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The 2007 APSA Nominating Committee consisted of Charles Beitz (Princeton University), John Carey (Dartmouth College), Frances Hagopian (Notre Dame), Desirée Pedescleaux (Spelman College), Laura Stoker (UC Berkeley), and myself as chair.  My colleagues on the committee were a serious, public-spirited group with wide knowledge of the substantive and methodological variation within political science, a taste for quality and diversity, and a good sense of humor.  It was both educational and pleasant to work with them.

The work of the Nominating Committee begins with receiving recommendations from the membership of the Association for officers and council members.  We found those names and their accompanying information and testimonials to be very helpful, and we warmly thank everyone for contributing them. The Committee supplemented these names by drawing on our own knowledge of scholars in various subfields of political science, by working with the APSA staff to identify persons with particular skills or positions that would be beneficial to the Association, and by considering all those suggested for any office in the previous four years.

The Committee met in Washington D.C. on February 16 and 17, working with these lists as well as the Association’s extensive data base, which permitted us to identify additional candidates or obtain further information on nominees as the meeting proceeded.   In accord with APSA by-laws, we gave “due regard to diversity, geographical distribution, fields of professional interest, type of institution, and academic/nonacademic employment status” in our nominations for officers and Council positions.  We interpreted these by-laws to call for two characteristics: high quality contributions by the candidate to one or more of the dimensions of our discipline, such as scholarship, teaching, or service; and balance among the array of candidates along multiple dimensions. In seeking to develop a slate, we considered balance both on this year’s list and with recent or continuing Association officers and Council members. We were also guided by Council resolutions encouraging nominating committees, wherever possible, to avoid selecting a nominee for President of the same gender for more than two consecutive years, and to "take into account the needs of non-PhD granting institutions in the nomination of the vice presidents.”

The Committee believes that the resulting slate satisfies our two goals. Nominees all have a strong record of scholarly accomplishment, teaching, and service to their home institutions and the Association, and a demonstrated capacity to work effectively with others.  Together, they represent a variety of subfield specializations, substantive interests, and methodological approaches.  They provide representation to public and private universities, Ph.D. and non-Ph.D. granting institutions, the United States and other nations. They are diverse racially and ethnically.  We hope that members of the APSA concur in our judgment, and vote enthusiastically for these candidates.