We open this issue with a vigorous exchange on a matter that, to put it mildly, is politically fraught. In a series of provocative publications beginning in 2006, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt address what they call “the Israel Lobby” and detail what they see as the dire consequences that that lobby has generated for American foreign policy making. In our lead essay here, Robert Lieberman challenges Walt and Mearsheimer in precisely the way I think debate on their thesis needs to proceed. Lieberman focuses on the causal claims Walt and Mearsheimer advance, the evidence they adduce for those claims, and the ways that their arguments fit with established research on how American politics operates. Mearsheimer and Walt have written a spirited response to Lieberman who, in turn, offers a brief reply. It is safe to say that neither party to this exchange has persuaded the other. Yet, though their exchange is frank, both Lieberman and Mearsheimer and Walt keep their eye on the ball—they are concerned to establish whether and to what extent the Israel lobby exists and operates in the way Mearsheimer and Walt claim it does.

In the June issue of Perspectives Jim Johnson wrote a very generous Introduction, in which he graciously handed off of the journal to me. I am thankful that he has agreed to return one last time, to introduce this issue's articles, all edited under his watch.

We devote the bulk of this issue to papers in the field of International Relations. We start, however, as we do each March, with the Address delivered by the immediate past president of the APSA at the immediately prior Annual Meetings. This year our author is Dianne Pinderhughes who, tacking back and forth between personal reflection and academic observation, advances a forceful argument in which she identifies our failure to adequately address and understand racial politics in the United States and challenges us to remedy that failure. I am honored to publish her address. I urge you not simply to read it, but to engage the intellectual agenda Dianne Pinderhughes lays before us.

In political science as in life, timing is everything. Actors act. Events unfold. Institutions evolve. Regimes transition. Journals change hands. Articles accepted under one editor are readied for publication by another. And all the while things happen politically. In the broadest sense political science at its best is a never-ending, recursive conversation about this ongoing flow of events, in which the object of our inquiry—society—is a constantly shifting target that is at once reflected in, tracked by, and influenced by our intellectual labors, and in which our inquiry itself incessantly shifts, grows, and simply moves onwards, however one judges this forward movement.

We explore the possibility that the US political system can usefully be characterized as oligarchic. Using a material-based definition drawn from Aristotle, we argue that oligarchy is not inconsistent with democracy; that oligarchs need not occupy formal office or conspire together or even engage extensively in politics in order to prevail; that great wealth can provide both the resources and the motivation to exert potent political influence. Data on the US distributions of income and wealth are used to construct several Material Power Indices, which suggest that the wealthiest Americans may exert vastly greater political influence than average citizens and that a very small group of the wealthiest (perhaps the top tenth of 1 percent) may have sufficient power to dominate policy in certain key areas. A brief review of the literature suggests possible mechanisms by which such influence could occur, through lobbying, the electoral process, opinion shaping, and the US Constitution itself.

In their recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argue that American support for Israel does not serve American interests. Nevertheless, they observe that American foreign policy regarding the Middle East, especially in recent years, has tilted strongly toward support for Israel, and they attribute this support to the influence of the “Israel lobby” in American domestic politics. Their book is principally an attempt to make a causal argument about American politics and policymaking. I examine three aspects of this argument—its causal logic, the use of evidence to support hypotheses, and the argument's connection with the state of knowledge about American politics—and conclude that the case for the Israel lobby as the primary cause of American support for Israel is at best a weak one, although it points to a number of interesting questions about the mechanisms of power in American politics. Mearsheimer and Walt's propositions about the direct influence of the Israel lobby on Congress and the executive branch are generally not supported by theory or evidence. Less conclusive and more suggestive, however, are their arguments about the lobby's apparent influence on the terms and boundaries of legitimate debate and discussion of Israel and the Middle East in American policymaking. These directions point to an alternative approach to investigating the apparent influence of the Israel lobby in American politics, focusing less on direct, overt power over policy outcomes and more on more subtle pathways of influence over policy agendas and the terms of policy discourse.

