volume 9 No

Volume 9 No. .2 February, 2001

Caucus for a New Political Science

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA

IN THIS ISSUE

_______________________________________

FROM THE EDITOR........................................................................page 2

NPS NEWS..........................................................................................page 3-4

VIEWPOINTS....................................................................................page 11-12

UPCOMING CONFERENCES/CALLS FOR PAPERS................page 13-18

ACTIVISM..........................................................................................page 18

NEW POLITICAL SCIENCE...........................................................page 20

________________________________________________________________________

CHAIR SECRETARY-TREASURER/NEWSLETTER EDITOR Laura Katz Olson Carl Swidorski

Lehigh University The College of Saint Rose

Bethlehem, PA 18015-1380 Albany, NY 12203

LKO1@Lehigh.edu swidorsc@mail.strose.edu

APSA PROGRAM COORDINATOR 2001

Michael Forman

University of Washington-Tacoma

Tacoma, Washington 98402-3100

Forman@u.washington.edu

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

FROM THE EDITOR

This issue of the newsletter includes a letter from our Chair, Laura Olson, a “Viewpoints” piece by William Hathaway, information on the Perestroika-Glastnost “revolt” in the APSA, and an announcement about the first winner of our newly-established Charles A. McCoy Distinguished Career Award, Bertell Ollman of New York University. Laura Olson has announced that Norman Solomon will be the speaker at our plenary session at the annual meeting in San Francisco next August. Please check the June newsletter for details about the plenary, our business meeting, and the journal reception.

Anyone wishing to respond to or comment on William Hathaway’s “Viewpoints” piece or contribute your viewpoint on any issue of relevance should send your contributions, limited to two double–spaced pages, to me at the address below. Individuals also are encouraged to send information about upcoming conferences and events, book announcements, calls for papers, professional journals, and activism to me at the address below.

Finally, if you do not subscribe to our journal, New Political Science, please consider doing so. The revenues we receive form Taylor and Francis for operating expenses associated with the journal are partially contingent on subscriptions. A few extra subscriptions, which push us over their baseline number, means a difference of a couple thousand dollars. The price for members, $28, is a bargain. Thanks.

Carl Swidorski

Department of History and Political Science

The College of St. Rose

Albany, NY 12203

Tel. (518) 458-5325

Fax (518) 458-5446, e-mail: swidorsc@mail.strose.edu

Please send all information in either hard copy, via E-mail, or Microsoft Word Perfect or ASCII Diskette formats. The deadline for the next newsletter is May 15, 2001

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

________________________________________

NPS News

________________________________________

Letter from the Chair

Dear Friends:

I would like to share the following comments/thoughts/requests with you:

1. I am delighted that our Plenary Speaker for the American Political Science Convention in San Francisco will be Norman Solomon. He is a noted syndicated news columnist, speaks on issues related to the mass media and works with the Institute for Public Accuracy. Norman was nominated by several caucus members.

2. I have contacted APSA about hosting a web site for us with Apsanet and they have agreed to do so. Their implementation schedule, however, appears a bit slow-we’re still waiting for the site. Once they set it up we will have a web presence but we still need somebody to work on it from time to time. Any volunteers?

3. Caucus panels for San Francisco have not yet been finalized but we have been downgraded to only seven slots. Most of the loss is due to relatively low attendance. We are doing three of our own panels, co-sponsoring two with Ecological and Transformational Politics, one with Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, and one with Foundations of Political, theory. Consequently, our program will consist of 7 panels. The number of poster sessions has not been set yet, but we expect to have well over 5, possibly as many as 10. Official announcements will be going out soon. I encourage all of you to attend as many panels as possible in San Francisco so that we can get our allocation adjusted upward next year.

4. The Caucus is naming our new award the Charles A. McCoy Distinguished Career Award. The committee has chosen Bertell Ollamn as the first recipient. Selections for the Michael Harrington Award and the Christian Bay Award have not been finalized.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

5. We need nominees for the next chair who will begin a two-year term in the fall, 2001. We also need nominations for the Program Committee Chair for 2002. Please send names to me as soon as possible (and don’t be shy about nominating yourself-I promise I won’t tell!). Finally, Carl Swidorski’s term as Secretary/Treasurer also expires this Fall. Carl would welcome anyone taking over this position but has indicated his willingness to serve another two-year term if necessary.

6. I nominated several Caucus members to APSA committees but haven’t heard yet whether they were selected. I think it is important to get Caucus members on these committees so that progressive works will be considered for awards. I also sent Caucus member’s names for the new list of political scientists willing to answer press queries directed at APSA.

