A Call to APSA Part 2: Bring in Community College Faculty

ABSTRACT This article uses data from a 2018 survey conducted by the American Political Science Association Committee on the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession to make specific policy recommendations for how to better reach out to and incorporate political science faculty teaching at community colleges into the association.

Pay to Play? How Reducing APSA Division Fees Increases Graduate Student Participation

ABSTRACT In 2017, the American Political Science Association (APSA) Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession launched an initiative to lower the cost of Division (i.e., organized section) membership for students to promote graduate students’ professional development and to advance Division interests. This article assesses the effect of this intervention on Division membership. Using APSA membership data, we find that almost two thirds of Divisions that charged fees in 2017 reduced or eliminated student fees between 2017 and 2019, nearly halving the average student dues (i.e., from $11.57 in 2017 to $5.84 in 2019). As a result, average student membership increased by more than 300% in Divisions that reduced fees (i.e., from 79.5 in 2017 to 248.7 in 2019), compared to a marginal 30% increase in those that did not reduce fees. These outcomes of the initiative support additional efforts to reduce the costs of APSA participation for graduate students.

THE THIRD WAVE: DEMOCRATIZATION IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY, BY SAMUEL P HUNTINGTON. OKLAHOMA: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS, 1991, 384 PAGES. ISBN: 9788475099606

The discourse on democratization features prominently in the work of Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) entitled ‘The Third Wave’ which was published in 1991. Huntington was one of the most influential political scientists and previously held the position of university professor at the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School in the US. He authored many academic books on comparative politics and was the founder of the Foreign Policy Journal as well as the former president of the American Political Science Association (IPSA). Written in six interesting chapters, Huntington’s Third Wave provides a clear-cut discussion on fundamental questions of when, why and how democratization occurs in different parts of the world. This fascinating book has contributed significantly to the empirical analyses on comparative transition to democracy and autocracy in around thirty global southern states, primarily in Latin America and Asia, and remains relevant for discourses on any future wave of global democratization. Cite as: Syazli Saidin, M. I. (2021). The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century. (Book review). Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 394-400. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp394-400

Updating Bayesian(s): A Critical Evaluation of Bayesian Process Tracing

Given the increasing quantity and impressive placement of work on Bayesian process tracing, this approach has quickly become a frontier of qualitative research methods. Moreover, it has dominated the process-tracing modules at the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR) and the American Political Science Association (APSA) meetings for over five years, rendering its impact even greater. Proponents of qualitative Bayesianism make a series of strong claims about its contributions and scope of inferential validity. Four claims stand out: (1) it enables causal inference from iterative research, (2) the sequence in which we evaluate evidence is irrelevant to inference, (3) it enables scholars to fully engage rival explanations, and (4) it prevents ad hoc hypothesizing and confirmation bias. Notwithstanding the stakes of these claims and breadth of traction this method has received, no one has systematically evaluated the promises, trade-offs, and limitations that accompany Bayesian process tracing. This article evaluates the extent to which the method lives up to the mission. Despite offering a useful framework for conducting iterative research, the current state of the method introduces more bias than it corrects for on numerous dimensions. The article concludes with an examination of the opportunity costs of learning Bayesian process tracing and a set of recommendations about how to push the field forward.

What Did They Wish For? Party Government, Polarization and the American Political Science Association

In tracing the development of increased polarization in the United States, numerous scholars have noted the apparent importance of the American Political Science Association's (APSA's) Committee on Political Parties. The committee's influential (and often criticized) report, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, called for a wholesale transformation of political parties in the United States. On its publication in October 1950, political scientists quickly concluded that, taken together, the committee's recommendations represented a reworking of a distinct approach, usually known as “party government” or “responsible party government.” (The origins of responsible parties dated back to Woodrow Wilson's classic 1885 text Congressional Government.) Since then, the notion of party government has become a core issue in the study of American political parties, albeit a contentious one. A recent survey ranked the APSA document at seventh as a canonical text in graduate syllabi concerning parties.