I address you on August 28, 2008, on the same evening as the Democratic nominee Barack Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Rising income inequality has been a defining trend of the past generation, yet we know little about its impact on social policy formation. We evaluate two dominant views about public opinion on rising inequality: that Americans do not care much about inequality of outcomes, and that a rise in inequality will lead to an increase in demand for government redistribution. Using time series data on views about income inequality and social policy preferences in the 1980s and 1990s from the General Social Survey, we find little support for these views. Instead, Americans do tend to object to inequality and increasingly believe government should act to redress it, but not via traditional redistributive programs. We examine several alternative possibilities and provide a broad analytical framework for reinterpreting social policy preferences in the era of rising inequality. Our evidence suggests that Americans may be unsure or uninformed about how to address rising inequality and thus swayed by contemporaneous debates. However, we also find that Americans favor expanding education spending in response to their increasing concerns about inequality. This suggests that equal opportunity may be more germane than income redistribution to our understanding of the politics of inequality.

We restate and clarify the idea of the “cartel party,” a concept that has found considerable traction in studies of parties throughout the democratic world, including those far from the original research site and data on which the cartel model was based. The cartel party thesis holds that political parties increasingly function like cartels, employing the resources of the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success. The thesis has been subject to varied empirical testing and to substantial theoretical evaluation and criticism. Against this background, we look again at the cartel party thesis in order to clarify ambiguities in and misinterpretations of the original argument. We also suggest further refinements, specifications and extensions of the argument. Following a background review of the original thesis, we break it down into its core components, and then clarify the terms in which it makes sense to speak of cartelization and collusion. We then go on to explore some of the implications of the thesis for our understanding of contemporary democracies and patterns of party organization and party competition and we identify a possible agenda for future research in party scholarship.

The increasing density of international regimes has contributed to the proliferation of overlap across agreements, conflicts among international obligations, and confusion regarding what international and bilateral obligations cover an issue. This symposium examines the consequences of this “international regime complexity” for subsequent politics. What analytical insights can be gained by thinking about any single agreement as being embedded in a larger web of international rules and regimes? Karen Alter and Sophie Meunier's introductory essay defines international regime complexity and identifies the mechanisms through which it may influence the politics of international cooperation. Short contributions analyze how international regime complexity affects politics in specific issue areas: trade (Christina Davis), linkages between human rights and trade (Emilie Hafner-Burton), intellectual property (Laurence Helfer), security politics (Stephanie Hofmann), refugee politics (Alexander Betts), and election monitoring (Judith Kelley). Daniel Drezner concludes by arguing that international regime complexity may well benefit the powerful more than others.

The teaching of evolution in public schools has been a central element in the nation's “culture wars” since the 1920s and remains a contentious issue today. Content standards for the teaching of biology have been flashpoints for conflict, with well publicized battles occurring in state governments, in federal courts, and in local school districts. We show that a full understanding of evolution politics at the state level must simultaneously account for three important features. First, cultural politics typically includes an important role for public opinion. Second, scientists and their professional organizations have actively sought a monopoly on defining what is and is not science by marginalizing their uncredentialled opponents and by erecting boundaries that buffer science policy from the influence of politics and public opinion. Third, in the American federal system courts rarely settle cultural issues but merely narrow the space within which politics can operate. In accounting for these features, we explain why court victories for science have had only limited impacts and provide a model for understanding other issues—such as sex education, stem cell research, and global warming—in which moral and ideological arguments may conflict with scientific consensus.

Robert Lieberman's critique of our work on the Israel lobby is at odds with an abundance of evidence and prior scholarship describing the powerful influence that pro-Israel groups exert on U.S. Middle East policy. In addition to mischaracterizing our arguments, Lieberman claims that our methodology and research design are flawed and that our work contradicts the scholarly literature on American politics. Neither claim is true. Contrary to what he says, we did consider alternative hypotheses, and our analysis contains significant variation on both the independent and dependent variables. Given the methodological challenges involved in assessing the causal influence of any interest group, we also relied heavily on “process-tracing.” Lieberman recognizes this is an appropriate method for assessing causal impact and he concedes that this evidence supports our central argument. Moreover, we went to some lengths to avoid selection bias. Similarly, our arguments are consistent with the existing literature on interest groups, and with much of the scholarly literature on congressional decision-making, campaign financing, electoral politics, and the role of think tanks and the media. Surprisingly, after leveling a variety of false charges, Lieberman offers an “alternative” explanation for the Israel lobby's influence that is virtually identical to our own.