7. Finally, the Caucus should decide what role, if any, its wants to play in the Perestroika efforts to expand APSA leadership to include a more diverse group of political scientists, to revise the APSR, etc. Please let me know what you think we should do to support these and other activities.

Regards,

Laura Katz Olson

CHARLES A. McCOY DISTINGUISHED CAREER AWARD

At its 2000 annual business meeting, the New Political Science section decided to establish a third section award in addition to the Harrington and Bay awards. It would be for a career of distinguished scholarship and service to the Caucus and its goals. The Caucus chair was authorized to appoint a committee to make the selection on an annual basis. The award is named after Charles A. McCoy, one of the founding members of the Caucus. This year’s selection committee, consisting of Carl Boggs, National University, Los Angles (Chair), Victor Wallis, Berklee College of Music, and R. Claire Snyder, George Mason University, have selected Bertell Ollamn of New York University as the recipient of the award. Congratulations Bertell!

Newsletter of the New Political /science Section of APSA February, 2001

SYLLABUS AND PROGRESSIVE GRADUATE PROGRAM PROJECTS

Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the Caucus ran a syllabus project. Individuals submitted their syllabi to a central coordinator who then distributed them to other individuals who requested syllabi in particular areas of study and/or teaching responsibility. The project was seen as being particularly useful for graduate students and people in the early stages of their careers. Members of the Caucus also have discussed a project of identifying “progressive “ graduate programs with a core of progressive faculty. Anyone who is interested in working on either of these two projects should contact our Chair, Laura Olson lkol@lehigh.edu.

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY

The 3rd edition of the Caucus for a New Political Science Membership Directory, compiled and edited by Mark Mattern, will be sent out this Spring. The new edition has been edited and contains more accurate and comprehensive information on members of the Caucus. If you have any comments or questions abut the Directory or want to update your information please contact:

Mark Mattern

Department of Political Science

Baldwin Wallace College

Berea, OH 44017

mmattern@bw.edu

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

NPS Listservs

Michael Forman has set up a list for the dissemination of Caucus discussions, particularly in regard to the journal, and other Caucus business. The list is unmoderated but people do have to sign up.

To sign up for the list send e-mail to: listproc@u.washington.edu Leave the subject line blank. In the body write: Subscribe newpolsci<your name> Do NOT use<> but do write your first name and your last name. What will happen is that Listproc will send you an e-mail asking if you really mean to subscribe to this list. You need to reply making sure that the “cookie” number in the Listproc message appears within the first couple of lines of your message. At this point, Michael will receive a message from Listproc telling him that you want to sign up and asking for his approval.

If you have further questions or want more info, go to:

http://www.washington.edu/computing/listproc/

THE PERESTROIKA-GLASNOST “REVOLT”

During Fall, 2000 a protest movement originated within the American Political Science Association (APSA) against a variety of policies and procedures of the APSA and its official journal, the American Political Science Review. As a result of these developments, those associated with the movement have sent a letter of protest to the APSA signed by over 150 individuals; formed an organization; set up a listser and a website; and nominated alternative candidates for President, Vice-President, and Council members of APSA. Since several members of the Caucus were involved in this movement and one of them, Tim Luke of Virginia Tech, has been nominated for Council, I am including relevant information, including the anonymous “Mr. Perestroika” memo which catalyzed the process, the letter of protest, and a perspective by Caucus member, John Ehrenberg. Finally, the APSA has just nominated Theda Skocpol, one of the signers of the protest letter, as their “official” candidate for APSA President . The

alternative slate of candidates is:

President: Susanne Rudolph, University of Chicago

Vice-President: Sven Steinmo, University of Colorado

Michael Desch, University of Kentucky

Bonnie Honig, Northwestern University

Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at

Blacksburg

David Pion-Berlin, University of California, Riverside

Website: www.egroups.com/group/perstroika_glasnost_warmhome

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Perestroika Memo

October 15, 2000

To: The Editor,

PS and APSR

On Globalization of the APSA and APSR: A Political Science Manifesto

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Questions to ponder over:

1) Why do people like Benedict Anderson and James C. Scott find APSA and APSR irrelevant? These are probably the most famous political scientists in the world. They are equally famous abroad and in other disciplines compared to the “stars” of political science: Hey, Hey, Vee (look at their classic book on literary methodologies).

2) Related to the above is the question: Why do a majority of political scientists who do comparative politics ignore APSA and APSR and go to their regional meetings and read regional association journals—such as those associated with East Asia, Latin America, Hispanic studies etc?

3) Why does a “coterie” of faculty dominate and control APSA and the editorial board of APSR—I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I give an award to your student from Harvard and you give mine from Duke or Columbia. In short why do the “East Coast

Brahmins” control APSA?

