Rodney E. Hero

Rodney E. Hero is professor of political science and Haas Chair in Diversity and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching focus on American democracy and politics, especially as viewed through the analytical lenses of Latino politics, racial/ethnic politics, state and urban politics, and federalism. His book, Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-tiered Pluralism, received the APSA's Ralph J. Bunche Award (1993). He also authored Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (selected for the APSA's Woodrow Wilson Award, 1999), and Racial Diversity and Social Capital: Equality and Community in America (2007). He is also co-author of Black-Latino Relations in U.S. National Politics: Beyond Conflict or Cooperation (2013), MultiEthnic Moments: The Politics of Urban Education Reform (2006), Newcomers, Insiders and Outsiders: Immigrants and American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Century (2009), Latino Lives in America (2010); and Latinos in the New Millennium: An Almanac (2012).

His work has also appeared in various scholarly journals including the American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, and others. He was one of six co-principal investigators on the Latino National Survey (completed in 2006). He has also served on the editorial boards of several political science journals including APSR (2001–07 and 2013–present), AJPS (1994–97), JOP (2001–04, 1991–93), PRQ (2000–06, 1994–96), Urban Affairs Review (1998–2000), and Political Behavior (2005–09).

He received his bachelor of science degree from Florida State University (1975) and PhD from Purdue University (1980). Before joining the Berkeley faculty he held positions at the University of Notre Dame (2000–10), at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1989–2000), and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (1980–88).

He served as president of the Midwest Political Science Association (2007–08), on the Executive Council (1995–97) and as vice president of the APSA (2003–04), president of the Western Political Science Association (1999–2000), and president of the Latino Caucus of the APSA (2010–11).

He has served on numerous APSA committees: siting and engagement (2009–12), development (2003–05), committee to select editor(s) of the APSR (for editorship during 2007–11); nominations committee (2001 and 2002, chair in 2001), committee on international programs (1993–95), James Madison Award committee (Spring 2008), Charles Merriam Award committee (1996–97), and the William Anderson Award committee (1993, Chair), among others. He will emphasize recognizing, respecting, and fostering the discipline's substantive theoretical, methodological, and demographic diversity.

Philip Keefer

Philip Keefer is a lead researcher in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, where he started in 1994. After working at a think tank in Lima, Peru, he received his PhD in 1991 from Washington University, St. Louis, where he studied under Douodass North. He subsequently spent three years with Mancur Olson at the IRIS Center of the University of Maryland. He regularly teaches a course on the political economy of development at the University of Basel.

He has conducted operational and academic research in more than 20 countries, on subjects ranging from the contribution of secure property rights and social capital to growth, to the effects of clientelism and political party organization on public policy, development, violence, and ethnic polarization. His research is cross-disciplinary, appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and International Organization, but also the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.

It is also methodologically diverse, using econometrics and formal theory to analyze non-democracies; statistical comparisons of households to assess the effects of community radio in Benin; case studies to examine the political economy of pro-growth policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan; and, lately, laboratory experiments to explore the interaction of intrinsic motivation and compensation on the behavior of public sector employees.

Statement of views: It is a real honor for me to be nominated for the vice-presidency of APSA, an association of scholars who teach and research some of the most important questions in the social sciences, not least of which is, “Under what conditions do human beings, pulled between altruism and self-interest, insight and ignorance, and tolerance and prejudice, build diverse, thriving communities?”

Recent congressional actions to limit NSF grants to political science are symptomatic that the importance of political science is too little appreciated. If elected, I hope to work with fellow council members to address this lack of appreciation. This task goes hand in hand with the ongoing challenge that always confronts APSA of supporting the diverse community of political scientists. I look forward to contributing to the council's efforts to support APSA members, in all our diversity, while emphasizing to external audiences the importance of the questions we address, the excellence with which we teach about them, and the rigor with which we research them.

J. Donald Moon

J. Donald Moon is the Zilkha Professor in the College of Social Studies and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. In 2001–02 he was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. His interests include contemporary liberal and democratic theory, civic engagement, the moral basis of the welfare state, and global justice. He has also written on the philosophy of social science and on the relationship of political theory to empirical work in political science; his writings include “The Logic of Political Inquiry” in the Handbook of Political Science and Constructing Community: Moral Pluralism and Tragic Conflict. He has an MA in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota. He has recently completed a draft book manuscript, John Rawls: Liberalism and the Challenges of Late Modernity. His service to the profession includes serving as section chairs for all three of the APSA theory sections, a term on the APSA Council, participation on numerous awards committees, chairing the Conference for the Study of Political Thought, two terms as consulting editor for Political Theory, and membership on various editorial boards.