Innovative Approaches of Political Education in Ukraine: On the Example of Developed Western Democracies

This article was composed to discuss the particular traits of the contemporary political education of students in Ukraine. A system of political education is introduced to develop the fundamental political knowledge and skill-set of students, as well as aiding in the formation of their civic consciousness. The innovative modernization approaches are represented by American Political Science Association. The main purpose of the research to show modernization methods of political education what is the basis for the formation of democratic values of Ukrainian society. Much attention is paid to the correlation between civic and political education. The need for value content of political education adds to the urgency of the study. This involves making greater use of the tools of political education to support the dialogue of cultures in the modern world. Ensuring that society is prepared to solve global problems by developing the active position and individual responsibility of each young person should be an equally important result of political education in the 21st century. Political education now requires a walkthrough approach of implementation (through project initiatives, socio-cultural activities, networking and various types of cooperation between those who get education in the socio-political sector). The authors emphasize that it is worth rethinking the new opportunities of social networks, the Internet era to build youth initiatives and teams for project work. However, one of the challenges of the information society is the dominance of different types of data (“information noise”), which requires young people to have a higher level of media literacy and more developed critical thinking. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem indicates that the new systems of political values have been formed, which are essential for the democratization. Two groups of mutually perceived values were approved. The first group is dominant. It is associated with values such as security, sovereignty, patriotism, freedom, human rights, justice, political stability. The second group of established values is evolving: legality, responsibility, equality, political pluralism, legitimacy. This article reveals the understanding of these values of Ukrainian citizens on the basis of Ukrainian and European sociological research.

Woodrow Wilson como Administrador

Vinte e oito de dezembro de 1956 assinalou o centenário do nascimento deWoodrow Wilson , um dos presidentes mais complexos que até hoje nos governaram.Poucos contribuíram tão significativamente em campos tão variados,e apresentaram tal número de interessantes facetas em sua personalidade.W i l s o n , o sexto presidente da American Political Science Association, é conhecidocomo ilustre cientista político, em virtude de suas obras CongressionalGovernment, The State e Constitutional Government in the United States,além de numerosos ensaios sôbre o mesmo assunto. É tido como historiadorem atenção aos seus trabalhos History oí the American People e Division andReunion. Sua ação como Presidente da Universidade de Princeton bem comoas manifestações literárias sôbre temas educacionais granjearam-lhe fama deeducador. As reformas promovidas sob sua orientação, quando Governador deNew Jersey, distinguem-no como um dos Chefes de Executivo estaduais maisnotáveis, dentre os de sua geração.

The Paradox of Partisanship

This chapter examines the paradox of partisanship. In 1950, the American Political Science Association put out a major report arguing for a “more responsible two-party system.” The two parties—the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—were then largely indistinguishable coalitions of parochial local parties, and the political scientists argued that too little, rather than too much polarization, was the problem. This sets up a paradox: Some party division is necessary, but too much can be deadly. Various traditions in American political thought have tried to resolve this paradox. Antipartisans have urged consensus above all. Responsible partisans have urged competition above all. Meanwhile, bipartisans have urged compromise above all. Consensus is impossible. However, both compromise and competition are essential to democracy. Only the neglected multiparty tradition can solve the paradox with the right balance of competition and compromise.

Archiving and Re-using of Qualitative Data as a Path to Development of Public Administration Research

In response to the assumptions of new public management models and public or good governance, practical aspects of research in the area of public admin­istration and the development possibilities of qualitative research methods are presented in the article. Due to the fact that qualitative research has become increasingly popular in the above disciplines, data archiving and trans­parency is discussed (Moravcsik), (Yom et al.) and guidelines and principles are established (American Political Science Association). However, there is a lot of controversy among scholars (Monroe), and some examples are missing. This paper presents the challenge of ‘openness’ in the empirical activities (or empirical practice) of researchers. Its purpose is to present the archiving data potential from in-depth interviews on the example of a small set of qualitative data from research in the field of public administration. Firstly, the basic assumptions of new models of functioning of public administration and related consequences for researchers are described. In the second part, the challenges related to openness in contemporary public administration models are briefly mentioned. Next, the method of creating an archive from existing data, individual stages, documents, and data is outlined; it is based on the au­thor’s best practice on Qualidata (American Political Science Association; Van den Eynden et al.) and DA-RT principles.1 The summary includes examples of probable opportunities and challenges related to usage of data archiving for the research in public administration and political science development.