4) Why are a few men who make poor game-theorists and who cannot for the life-of-me compete with a third grade Economics graduate student---WHY are

these men allowed to represent the diversity of methodologies and areas of the world that APSA “purports” to represent?

5) Why are FAILED Africanists and Economists allowed to dominate a discipline which has a rich history of intellectual contributions form the likes of: James Scott, Charles Tilly, Aristide Zolberg, Leanard Binder, Benedict Anderson, R. Bendix, Susanne Rudolph, Theda Skocpol etc.

6) Have we learned any lesson from the thousands of pages of research that was funded by APSA in the name of political science to examine the former Soviet Union and make “predictive” models? What happened to those models and why did they fail? How is it that those esteemed colleagues failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Empire while Sovietologists from Korea, Japan, India and one even from Tanzania could predict the fall of the empire. Are we making the same mistake by ignoring diverse knowledges

and methodologies present in the study of politics?

7) Why isn’t APSR membership so that APSA subscription made separate from the APSA membership so that APSR becomes truly representative of a "coterie" that rules APSA while the rest of the true political scientists can devote their money to buying the more important regional journals. Either reform the APSA and have more political historians, and specialists, political-sociologists and constructivists on the board or let the market decide.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

You will find a sharp drop in the APSA’s subscription as soon as APSA is delinked from the membership of APSA.

8) Why are the overwhelming majority of Presidents of APSA or editorial board members of APSR WHITE and MALE? Where are the African Americans, Hispanics, Women, Gays, Asians---in short, where is the diversity of the United States and the world that APSA "pretends" to study--is somebody afraid that APSA will slip out of their hands?

9) Why are all the articles of APSA from the same methodology --- statistics or game theory -- with a "symbolic" article in Political Theory that is often a piece that has been rejected by the journal "Political Theory." Where is political history, international history, political sociology, interpretive methodology, constructivists, area studies, critical history, and last but not the least---post modernism. Why can't you have five percent of the articles in APSR allocated under the category: incomprehensible. Then just go ahead and publish game theory, statistics and post modernism under the category.

10) At the time when free market models of economics are being challenged in IMF and World Bank, discredited in much of Asia, and protested by numerous groups; why are simple, baby stuff models of political science being propagated in our discipline. If these pseudo-economists know their maths so well-let them present at the University of Chicago's Economics workshop--I assure you every single political science article will be trashed and thrown into the dustbin. Then why are these people allowed to throw their weight around based on undergrad maths and statistics --an Econ 101. We are in the business of political science and not failed economics.

Lastly,

11) When are you going to offer the APSA presidentship to Benedict Anderson or Charles Tilly or Richard Falk or Susanne Rudolph or Ari Zolberg or James C. Scott or Theda Skocpol who are more representative of our discipline then the "coterie" that runs APSA. I hope this anonymous letter leads to a dismantling of the Orwellian system that we have in APSA and that we will see a true Perestroika in the discipline.

- Mr. Perestroika

An Open Letter to the APSA Leadership and Members

As many of you are aware, the American Political Science Association has recently experienced an extraordinary outpouring of frustration with the current state of the American Political Science Review, the APSA, and the profession generally. An anonymous scholar writing as "Mr. Perestroika" circulated to an extensive roster of

political scientists a passionate memo asking many provocative, indeed painful questions.

Why do so many leaders of our profession not even read, much less submit, to the APSR? Why is purchase of the APSR made mandatory for member ship, thus subsidizing a journal many find unsatisfactory, instead of permitting membership without the journal or with other journals?

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February 2001

Why do the APSA Council and APSR Editorial Board seem to be chosen essentially by their predecessors? Why does the APSR and why do other prominent professional fora seem so intensively focused on technical methods, at the expense of the great, substantive political questions that actually intrigue many APSA members, as well as broader intellectual audiences?

Though some recipients may have felt uncomfortable with the anonymous authorship and the highly polemical tone of this post, nonetheless an astonishing number of scholars, from all ranks of the profession, felt impelled to announce that they, too, shared these profound dissatisfactions with the status quo. Many noted that in 1998 an APSA membership survey reportedly found that, in fact, a very large proportion of APSA members, to say nothing of scholars who have given up on APSA, were critical of the current condition of the APSR. A lively discussion ensued, in which scholars discussed whether the problems arose from the biases of APSR editors and APSA leaders, from more structural problems in the reviewing processes, or from problems in American intellectual and political life more broadly. Inevitably, people differed in their views. There has been, however, extensive agreement that whatever the sources of the problems, changes need to be made.

What changes? Many ideas have been explored in recent email discussions. These have included:

· Permitting APSA members not to purchase the APSR, but rather to choose alternative journals or none at all.

