Political Science and East Asian Area Studies

1974 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chalmers Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
United States Government ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Science Area ◽  
Comparative Government ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Local Materials ◽  
Science Association

Political science “area studies,” or what the American Political Science Association calls “foreign and comparative government and politics” in order to insure that they not be confused with the biggest area study of them all, United States government and politics, have always posed difficulties for the Emily Posts of the discipline. Not a year goes by without a guardian of die methodological flame writing an article bemoaning the “ameoretical” quality of area studies or issuing a warning mat “The immersion in local materials may cast the researcher adrift far from any theoretical shore.”

Area Studies and the Disciplines: A Rejoinder

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-31
Author(s):  
John W. Harbeson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

Robert Bates’ letter entitled “Area Studies and the Discipline” (American Political Science Association, Comparative Politics 1, Winter 1996, pp. 1-2) uses the occasion of the SSRC’s abolishing of area committees to announce that “within the academy, the consensus has formed that area studies has failed to generate scientific knowledge.” As someone who has done some of his most important work on African development issues, Bates deplores declining investment in area studies as a “loss to the social sciences, as well as to the academy,” at an inopportune moment, “just when our [political science] discipline is becoming equipped to handle area knowledge in a rigorous fashion.”

(Not) Getting Religion: Has Political Science Lost Sight of Islam?

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sultan Tepe ◽  
Betul Demirkaya
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
North Africa ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Science Association

AbstractIn this analysis, we expand the debate on the place of religion in political science by using the predictions of Wald and Wilcox as our starting point. Following in their footsteps, we ask how political scientists have studied Islam since 2002 and identify the studies on Islam and Muslims at the flagship conference of the discipline, the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. We evaluate not only the quantity but also the approaches employed by these studies. In order to gauge the balancing of roles (or lack thereof) between the discipline and area studies, we also take a closer look at the Middle East Studies Association, the largest association focused on the Middle East, North Africa and the Islamic world and its annual meetings during the same period. Our findings suggest that, unless carefully addressed, the prevailing patterns are likely to result in a crippling knowledge gap among political scientists.

scholarly journals An Assessment of Publisher Quality by Political Science Librarians

2000 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice S. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Book Selection ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Selection Decisions ◽  
Science Section ◽  
Similar Survey ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

Publisher quality is one criterion used by collection development librarians in making book selection decisions. Few studies have assessed the perceptions subject specialist librarians have about the quality of academic publishers’ output in specific disciplines. The author surveyed a sample of members of the Association of College and Research Libraries Law & Political Science Section, asking them to assess the overall quality of political science books published by sixty-two academic presses and imprints. The results are reported, analyzed, and compared to a similar survey of members of the American Political Science Association. Many similarities are seen in the rankings, although, on the whole, librarians ranked university presses higher and commercial publishers lower than did political scientists.

Political Science Departments: Reputations Versus Productivity

1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 202-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Robey
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Random Sample ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Science Departments ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

This brief essay is written in an attempt to provide a comparison of the reputed quality of political science departments with measures of their productivity. The first study done in the last two decades which purported to assess the “quality” of political science departments was published in 1959 by Hayward Keniston. Keniston's study relied on a survey of the chairpersons of 25 departments and was greatly improved upon by Professors Albert Somit and Joseph Tanenhaus who attempted to measure the strength of political science doctoral programs by drawing a random sample of more than 400 political scientists who were members of the American Political Science Association. In 1966 Professor Allan M. Cartter published the results of his survey of 35 chairpersons, 66 “senior scholars” and 64 “junior scholars” and obtained virtually identical results as the Somit-Tanenhaus study. The results of these studies may be seen in Table 1.These studies are all valuable additions to the literature; however, the concepts of reputed “quality” or “strength” may suffer from many of the same drawbacks as the concept of reputed “power.”That is, a department may have a reputation of excellence and yet publish very little. Converse.

DO COMPARATIVE AND REGIONAL STUDIES OF NATIONALISM INTERSECT?

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Behar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Regional Studies ◽  
Regional Research ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Science Association

The question behind this article evolved from two separate observations. While the expansion of comparative and cross-regional research has been actively promoted by leading scholars of the Middle East (and was later encouraged by such bodies as the Middle East Studies Association and this journal), so has the incorporation of scholarly insights from area studies been urged by leading political scientists as a prerequisite for revitalizing all of the discipline's subfields and institutionally endorsed by the American Political Science Association. Viewed as interrelated, these observations prompted the question framing this text: if the aims of many Middle East scholars and institutions are compatible with the aims of many political scientists and their association, why have they remained largely parallel, as suggested by scholars within both fields?

Report on a Survey of the Membership of the American Political Science Association

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (04) ◽  
pp. 382-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Executive Director ◽  
Response Rate ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Full Time ◽  
National Office ◽  
Final Questionnaire ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Number Of Individuals ◽  
Science Association

In conjunction with a discussion of the FY 1974–75 Budget at its April, 1974, meeting, the Council of the American Political Science Association instructed the Executive Director to survey the membership of the Association as to their attitudes toward the usefulness ofPSin form and content. In order to take full advantage of the resources needed to conduct this survey, the National Office conceived a broader study of membership attitudes toward Association activities. The final questionnaire was approved by the Council.On June 7, 1974, the questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 individuals selected randomly from the membership files of the Association. A second mailing was sent to those who had not responded on July 9. A total of 530 completed questionnaires were received for a response rate of 53 percent.The demographic characteristics of the membership, as reflected in the sample, are portrayed in Table 1.The small number of students in the sample is surprising, given the fact that a third of all Association members pay student dues. This discrepancy cannot be attributed to differential response rates; a check of our numbering system confirms the fact that “student” members returned their questionnaires at the same rate as “annual” members. Clearly, a substantial number of individuals paying student dues are employed full-time.

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