I sit to write this Introduction having just returned from a long weekend at APSA's 2010 annual conference discussing the politics of hard times. In the background is the sound of one or another cable news announcer, reminding me, for the thousandth time, that this coming weekend is the ninth anniversary of “9-11.” Controversy still rages over the plans of Muslim American citizens of the US to build a community center in lower Manhattan, two blocks from “ground zero” (or is it “Ground Zero” in deference to its apparent sacralization?). At the same time, attention has recently turned to an obscure Florida pastor, one Reverend Terry Jones, who has declared his intention to publicly burn copies of the Koran in protest of Islam and “commemoration” of 9-11. His plan has caused an outcry of opposition from national and local interfaith coalitions committed to religious and social pluralism, and provoked denunciations from a range of groups that include the Vatican and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Numerous high-ranking Obama Administration officials, from Attorney General Eric Holder to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have loudly criticized the proposed Koran burning as an affront to the American commitment to tolerance. Perhaps the loudest critic has been General David Petraeus, the US Commander in Afghanistan, who has insisted that such acts seriously undermine the US military in its war against the Taliban. One of his assistants, Lt. General William Caldwell, nicely summed up this logic in a CNN interview: “There is no question about First Amendment rights; that is not the issue. The question is: What is the implication over here? It is going to jeopardize the men and women serving in Afghanistan.”

Hate groups are often thought to reveal a paradox in liberal thinking. On the one hand, such groups challenge the very foundations of liberal thought, including core values of equality and freedom. On the other hand, these same values underlie the rights such as freedom of expression and association that protect hate groups. Thus a liberal democratic state that extends those protections to such groups in the name of value neutrality and freedom of expression may be thought to be undermining the values on which its legitimacy rests. In this paper, I suggest how this apparent paradox might be resolved. I argue that the state should protect the expression of illiberal beliefs, but that the state (along with its citizens) is also obligated to criticize publicly those beliefs. Distinguishing between two kinds of state action—coercive and expressive—I contend that such criticism should be pursued through the state's expressive capacities in its roles as speaker, educator, and spender. Here I extend the familiar idea that law, to be legitimate, must be widely publicized; I contend that a proper theory of the freedom of expression obligates the legitimate state to publicize the reasons that underlie rights, in particular reasons that appeal to the entitlement of each citizen subject to coercion to be treated as free and equal. My theory of freedom of expression is thus “expressive” in two senses: it protects the entitlement of citizens to express any political viewpoint, and it emphasizes a role for the state in explaining these free-speech protections and persuading its citizens of the value of the entitlements that underlie them.

The debate over the accommodation of culture in liberal democracies tends to emphasize exit rights. Autonomy is typically taken as a pre-condition for exit, and public schools are often charged with promoting or facilitating it. I argue that diversity liberals have a more justifiable view than that of autonomy liberals on cultural accommodation, but diversity liberalism too should reframe its view of exit rights. Narrow exit rights that protect basic human rights should be maintained and augmented with entrance paths into general society. I further suggest that for exit rights along with entrance paths to provide the morally required conditions for accommodating culture while respecting freedom, policies in this realm should be designed to address adults rather than children. I consider the effect of this dual change of perspective on the accommodation of culture in democratic institutions, including schools.

What can the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies tell us about the character of American liberalism? Felony disenfranchisement reveals a dark face of American liberal democracy that is distinct from two more familiar narratives: the Tocquevillean story of a triumphal and inclusionary liberalism and the “multiple traditions” account proposed by Rogers Smith that sees liberalism battling with racial and other exclusionary ideologies. The history of felony exclusion points to a third perspective: a hyphenate American liberalism (liberal-ascription; liberal-republicanism) in which an exclusionary politics is embedded within liberalism itself. We develop this argument with specific reference to the ways in which liberalism as an abstraction is reflected in concrete advocacy debates over reform, in court decisions, and in the legislative domain. We identify three strands of liberal argumentation—the conceptualization of discrimination that relies on intentionality; the paradigmatic liberal belief in the social contract; and the liberal-republican adherence to norms of individual responsibility. The three strands show how the purportedly universal and impartial liberal embrace of individuality, contract, and responsibility, that ostensibly transcends the ascriptive barriers of birth has nevertheless fostered laws and policies that buttress the boundaries of an exclusionary American citizenship.