· Making the selection of the APSR Editorial Board, the APSA Council, and basic policy decisions concerning the journal and the association more often to genuine democratic decision making by the APSA membership.

· Revising the APSR reviewing process to seek both to ensure that some methodologies are not automatically vetoed and that most articles are of interest to a broad scholarly audience.

· Finding ways to encourage scholars who have given up on APSR to submit their work to it once again.

· Pursuing the suggestions both for an electronic APSR and a separate "book reviews" journal that the Association's Strategic Planning Committee has raised.

· Making the 1998 survey of attitudes toward the APSR widely available, and, yet more importantly, developing mechanisms to examine regularly how satisfied political scientists are with the publications and professional activities they underwrite via their APSA dues.

It is very unfortunate that deeply committed political scientists genuinely believe,

whether rightly, or wrongly, that they cannot criticize the status quo safely without the

cloak of anonymity. We should have regular channels though which dissent can be

effectively communicated.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of ASPA February 2001

We, the undersigned, do not represent any consensus on just why the APSR and the APSA are in the condition they are now in, nor any consensus on just what should be done. We are also not an organized or systematically recruited group. We are simply scholars who, after discussing the Perestroika memo over the course of a few days, decided to join in this letter. We do so because we believe strongly that the profession is in danger of alienating a larger and larger number of those who should be its active members, and contributing less and less to the kinds of understanding of politics that it is our responsibility to advance. Hence, we urge the APSA leadership and membership alike to look seriously at the issues raised above, to speak out on them, and to take soon the actions that emerge as most widely endorsed in the ensuing discussions.

Comment by John Ehrenberg

I am glad to see Laura's posting on the Perestroika listserve, but I want to raise a more general issue for all of us to consider. After all, the Caucus was the first group to raise many of the issues which Perestoika has been pushing over the past few weeks and since we've been yakking about our pathetic discipline for the better part of three decades I think we have a certain pride of place in this debate.

There's work to be done, and I think we can do something here if we approach it in a disciplined and principled way. Specifically, the discussions on the Perestoika listserve -- and the responses to them by APSA Central -- have been degenerating over the past couple of weeks. I mean two things by this: first, the whole campaign has started to take the form of a specific person's candidacy for APSA President. Secondly, and more importantly, the whole Perestoika thing is beginning to take the form of an old, boring, deracinated and reified discussion of methodology.

Neither trust will raise the issues the Caucus has been pushing for years. To reduce our political critique of APSA and Political Science to yet another vapid, barren and pointless discussion of methodology misses the whole point. Too many of us, in the Caucus and outside of it, have taken a reflexively reactionary and anti-quantitative position. As if Marx himself wasn't a social scientist using the most advanced scientific methods available to him in an effort to understand the anatomy of capitalism. Our collective revulsion at the idiocy of behaviorism, rational choice, and the other methods of the field gets translated too often into a disdainful and haughty refusal to look seriously at what 90% of our colleagues are doing. It's all well and good to look at everyone else in the discipline and conclude that they're morons, but the isolation and sectarianism that result aren't good for any of us or for the points we want to make. There are plenty of well-meaning, principled scholars out there.

A critique of methodology is NOT a political critique -- and it's not the critique, which the Caucus should be making. We should make the Perestroika debate a political debate, raising fundamental questions about our discipline's relationship to the state, to the existing distribution of economic and political power, to its refusal to engage the

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February 2001

issues which a critical stance demands. THAT’S the issue, not whether some individual would be a good president or whether political scientists should be using numbers. To claim that political scientists should not use quantitative tools is, quite simply, idiotic. It also makes it impossible for us to make the political point. It's an important reason why people don't really listen to what we have to say, why our panels are poorly attended, why we increasingly resemble a group of like-minded friends.

So I am raising this issue in such a pointed way because I want to stimulate a discussion among us about how we can intervene in the Perestoika phenomenon to guide these important discussions. Backing a particular candidate for office or whining about method is not sufficient. We have the history, we have the politics, we have the analysis. Let's discuss how we can politicize this debate -- and then, if we reach some sort of agreement, let's work together to do it.

After all, that's why the Caucus was founded in the first place. We didn't start the Perestoika phenomenon but we can help move it to the left. And we can do so with other affiliated groups as well. There are some real possibilities here, and we should take advantage of them.

________________________________________________

VIEWPOINTS

________________________________________________

Usurpation Day

By: William T. Hathaway

After the pomp of the presidential inauguration, we should reflect on how George W. Bush achieved his office. Rather than winning the election, he seized power through a legalistic coup d' etat. His team’s political thuggery put him in the White House.