Statement of views: I am naturally honored to have been nominated as vice president, and if elected I look forward to participating in any way I can be effective in advancing the mission of the APSA. As political scientists working in the United States at a time of serious challenge if not crisis, we are confronted with difficult issues raising deep questions about our responsibilities as professionals and as citizens. As students of politics we have much to offer to public discourses about the direction of public life today, discourses that all too often are impoverished. We can best meet that responsibility by affirming a plurality of methods and approaches to the study of politics, and building connections among them. And we should explore ways to explain our work to the public more effectively, in part to ensure adequate support for research in political science.

Melissa Nobles

Melissa Nobles is the Alfred and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and department head of political science at MIT. Nobles is a graduate of Brown University where she majored in history. She received her MA and PhD in political science from Yale University. Nobles has held fellowships at Boston University's Institute for Race and Social Division and Harvard University's Radcliffe Center for Advanced Study. She has served on the editorial boards of Polity, American Political Science Review, and currently serves on the editorial board of Perspectives on Politics. Nobles is also the past president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. She is the author of two books, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (Stanford University Press, 2000), The Politics of Official Apologies (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and co-editor with Jun-Hyeok Kwak of Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia (Routledge Press, 2013). Her work has also appeared in the Annual Review of Political Science, Daedalus, and several edited books. She is currently working on a comparative study of racial violence in the “Jim Crow” south.

Statement of views: I am honored to be nominated to serve as vice president of the APSA. In my view, the different and multiple methodologies that political scientists use and our deep knowledge of various subject matters equip us to provide analyses that only we, as political scientists, can. The association should never lose sight of its largest and most central goal, which is, in my mind, to support the production and dissemination of intellectually rigorous, socially relevant, and sometimes morally challenging work that not only enlivens our discipline but also contributes usefully to public understanding. This larger vision must be upheld, in the face of both growing specialization within our discipline and various pressures outside of it. Moreover, the increased use of online teaching and other technologies presents opportunities and challenges to our discipline and to the prevailing model of higher education in general. It is really important that the association consider the larger institutional and pedagogical environments in which members conduct their research and teach. Finally, it perhaps goes without saying that I am committed to increasing and strengthening the involvement of minority scholars and graduate students in the association.

Kathleen Thelen

Kathleen Thelen is Ford Professor of Political Science at MIT. She received her BA from the University of Kansas and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her empirical research focuses on the political economy of the rich democracies, and she has also made contributions to the literature on historical institutionalism. Her most recent book, tentatively titled Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity is forthcoming at Cambridge University Press. Other recent works include How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan (Cambridge 2004, winner of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award and the Mattei Dogan Award of the Society for Comparative Research), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power (Cambridge 2010, co-edited with James Mahoney) and Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies (Oxford 2005, co-edited with Wolfgang Streeck).

Thelen has strong connections abroad, particularly in Europe. She is a Permanent External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Germany), and has also held appointments as a research fellow or visiting professor at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), Nuffield College (Oxford), Sciences Po (Paris), and the Copenhagen Business School. She was chair of the Council for European Studies (2002–2006) and president of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (2008–2009). Her past contributions to the APSA include service as an officer in several organized sections (Comparative Politics, Politics and History, Qualitative Methods, and European Politics and Society).

Statement of views: I'm deeply honored to be nominated for the office of treasurer of the APSA; it would be a privilege to serve. If elected my efforts as treasurer would be guided by the following goals.

First, I am committed to promoting methodological pluralism in our research community, and would work to make sure that our association reflects and nurtures the variety of approaches and perspectives that characterize our discipline. Second, I think the association should work harder to promote diversity within our profession, searching for ways to enhance opportunities for women and minorities to flourish and thrive. Third, I am dedicated to teaching and mentoring and would strive to ensure that these activities are sufficiently recognized and rewarded. And finally, I would hope to bring my experience with international institutions and multidisciplinary associations to bear in order to encourage APSA initiatives that foster cross-national and interdisciplinary dialogue.

K. C. Morrison

K. C. Morrison is professor of political science and head of the department of political science and public administration, and senior associate in African American Studies at Mississippi State University. He previously held faculty appointments at Syracuse University, where he also headed the African American studies department and was an editor of the Foreign and Comparative Studies Series; and at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where was Middlebush Professor of Political Science and a university vice provost.

Professor Morrison has active research programs in comparative politics concentrating on West Africa; and comparative racial politics in the Americas. He is the author of Ethnicity and Political Integration; Black Political Leadership, Mobilization and Power; and a forthcoming biography of Aaron Henry, the social movement leader in Mississippi. He is co-author of Housing and the Urban Poor in Africa and African American Political Participation. His articles have appeared in such journals as Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Quarterly, National Political Science Review, International Studies Perspectives, and Journal of Modern African Studies.