Parties can be a crucial to democratic function but not all parties or party systems are democratic. Some parties are fully competitive within a pluralist system while others, notably hegemonic parties, are antithetical to democracy. Between competitive, pluralist party systems and hegemonic party systems lie predominant party systems. These are compatible with democracy where democracy is fully consolidated but inhibit democratic consolidation in settings with an authoritarian history or where the rule of law is incomplete. The effect of predominant parties in unconsolidated democracies has not been fully studied in comparative context. I scrutinize this problem in Argentina, which has followed an electoral calendar for two decades, but lacks a fully pluralist system of power-sharing among two nationally-competitive parties. The authoritarian background of Peronism, of Argentina itself and the limited competitive potential of the Radical Party have curtailed democratic development. The article underscores the seriousness of Argentina's dilemma by contrasting its situation with Democratic Party predominance in the United States Deep South in the 1940s. The comparison of democratic development in an older democracy with that of a newer democracy illustrates that some of the processes of consolidation are similar and that the experience of older democracies may indicate possible solutions for newer democracies.

We examine activities of and between minority advocacy groups in the U.S., particularly similarities and differences in positions of Blacks and Latinos in their efforts to influence national-level policies. Findings highlight several points. Analysis of Congressional scorecard data indicates only modest overlap among the issues identified by the minority advocacy groups, though there is complete “congruence” on the issues that are identified by both groups. The highest degree of “independence” of the activities examined occurs in Congressional testimony. Regarding legal advocacy, analysis of amicus curiae briefs further affirms the general finding that there is little if any outright competition between Black and Latino advocacy groups. There appears to be considerable “tacit non-cooperation” which varies by policy-type and between these national institutions.

In their reply, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt focus quite reasonably on my two main claims: that their research methods are flawed and that their evidence is weak. But they begin, tellingly, by citing a range of indirect evidence that appears to depict a powerful “Israel lobby.” Lots of knowledgeable Washington insiders, they say—policymakers, journalists, candidates for office, and the like—say and do things that seem to acknowledge the “lobby's” power. I draw attention to this opening for several reasons. First, it is not clear how much weight some of this evidence will bear. Take, for example, the National Journal survey of members of Congress that Mearsheimer and Walt cite twice in their reply (and once in their book). In this survey, conducted once, in 2005, seventy-three members of Congress (out of 535—less than 15 percent) responded to the question, “Which two interest groups do you believe are most effective on Capitol Hill?” Of these respondents, thirteen (less than 20 percent of the sample) mentioned American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as one of their two choices. It seems something of a leap from the observation that a dozen or so members of Congress said once that AIPAC is “effective” (which might mean any number of things) to the inference that AIPAC—or the lobby more generally—is powerful. Or take the observation that important politicians regularly address AIPAC's annual conference and make friendly speeches when they do. Surely these same politicians visit other such organizations regularly. And when they appear before, say, the AFL-CIO or the NAACP, surely they say nice things about the issues that these organizations and their conference attendees care about. Successful politicians rarely voice open disagreement with the people they are talking to. But are we to conclude from this behavior that the AFL-CIO and the NAACP, or any other groups that regularly receive such visits, are powerful? Again, this inference requires something of a logical leap.

This article examines the effect of overlapping institutions in trade policy, where the World Trade Organization, preferential trade agreements, and other economic negotiation venues give states many options for negotiating rules and settling disputes. This article argues that overlapping institutions influence trade politics at three stages: selection of venue, negotiation of liberalization commitments, and enforcement of compliance. First, lobby groups and governments on both sides of a trade negotiation try to choose the set of rules that will favor their preferred outcome. WTO rules that restrict use of coercive tactics outside of the WTO generate a selection process that filters the most difficult trade issues into WTO trade rounds or dispute adjudication while easier issues are settled in bilateral and regional fora. This selection dynamic creates a challenge at the negotiation stage by disaggregating interest group pressure for liberalization commitments. The narrowing of interest group lobbying for the multilateral process may impede negotiation of liberalization agreements that could only gain political support through a broad coalition of exporter mobilization. At the enforcement stage international regime complexity creates the potential for contradictory legal rulings that undermine compliance, but also adds greater penalties for noncompliance if reputation effects operate across agreements.