It began in Florida, the state governed by his brother and recognized as crucial to his victory. The first step was to reduce the number of likely Gore voters. Before the election, state officials purged the voter lists to eliminate convicted criminals who had lost the right to vote. In the process they also removed the names of 4,000 legal voters, predominantly African-Americans. When they showed up at the polls, they were turned away. Officials termed it a computer glitch.

Some local authorities tried to intimidate African-American voters on election day. Police stopped many for identification checks. Highway patrol troopers set up an unauthorized roadblock between a polling place and a black neighborhood. At the polls, some minority voters were rejected because they couldn't show two forms of identification; only one form is required by law.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February 2001

Many African-Americans who had signed up during voter registration drives went to the polls only to be told they couldn't vote because their names had somehow not made it onto the official list. Boxes of ballots disappeared from polling places in minority areas. In Palm Beach County a ballot with an illegal layout confused thousands of voters into punching the slot for a minor party candidate rather than for Gore. Military absentee voters, more likely to vote for Bush, were sometimes sent multiple ballots. Election supervisors illegally allowed Republican campaign workers to add missing voter ID numbers to several thousand Republican absentee ballots, but they threw out similarly incomplete Democratic and minor party absentees.

The poor districts in Florida have antiquated voting machines which failed to

read 45,000 ballots. When local elections boards tried to count these by hand, paid

Republican demonstrators descended on them. Some created havoc outside, pounding on doors and windows, shouting through bullhorns. Others posed as observers inside and raised repeated objections that delayed the counting until the reporting date had passed. Florida's secretary of state, who was George W. Bush's campaign co-chair, then refused to accept the revised vote totals because they were late. At 2 a.m. after the election, when the Florida outcome was still too close to call, Fox News declared Bush the winner there. The major networks followed Fox's lead, and since a Florida victory would give him enough electoral votes, they named him the next president. This created a public belief that Bush had won. The Fox News executive who made the premature call is Bush's first cousin, and the two men spoke on the phone during election day.

The assault on democracy had its final triumph in the US Supreme Court, where the Republican majority prevented further counting by enforcing a deadline that the law itself says is flexible. Two of these justices have family members working for organizations involved in the Bush campaign, but they didn't step aside because of this conflict of interest.

Due to this broad-based coup, Bush took Florida by 537 votes and assumed the presidency against the national popular vote. Not all these actions were organized from the top. Many came from local zealots going overboard to please their governor. But taken together they show that when winning becomes more important than ethics, democracy perishes.

Journalists have gained access to the 45,000 unread ballots under Florida's freedom-of-information law and are currently counting them with bipartisan observers. Gore is leading and appears to be the actual winner. But now it’s too late. Bush's tactics succeeded.

We must not forget this. But most of us already have because it's too painful. Depressed by powerlessness, we tuned out and just wanted the ordeal to be over. But it's not over. It's just beginning. The Bush operatives who stole the election are now running our country.

*William Hathaway recently completed two years as a Fullbright professor of English and American Studies at universities in Germany, from where he voted absentee in Florida.

Newsletter for the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

________________________________________________________________________

UPCOMING CONFERENCES/ CALLS FOR PAPERS

________________________________________________________________________

Columbia Seminar

A faculty seminar is being held monthly this year at Columbia University. The seminar is entitled "The Political Economy of War and Peace." It will be concerned with political economy and domestic issues; its name is a reflection of its founding during the Vietnam War.

The remaining sessions are:

March 29, 2001

TBA

April 26, 2001

Professor Stephen Munzer

Law, UCLA

"What are 'Male' and 'Female'?"

Room 1512, International Affairs Building

Member of New Political Science who are interested in attending any of the sessions should contact Ross Zucker by email at RZUCKER@Attglobal.net or

by phone at (212) 779 - 7603 or Nancy Van Itallie at NLVI1@aol.com or (212) 721- 6786.

Dinner: All dinners will be held at 6:30pm, drinks at 6:15pm at Faculty House, 400 West 117^th St. Contact Nancy Van Itallie to reserve a place at dinner.

Co-Chairs

Ross Zucker

Carol Gould

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Midwest Political Science Association Meeting

April, 2001

Chicago, Illinois

Dennis Moran reports that he still has two panels reserved for the Caucus at the Midwest PSA meeting. Time is short so if you are interested in organizing a panel or participating contact Dennis immediately at:

Dennis.W. Moran.1@nd.edu

European Consortium for Political Research (ECDR)

Summer Conference – Canterbury 6-8 September 2001

ECPR 2001 is a completely new departure for European political science. Organized by the ECPR, it combines the first-ever pan-European political science conference with a series of “fringe” activities including politics and film, theatre, opera, cartoons, propaganda, and photography, as well as political gaming. ECPR 2001 will offer a lively social program and the conference bar at the hub of this will be open until 2am. ECPR 2001 will also offer rooms for participants to organize a range of other activities for themselves, relating to any and every aspect of the profession.

