered the discipline's flagship journal, vis-a-vis the substantive & methodological mix of other journals. Policy recommendations are offered in this light. 8 Tables, 13 References. J. Zendejas