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Professor Julie Novkov of the State University of New York at Albany is running for Council as a candidate-by-petition.  She is a committed advocate of methodological pluralism and democracy in our profession.  

Julie is an outstanding scholar.  She has authored two books: Constituting Workers, Protecting Women: Gender, Law, and Labor in the Progressive Era and New Deal Years (2001), and Racial Union: Law, Intimacy, and the White State in Alabama, 1865-1954 (2008).  The latter book shares APSA’s Ralph J. Bunche Award this year for the best scholarly work that explores ethnic and cultural pluralism.  Julie is also the co-editor of Race and American Political Development (with Joseph Lowndes and Dorian Warren), and Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization (with chief editor Barbara Sutton and Sandra Morgen).  Among the courses Julie teaches are constitutional law, law and American political development, women and law, civil liberties, and racial politics.

Julie has an exceptional record of service to the profession.  In APSA, she has served as head of the division of Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence, president of the Sexuality and Politics Section, and chair of the Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and the Transgendered in the profession.  In the WPSA, she has chaired the Women and Politics Section and the Politics and History Section and served on the Executive Council.  In the MPSA she has been chair of the Judicial Politics Section and the Law and Courts Section.  

Perestroika has made much progress towards re-legitimizing qualitative research, but much remains to be done if qualitative work is to achieve parity in hiring and promotion decisions, in the graduate curriculum, in the editorial policies of association journals, and in the governance of APSA.  Competitive elections are an important means to further reform.  

Over several decades, quantitative research and formal theory became dominant trends in the discipline without a public debate.  Regular competitive elections will provide APSA members with the opportunity to discuss this and many other issues that confront the profession. We challenge the official slate for the APSA Council not to protest the particular choices of the nominating committee, but to challenge the system of appointments itself.  APSA is alone among major American academic associations in its failure to select its ruling council through regular competitive elections.  It is embarrassing that an association devoted to the study of politics in a democratic country should not trust its membership to choose its officers.  

Julie Novkov’s scholarship integrates the study of law, history, and politics in a way that exemplifies the values of the Perestroika movement.  If elected, she will be a powerful spokesperson for methodological pluralism and for regular competitive elections in APSA.  Please join over 60 signatories who have seconded Julie’s nomination and give her your vote for the APSA Council.

Signatories:
Scott Allard
Judith Baer
Richard Bensel
Gerald Berk
Michael Bosia
Mark Brandon
Pamela Brandwein
Peter Breiner
Amy Bridges
John Brigham
Kevin Bruyneel
Cynthia Burack
Susan Burgess
Paul Chen
Cornell Clayton
Paisley Currah
Michael Desch
David Ericson
Dennis Galvan
Charles Gossett
Roger Hartley
Stefan Heumann
H N Hirsch
Kimberley Johnson
Jyl Josephson
Ronald Kahn
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn
Thomas Keck
Ken Kersch
Gregory Lewis
Joseph Lowndes
Jamie Mayerfeld
Amy Mazur
Eileen McDonagh
Sidney Milkis
Michael Morrell
Elizabeth Moulds
Ido Oren
Michael Owens
Mitchell Pickerill
Daniel Pinello
Andrew Polsky
David Robertson
Donald Rosenthal
Morton Schoolman
Sanford Schram
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea
Joan Sitomer
Rogers Smith
Miriam Smith
Kimberly Smith
Anna Marie Smith
Charles Smith
Dara Strolovitch
Kathleen Sullivan
Daniel Tichenor
Alvin Tillery
Dorian Warren
Keith Whittington
Angelia Wilson
Dvora Yanow
Richard Young
Lloyd Rudolph
Susanne Rudolph
Stuart Kaufman
Samer Shehata