For students of environmental politics, there will be one section with seven panel sessions. NB that these will be freestanding panels, i.e., they are not like the workshops of the ECPR Joint Sessions but like the panels with which most of you will be familiar from the meetings of international and national professional associations.

The Environmental Politics section is Section 4. This section aims to give opportunities for the presentation of papers covering several dimensions of environmental politics that have recently been especially contentious and are the subject of ongoing empirical research.

Section Chair is Chris Rootes

Centre for the Study of Social & Political Movements, Darwin College, University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NY, England

E-mail car@ukc.ac.uk

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Paper Proposals: To propose a paper, you must apply on-line direct to the panel (and not via the section chair) by clicking on the panel title on the conference web page. (But please, so that we know what’s happening, and in case anything in the system breaks down, send a copy to the section chair AND the panel chair as well.) The deadline for paper proposal is 30 April 2001.

PANEL TITLE PANEL CHAIR

1. Comparing Green parties University of Strathclyde, Scotland Wolfgang Rudig W. Rudig@strath.ac.uk

2. Agenda 21 University of Oslo, Norway William Lafferty

Carlo Aall

Western Norway Research Institute

carlo.aall@vestforsk.no

3. The transformation of environmental activism Chris Rootes

University of Kent, England

car@ukc.ac.uk

4. The politics of renewable energy Volkmar Lauber

University of Salzburg, Austria

volkmar.lauber@sbg.ac.at

5. ‘Sustainable development’ concept and implementation Inaki Barcena

UPV Basque Country, Spain

zipbahii@lg.ehu.es

6. Environmental politics in Southern Europe Manuel Jimenez

Instituto Juan March, Spain

manuel@mail.march.es

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

7. The trend toward environmental governance: Susan Baker

Implications for democratic practice

Cardiff University

BakerSCM@Cardiff.ac.uk

PAPER PROPOSALS:

To propose a paper, go to the conference web site –

http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/ecpr2001/sections/section04/section04.html

and click on the panel title Content-Id:

Call For Papers

Journal of Poverty:

Innovations on Social, Political & Economic

Inequalities

The Journal of Poverty is a refereed journal designed to provide an outlet for discourse on poverty and inequality. The editorial board welcomes manuscripts which sensitize social scientists and practitioners to the varied forms and patterns of inequalities, new developments in cultural diversity, and interventions promoting

equality and social justice.

Articles guided by conceptual analyses involving quantitative and qualitative methods are encouraged. The intent is to produce and disseminate information on poverty and social, political, and economic inequalities and to offer a means by which nontraditional strategies for change might be considered. Manuscripts should increase knowledge of oppressive forces, such as racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, which contribute to the maintenance of poverty and inequality and suggest methods of change leading towards their eradication. Earlier articles have investigated a wide range of topics—“Employment Outcomes of White and Black Welfare Recipients,”

“Children’s Perceptions of Class Differences,” “Black-White Differences in Fatalism

and Joblessness,” “Welfare Clients and Front-line Workers View Policy Reforms,” and “Poor Women and Prostitution.” Submissions should reflect the mission of the Journal. Authors should submit four copies

of the manuscript.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Please include an abstract of no more than 100 words. References and format should follow APA style. Manuscripts will be peer reviewed by at least three referees and returned with comments.

Manuscripts should be sent to:

The Editors, Journal of Poverty

P. O. Box 3613,

Columbus, OH 43210-3613.

Phone: 624-292-7181.

Fax: 614-292-6940.

Email: kilty.1@osu.edu.

Web site: http://www.journalofpoverty.org/

AFL-CIO/UALE Joint Education Conference

April 26-29, 2001

Building Union Power in a Changing Economy

Please join labor researchers, activists and educators from around the world of our spring education conference to be held in Boston, Massachusetts. This year we focus on the challenges unions face in a changed economic environment, and the strategy innovators are developing to confront them.

General sessions, workshops, roundtables and papers will address the following themes:

· The impact of corporate power on union bargaining, organizing, and political strategies

· The anti-union charter of the “new “ economy: what must we learn?

· Fighting the low-wage economy: living wage, bargaining and organizing approaches

· Linking activists within communities and across borders

· Key bargaining issues-and strategies-in a changing workplace

· 21st century unions: high-tech communications, leadership development, planning for change

· How unions are changing internally to meet the challenges of a changing population

· Labor education under pressure: challenges, innovations and continuity

Registration

Registration cost: $175 for union members of UALE, with a reduced student registration fee of $75 for students enrolled in university and college credit degree programs... $200 for persons who are neither union members nor UALE members.

