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For most of political science's history, discussions about professional ethics had nothing to do with human subjects. Professional ethics involved integrity in the classroom, fair tenure and promotion rule, and the careful avoidance of plagiarism. As most research was observational, there was little need for attention to how scholarly activities might directly affect the subjects of our work. Times have changed. The dramatic growth in the use of experiments in social science, especially overseas, is generating unexpected ethical controversies. The purpose of this volume is to identify, debate, and propose practical solutions to the most critical of these new ethical issues. A leading team of internationally distinguished political science scholars presents the first examination of the practical and ethical challenges of research with human subjects in social science and policy studies.--

What are the potential harms from elite audit experiments? Such studies seem genuinely harmless and all in a day's work for elites. In addition, such studies may provide valuable information about elites' performance and service to their publics. However, there are a number of potential harms of such studies which are generally not captured by the standard human subjects framework. In this essay, I consider the various harms that can result from excessive experimentation on elites. I identify several previously ignored public harms, including aggregate and response delay harms. I offer several potential strategies to assuage and avoid these harms.

Recent controversies raise questions regarding the ethics of political science field experiments. I present here results from a public opinion survey in which subjects and scholars evaluated the acceptability of two hypothetical field experiments. In the survey, the designs were randomly varied to identify the most controversial features. Both scholars and subjects reacted negatively to deception and to experiments without informed consent, especially when the research aims were normatively ambiguous. In some cases, half of the respondents reported that they would rather not be in a typical field experiment without their consent.

Comparative legislative studies are often comparative in name only. Most on-going research on legislative politics outside the United States involves analysis of just one case. The primary reason for the narrow focus of most comparative legislative studies is the arduous demand of collecting cross-national data. In this context, Fish and Kroenig's (2009) Legislative Powers Survey is especially welcome. Fish and Kroenig collected data on every national legislature in the world and have released a reference handbook, a complete dataset, and an index of parliamentary power. Students of comparative politics should welcome this contribution, but be aware of its limitations. In this essay, I review their work. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Javier Corrales, Presidents without Parties: The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s, (University Park: Pennsylvania State U Press, 2002); (2) Kent Eaton, Politicians and Economic Reform in New Democracies: Argentina and the Philippines in the 1990s (University Park: Pennsylvania State U Press, 2002); (3) Scott Morgenstern, Patterns of Legislative Politics: Roll-Call Voting in Latin America and the United States (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2003); (4) Scott Morgenstern & Benito Nacif [Eds], Legislative Politics in Latin America (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2002); & (5) David Samuels, Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2003). References. Adapted from the source document.