All qualitative research faces fundamental hurdles in overcoming issues of access and ensuring the credibility of one's observations. These issues are particularly acute when conducting research in hybrid regimes when the area of investigation is explicitly political and local authorities are sensitive to scrutiny. In the study of Russian politics, growing authoritarianism has meant a shrinking of the field and a corresponding adjustment in fieldwork practices. The disciplinary silence concerning the impact of regime type on fieldwork further threatens the quality and usefulness of comparative research on non-democratic regimes beyond Eurasia. The danger is that interesting and necessary questions about hybrid regimes are sacrificed as scholars opt to conduct fieldwork in more congenial locales where high status methods may be utilized. One can already see this effect as Russianists leave Russia rather than risk isolation within the discipline.

In the halls of both academic and government buildings, the stories of the gap between theory and praxis are legion. Practitioners speak of misguided academics and armchair generals criticizing the creation of strategy and the conduct of operations from the safety of their universities. Moreover, and at a more fundamental level, practitioners are frustrated that academics just don't seem to “get” the policy world. Conversely, academics bemoan the fact that practitioners often fail to fully think through the problems they claim need to be solved. If they had, many scholars argue, they would understand that the “solution” to a “problem” either becomes a part of the problem itself, or creates a whole new set of problems. Whether one calls the gap between theory and praxis in international relations a difference, a disconnect, or a divide hardly matters. What matters is discovering whether or not it actually exists, and if so, what is being done to rectify it. I first describe and then challenge the conventional wisdom that irreconcilable differences separate the academy and military practitioners.

I concur with Michael Mosser that bridge-building between academic and military policy communities should be an important priority. I also agree that this is a challenging task. But my sense of why this is both important and challenging differs from Mosser's in some key respects. Despite qualifications along the way, Mosser's account suggests that academia has a particular responsibility to make itself legible and available to military policy makers, but not the other way around. As he explains, his topic grew from a project concerned about “whether the academy is asking militarily interesting questions.” And he proceeds by thinking about how academic scholarship might be “more tightly integrated” with the doings of military policy and planning. Undertaking bridge-building by firstly asking how the US academy can be more effectively leveraged to support national security goals sets up a largely one-sided and unilateral engagement, where the burden is primarily on academia to explain itself to the military policy community, and probably to do so within a frame of reference sensible to the policy crowd but not necessarily vice-versa. This sets up, in short, a scenario making it less likely for policy makers to listen to what academics might be saying, particularly whenever this appears to complicate established agendas. From my point of view, the best mutual outcomes flow from a more balanced dialogue. This includes policy makers taking academic frames at least as seriously when talking with them, so that greater clarity can be reached about how, and under what circumstances, scholarship might contribute to policy concerns, but also when academic contributions might be inappropriate, irrelevant, or even impossible.

Michael Mosser's essay presents a strong brief for a constructive relationship between the academy and military and security institutions. Unless scholars join the security debate they won't have much of a voice in it. Much of the concern in the academy about being used or corrupted by the military is based on a misconception. Let's call it by its name: a prejudice. Too many academics think that senior military people are hawks, and not particularly smart or thoughtful ones. But this stereotype more often fits the civilians in the national security institutions than the military. And it's exactly those civilians who will dominate the idea market of national security and international order if academics withdraw from it.

Recent calls for more public social science have sometimes faltered at the idea that better relations with the military should be part of the project. Better relations with social movements, sure. With NGOs—why not? And certainly with the departments of state, education, or commerce. But is it the job of academic social scientists to inform the military?

Michael Mosser's thoughtful essay calls on us as political scientists to engage more closely with the contemporary US military. To weigh the implications of such a proposal, we need to consider, I think, not just the military but the wider, deeper processes of militarization. As a multi-layered economic, political, and cultural process, militarization can be blatant and off-putting; but just as often it can be subtle and seductive. All of us trying to craft the best practices of political science here in the United States in the early decades of the twenty-first century are making those scholarly efforts at a time when militarization is a potent process in American public life. Awareness of its potency breeds scholarly caution.