Additional forms may be printed out from the UALE website: www.uale.org

Newsletter for the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Interpreters

Spanish and French interpretation services will be available for plenary sessions and selected workshops.

Accommodations

Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts. Room rates are $149 per night (single or double) plus $18.55 TX. Make reservations directly with the hotel (800) 225-2008 or (617) 426-2000.

Ask for the AFL-CIO conference registration rate, good until April 5, 2001.

Questions?

Contact Roberta Till-Retz, UALE Vice –President (319) 335-4145 (roberta-till-retz@uiowa.edu), or Cecelie Counts, AFL-CIO Education Department (202) 637-5188(cblakey@aflcio.org). CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION and to see the agenda as it takes shape:

http://www.uale.org.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVISM

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Leonard Williams of Manchester College (Indiana) sends us the following:

Graduation Pledge Alliance

In 1987, Humbolt State University (California) initiated the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility. It states: “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.” (students define what being “responsible” means to themselves). Dozens of colleges and universities have enacted the pledge, at schools which range in size from Earlham, to Harvard, to University of Kansas. Graduates who voluntarily signed the pledge have turned down jobs they did not feel morally comfortable with and have worked to make changes once on the job. For example, some have promoted recycling at their organization and in one case, a graduate helped to convince her employer to refuse a chemical weapons contract.

In 1996, Manchester College began coordination of the campaign effort, which has taken different forms at different institutions. At Manchester, it is a community wide event coordinated by a diverse committee. Fifty to sixty percent of students sign and keep a wallet-size card stating the pledge, while students and supportive faculty wear green ribbons at commencement and the pledge is printed in the formal commencement program. Depending

upon the school, it might take several years to reach this level of institutionalization.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

If one can just get a few groups/departments involved, and get some media attention on (and off) campus, it will get others interested and build for the future. The project has been covered in newspapers around the country (e.g., Chicago Tribune, Detroit News, and Cleveland Plain Dealer), as well as being covered on national radio networks and local TV stations.

The pledge helps educate and motivate one to contribute to a better world. Think of the impact if even a significant minority of the one million college graduates each year signed and carried out the pledge.

Contact NJWollman@Manchester.edu for information/questions/comments; or write

GPA, MC Box 135, Manchester College

604 E. College Ave.

North Manchester, IN 46962

The Campaign also has a web site at:

hhtp://ARES.manchester. edu/department/peaceStudies/gpa.html.

Please keep us in formed of any pledge efforts you undertake, as we try to monitor what is happening, and provide periodic updates on the national effort.

Popular Education for Free Society

Summer 2001 Courses in Social Ecology

The Institute for Social Ecology (ISE), located amid central Vermont’s rolling mountains, has been a center for education and action based on the ideas of social ecology since the 1970s. The ISE and its programs also serve as a forum for serious dialogue among ecological, social justice and anti-capitalist activists, as a laboratory for new ecological technologies, and as a resource for community groups around the world.

For the summer of 2001, the ISE is again offering its two widely acclaimed programs: Sustainable Design, Building, and Land Use, followed by Ecology and Community. As well, the ISE is offering for the first time two new summer programs: Arts, activism, and Social Change Workshop, and for an alumnae of these courses, Continuing Studies in Social Ecology.

Sustainable Design, Building, & Land Use (June 1-June 22, 2001)

Arts, Activism, and Social Change Workshop (June 8 – June 17, 2001)

Ecology and Community (June 23 –July 21, 2001)

Newsletter of the Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Continuing Studies in Social Ecology (August 3 to August 12, 2001)

ISE / Burlington College B. A. Degree in Social Ecology

Burlington College, in collaboration with the ISE, offers a B. A. in an individualized major in social ecology for upper level students.

The Institute for Social Ecology was established in 1974 and incorporated in 1981 as an independent institution for the purposes of education, research, and outreach in the field of social ecology. For over a quarter of a century, ISE has inspired individuals involved in numerous social change movements to work toward a directly democratic, liberatory, and ecological society. The educational programs of the Institute for Social Ecology have served more than 2,000 students around the world.

For further information on our programs, feel free to contact us at ise@sover.net or visit our web site at http://www. social-ecology.org/

New Political Science

Journal of the Caucus for a New Political Science

New Political Science is the journal of the Caucus for a New Political Science.