Realist International Relations thinkers often intervene in political debates and criticize their governments' policies even as they pride themselves on theorizing politics as it “really” is. They rarely reflect on the following contradictions between their theory and their practice: if there is a “real world” impervious to political thought, why bother to try to influence it? And, is realist theory not putatively disconfirmed by the fact that realist thinkers have so often opposed existing foreign policies (e.g., the wars in Vietnam and Iraq)? I argue that these contradictions are not inherent in realism per se so much as in the commitment of contemporary realists to naturalistic methodological and epistemological postulates. I show that Hans Morgenthau and especially E. H. Carr, far from being naïve “traditionalists,” have grappled with these questions in a sophisticated manner; they have adopted non-naturalistic methodological and epistemological stances that minimize the tension between realist theory and the realities of realists' public activism. I conclude with a call for contemporary realists to adjust their theory to their practice by trading the dualism underlying their approach—subject-object; science-politics; purpose-analysis—for E. H. Carr's dictum that “political thought is itself a form of political action.”

Although female candidates have achieved parity on some dimensions, political institutions remain deeply gendered in how they structure the parameters of electoral competition. We rely on a new data set of gubernatorial races from the 1990s to address the theoretical and empirical challenges created by the interaction of gender, media content, and electoral institutions. Based on an analysis of 1,365 newspaper articles for 27 contests in which a woman held a major party nomination, we uncover evidence of continuing bias in media coverage. Yet significant coefficients on candidate sex tell only part of the story. Gendered contextual factors linked to the contest and state in which candidates compete, as well as the newspapers that cover their races, also affect women's experiences on the campaign trail. The major finding, however, is the presence of a powerful baseline effect favoring male candidates that is deeply embedded in U.S. politics. All else equal, women gubernatorial candidates suffer a substantial vote deficit that results from non-observable influences. The results support the emerging consensus among feminist theorists that greater focus on the political context is likely to produce bigger scholarly payoffs than is continued attention to observable differences between male and female candidates.

This article argues that international regime complexity has shaped Europe's politics of human rights trade conditionality by creating opportunities for various types of “forum shopping,” and, consequently, that some of the most significant politics of human rights enforcement have occurred in an entirely separate issue area—trade—which are being worked out partly during lawmaking and partly during implementation. The presence of nested and overlapping institutions creates incentives for rival political actors—whether states, institutions, or policymakers—to (1) forum shop for more power, (2) advantage themselves in the context of a parallel or overlapping regime, and (3) invoke institutions á la carte to govern a specific issue but not others. Each tactic creates competition between institutions and actors for authority over the rules, setting hurdles for IO performance. Even so, (4) regime complexity can make enforcement of rules that are impossible to implement in one area possible in another area.

Extensive political science research reveals that the decisions of the US Supreme Court are deeply political. And both advocates and critics of judicial elections concede that partisan elections are a democratic method of judicial selection. Does the value of democratic representation mean that US Supreme Court Justices should be selected through partisan elections? I argue not. Partisan judicial elections are actually far poorer institutional mechanisms for capturing the judgment of the people on legal matters than has been recognized. The role of parties in structuring a campaign distorts the deliberative environment surrounding judicial elections, creating significant barriers to voters expressing a judgment on matters of legal meaning. The kind of distortion is best understood through reference to a processual criterion of deliberative democracy, which provides a fitting normative template to ground theoretical inquiry into the reason-giving possibilities of existing democratic institutions and practices. Hence, answering why the US Supreme Court should not be elected on democratic grounds also reveals new insights about the role of parties in sustaining (or subverting) deliberative democratic ideals.