The academy and the military would seem to be radically different institutions. Militaries are fundamentally hierarchical: at the end of the day, orders must be obeyed. At least in principle—and the emphasis here is on principle, since anyone who has lived within the academy knows how far reality departs from this purported ideal—academic disciplines prize the questioning of presuppositions and foster an antiauthoritarian culture. In military units, individuals must sublimate themselves to the group. Scholarship, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is often a lonely enterprise, whose costs are borne by and whose rewards accrue to individuals. The contemporary US officer corps disproportionately identifies with the Republican Party, while academics tend to identify with Democrats, and sometimes farther to the left. Samuel Huntington (in)famously saw as inherent and necessary the cultural divergences between military and civilian life. This would all the more powerfully seem to apply to the armed forces and the academy, to uniform and gown.

Good scholarship asks important questions and provides compelling arguments. Michael W. Mosser's “Puzzles versus Problems: The Alleged Disconnect between Academics and Military Practitioners” is a superb example of such scholarship. Mosser asks if a gap exists between scholars and military practitioners, and if so, what is being done to rectify it. Citing a large and growing body of anecdotal evidence, Mosser concludes that this gap is real. He identifies the source of this gap as “the oppositional nature of the worldviews that each community possesses.” Scholars are interested in explaining puzzles of interest to the academy, while military practitioners are focused on solving policy problems that employ the armed forces as an instrument of national power. However, this gap is more one of degree than scope, and is therefore amenable to reconciliation. Mosser finds that the tenure process for academics is a significant obstacle to such reconciliation. He concludes by identifying several ongoing and proposed initiatives, including the Pentagon's Minerva Project and the Army's operational design concept, to integrate more fully the efforts of academics and military practitioners.

Writing an essay in which one advocates a viewpoint or policy position—especially if the essay is part of a symposium where competing perspectives are put forth and debated in print—should come with an advisory sticker: “Warning: Entering Intense Discursive Zone. Check Egos at Door.” The symposium surrounding the essay on “puzzles versus problems” is no exception. It was exciting to put into words many of the ideas on the perceived split between the academy and the policy community that I had developed via personal experience or conversations with colleagues. I knew, however, that to do so would be a salutary check on any inflated sense of self-worth those ideas may have generated. The notions that I had held close for so long would be exposed to the depth and breadth of intellectual critique. They would have to stand on their own.

Political compromise is difficult in American democracy even though no one doubts it is necessary. It is difficult for many reasons, including the recent increase in political polarization that has been widely criticized. We argue that the resistance to compromise cannot be fully appreciated without understanding its source in the democratic process itself, especially as conducted in the U.S. The incursion of campaigning into governing in American democracy—the so called “permanent campaign”—encourages political attitudes and arguments that make compromise more difficult. These constitute what we call the uncompromising mindset, characterized by politicians' standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. This mindset is conducive to campaigning, but not to governing, because it stands in the way of necessary change and thereby biases the democratic process in favor of the status quo. The uncompromising mindset can be kept in check by an opposite cluster of attitudes and arguments—the compromising mindset—that inclines politicians to adapt their principles and respect their opponents. This mindset is more appropriate for governing, because it enables politicians more readily to recognize and act on opportunities for desirable compromise. We explore the dynamics of these mindsets by examining the processes that led to the compromises on tax reform in 1986 and health care reform in 2010.

The Democrats dodged a bullet on health care in the spring of 2010, but the Senate filibuster is still with us. The 60-vote pivot, the cloture strategies, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), the member “holds,” and the rest are as basic as anything these days to U.S. national policymaking.

Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95.

Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II Russian and Soviet Studies, written by intellectual historian David C. Engerman. While it is not a work of political science, it offers an important historical analysis of a foundational episode in the history of the political science discipline. It is an account of the evolution of a specific field—Soviet Studies—but it is more than this, because this particular field was at the heart of the development of post–World War II area studies in general, and the intellectual and political engagements linked to the evolution of area studies were crucial to the development of modern political and social science. This symposium thus brings together scholars of Soviet Studies, contemporary post-Soviet Russian politics, comparative politics and international relations more generally, and the history of the discipline, to reflect on this book. While participants were asked to critically evaluate the book's analysis, they were also asked to comment more generally on the rise (and fall?) of area studies, and the history of political science more broadly. The issues raised by the book relate to the history and evolution of the current discipline, but also bear upon its future. For in response to post–Cold War crises (many connected to the discourse of the “war on terror”), there have been new calls for security-related area research made by such institutions as the Department of Defense (the Minerva Program, administered by the National Science Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Education (in connection with Title VI funding of area studies). What does the history of Soviet Studies tell us about these recent developments, and about how individual political scientists and indeed the institutions of professional political science should respond to them?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95.

Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II Russian and Soviet Studies, written by intellectual historian David C. Engerman. While it is not a work of political science, it offers an important historical analysis of a foundational episode in the history of the political science discipline. It is an account of the evolution of a specific field—Soviet Studies—but it is more than this, because this particular field was at the heart of the development of post–World War II area studies in general, and the intellectual and political engagements linked to the evolution of area studies were crucial to the development of modern political and social science. This symposium thus brings together scholars of Soviet Studies, contemporary post-Soviet Russian politics, comparative politics and international relations more generally, and the history of the discipline, to reflect on this book. While participants were asked to critically evaluate the book's analysis, they were also asked to comment more generally on the rise (and fall?) of area studies, and the history of political science more broadly. The issues raised by the book relate to the history and evolution of the current discipline, but also bear upon its future. For in response to post–Cold War crises (many connected to the discourse of the “war on terror”), there have been new calls for security-related area research made by such institutions as the Department of Defense (the Minerva Program, administered by the National Science Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Education (in connection with Title VI funding of area studies). What does the history of Soviet Studies tell us about these recent developments, and about how individual political scientists and indeed the institutions of professional political science should respond to them?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95.

Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II Russian and Soviet Studies, written by intellectual historian David C. Engerman. While it is not a work of political science, it offers an important historical analysis of a foundational episode in the history of the political science discipline. It is an account of the evolution of a specific field—Soviet Studies—but it is more than this, because this particular field was at the heart of the development of post–World War II area studies in general, and the intellectual and political engagements linked to the evolution of area studies were crucial to the development of modern political and social science. This symposium thus brings together scholars of Soviet Studies, contemporary post-Soviet Russian politics, comparative politics and international relations more generally, and the history of the discipline, to reflect on this book. While participants were asked to critically evaluate the book's analysis, they were also asked to comment more generally on the rise (and fall?) of area studies, and the history of political science more broadly. The issues raised by the book relate to the history and evolution of the current discipline, but also bear upon its future. For in response to post–Cold War crises (many connected to the discourse of the “war on terror”), there have been new calls for security-related area research made by such institutions as the Department of Defense (the Minerva Program, administered by the National Science Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Education (in connection with Title VI funding of area studies). What does the history of Soviet Studies tell us about these recent developments, and about how individual political scientists and indeed the institutions of professional political science should respond to them?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

In this important book, Robert Jervis reveals his solid credentials as an intelligence insider. For him, this is not a conflict in roles. He is a social scientist, first, who hopes that the U.S. intelligence community (IC) will learn from its mistakes by adhering to sound social scientific practices. Jervis offers striking comparisons between the IC's failure to predict the overthrow of the Shah of Iran with the events of 1978–79—which the author assessed in a declassified internal review for the Central Intelligence Agency—and the erroneous judgment that Iraq had stockpiled biological and chemical weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear program, which the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 Iraq war. Drawing predominantly from these cases, Jervis argues that critical deficiencies in intelligence result because analysts fail to articulate their assumptions, subject these arguments to appropriate scrutiny, consider rival hypotheses that fit the evidence, test arguments by offering predictions, consider negative and positive evidence when evaluating assertions, and seek information that might disconfirm their existing point of view.

Among the many issues raised by James Lebovic's perceptive review are two that strike me as crucial: the relationships between intelligence and social science and those between intelligence and policymaking. The first itself has two parts, one being how scholars can study intelligence. Both access and methods are difficult. For years, diplomatic historians referred to intelligence as the “hidden dimension” of their subject. Now it is much more open, and Great Britain, generally more secretive than the United States, has just issued the authorized history of MI5 (see Christopher Andrew, Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, 2009). Since the end of the Cold War, the CIA has released extensive, if incomplete, records, and the bright side (for us) of intelligence failures is that they lead to the release of treasure troves of documents, which can often be supplemented by memoirs and interviews. But even more than in other aspects of foreign policy analysis, we are stuck with evidence that is fragmentary. In this way, we resemble scholars of ancient societies, who forever lament the loss of most of the material they want to study.