The focus of New Political Science is on developing analyses, which reflect a commitment to progressive social change as well as those which are within exploratory phases of development in political science. Thus, the editors seek manuscripts that make contributions to critical thinking and progressive politics and which fit the following criteria:

1. “The preferred form of communication is by e-mail. Articles should be submitted be

e-mail but five copies suitable for blind, anonymous peer review should

simultaneously be sent by snail mail.”

2. Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced on one side of 81/2 by 11 paper.

3. Submitted works should not normally exceed forty pages.

4. Submitted works should be accompanied by an abstract of approximately 150 words.

5. Submitted works should be accompanied by a brief autobiographical sketch of

author(s) of around 25 words.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

6. All footers should appear at the bottom of the page and be numbered consecutively.

Full citations should be presented within footnotes using the following example

guideline:

Books: David Helvarg, The War against the Greens (San Franscico:

Sierra Club Books, 1994), p.287.

Articles: Edward P. Morgan, “America’s Post-Vietnam Stress Disorder,”

Peace Review 8:2 (1996), pp. 237-38.

Ibid. and Op. Cit. may be used.

Manuscripts accepted for review are evaluated by a minimum of two scholars active in the field. Because we use anonymous peer reviews, the copies of the paper should have separate title pages. Manuscripts accepted for publication must be submitted on computer disc formatted on Word Perfect 5.1 of Word 6.0. Authors are expected to promptly (within 48 hours) return corrected proofs. Fifty off prints of each published article, and complete copy of the relevant journal issue, will be sent to the senior author.

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

New Political Science

Membership Directory Form

Name___________________________________________________________________

Institutional Affiliation_____________________________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip___________________________________________________________

Tlelphone_______________________________________________________________

Email___________________________________________________________________

Web site________________________________________________________________

Areas of interest and experience (check those that apply):

__1. Political Thought and Philosophy: __23. Presidency Research

Historical Approaches __24. Public Administration

__2. Foundations of Political Theory __25. Public Policy

__3. Normative Political Theory __26. Law and Courts

__4. Formal Political Theory __27. Constitutional Law and

__5. Political Psychology Jurisprudence

__6. Political Economy __28. Federalism and

__7. Politics and History Intergovernmental Relations

__8. Political Methodology __29. State Politics and Policy

__9. Teaching and Learning __30. Urban Policy

__10. Undergraduate Education __31. Women and Policy

__11. Comparative Politics __32. Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

__12. Comparative Politics of __33. Religion and Politics

Developing Countries __34. Representation and Electoral Systems

__13. Politics of Communist and __35. Political Organizations and

Former Communist countries Parties

__14. Comparative Politics of __36. Election and Voting Behavior

Advanced Industrial Societies __37. Public Opinion and Participation

__15. Politics and Society in Western __38. Political Communication

Europe __39. Science, Technology, and

__16. International Political Economy Environmental Politics

__17. International Collaboration __40. Computers and Multimedia

__18. International Security __41. Politics and Literature

__19. International Security and Arms __42. New Political science

__20. Domestic Sources of Foreign __43. Ecological and Transformational

Policy/Foreign Policy Analysis Politics

__21. Conflict Processes __44. Other (Please Explain)

__22. Legislative Studies

Please return forms to Mark Mattern/Department of Political Science/

Baldwin Wallace College/Berea, OH 44017 (mmattern@bw.edu)

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Manuscripts should be submitted to:

George Katsiaficas, Editor

New Political Science / Wentworth Institute of Technology

550 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

katsiaficasg@wit.edu

Book Review queries may be sent to:

John Berg

Reviews Editor, New Political Science

Department of Political Science

Suffolk University

Boston, MA 02108-2770

jberg@acad.suffolk.edu

In the spirit of supportive criticism, we welcome all correspondence and responses to

published articles, and will upon occasion publish such pieces with permission of the

author(s).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subscribe to New Political Science

New Political Science is the official journal of the APSA New Political Science Section.

Name___________________________________________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Telephone#s Work:____________________________Home_______________________

e-mail__________________________________________________________________

Individual subscription to New Political Science: $28 (Section Member)

Return form with your check (Payable to Taylor and Francis, LTD.) To:

Subscription Manager

Carfax Publishing Ltd.

P.O. Box 25

Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3UE

United Kingdom

Newsletter of the New Political Science Section of APSA February, 2001

Thank you

I want to express heartfelt thanks, on my own behalf and that of the Caucus, to the College of St. Rose, especially Dr. William Lowe, Vice President for Academic Affairs,

for supporting the publishing and distribution of this newsletter. Special thanks are due to the Secretary of Arts and Humanities for all of her hard work and technical assistance in the actual production of the newsletter.

New Political Science Section

C/o Carl Swidorski

History/ Political Science

The College of St. Rose

432 Western Avenue

Albany, NY 12203