Professor Morrison has had a long active affiliation with the APSA presenting papers, organizing panels (in both the annual meeting and the annual teaching conference), and in a variety of service roles. He has served as a member of the editorial board of the APSR, including its executive committee; and, as a member of the nominations committee, including a term as its chairperson. He is active in the race and ethnicity and Africa politics sections. He has served as president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, an affiliated caucus; and, of the African Association of Political Science (US affiliate).

Statement of views: I look forward to assisting the executive team of the association in strengthening the enterprise of political science. I am interested in assisting the organization in giving voice to all sectors of the profession's membership, and providing space for the expansion of political science inquiry into new areas.

Amrita Basu

Amrita Basu is the Paino Professor of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies at Amherst College. She served as associate dean of the Faculty at Amherst College from 2007 to 2010. She received her BA from Cornell University and her PhD from Columbia University. Her main areas of scholarly interest are religious nationalism, social movements, and women's activism in South Asia. She is the author of Two Faces of Protest: Contrasting Modes of Women's Activism in India and Episodic Violence: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Democracy (in progress), and editor or co-editor of six books and four special issues of scholarly journals. She co-directed a workshop on political science and the liberal arts funded by the Mellon Foundation. A selection of papers from the workshop will be appearing in a special issue of Polity.

Professor Basu's research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation and the American Institute of Indian Studies. She has served on advisory committees of the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the United Nations Development Program. She serves on the editorial boards of the International Political Science Review, American Political Science Review, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism and Critical Asian Studies and was the South Asia editor for The Journal of Asian Studies, the Asian Studies Association's professional journal.

Statement of views: I would be honored to serve on the APSA Council. I have participated in several APSA committees including the Nominating Committee (2009–p2010), the Ralph Bunche Award Committee (2008), and the Victoria Shuck Book Award Committee (2004). I was president (2004–2005) and chair (2005–2006) of the women and politics section of APSA. If I was elected, I would seek to: (1) address the professional trajectories of women and minorities; (2) increase our mentoring of junior faculty; (3) support the participation of international scholars in the organization and professional meetings; (4) increase intellectual exchange across sub-fields and disciplines; and (5) promote the membership and participation of political scientists who teach at liberal arts colleges.

Kenneth Benoit

Kenneth Benoit is a professor of quantitative political science and currently head of the department of methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He received his PhD from the department of government at Harvard University (1998) after completing a BA in political science at the University of South Carolina (1991). He spent 12 years full-time in the department of political science at Trinity College Dublin, where he retains an affiliation as a part-time professor. He currently sits on the editorial boards of the APSR, Electoral Studies, and Political Science Research and Methods (where he is also an associate editor).

Professor Benoit's current work focuses on quantitative and automated text analysis of political documents, with a focus on measuring ideology. He has published widely on party competition, electoral systems, campaign spending effects, and Eastern European elections and electoral institutions. He is currently PI on a five-year project on text analysis funded by the European Research Council.

Statement of views: The “science” in political science implies an embrace of a self-aware and validated methodology to guide the collection and assessment of evidence to draw useful conclusions. These methods are as often qualitative as quantitative, however, and condemning either approach is in my view equally flawed, especially in areas such as text analysis where the two approaches are complementary. As head of an interdisciplinary department with an unusual focus—methodology—I work with colleagues and teach courses in qualitative and quantitative research, and believe that methodologically sound research can be learned and applied using both approaches. As a priority for scholarship, I would strongly support political science research guided by sound theoretical and methodological principles, including formal, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. As a scholar trained in comparative politics and living in a non-US political context, I believe I could also bring a healthy perspective on the benefits of studying of political systems other than the American one. As a human priority, I believe very strongly in the importance of mentoring junior colleagues and promoting graduate students, especially for women and other underrepresented groups.

Christine Di Stefano

Christine Di Stefano is associate professor and associate chair of political science at the University of Washington. She received her BA from Ithaca College and her MA and PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her publications include Revisioning the Political: Feminist Reconstructions of Traditional Concepts in Western Political Theory, co-edited with Nancy J. Hirschmann (Westview) and Configurations of Masculinity: A Feminist Perspective on Modern Political Theory (Cornell University Press). She served as president of the Western Political Science Association during 2010–2011. Her service to the profession also includes the editorial boards of PS: Political Science and Politics, Women & Politics, Politics and Gender, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and executive boards for several organized sections, as well as several award committees. In addition, she has served as chair of the APSA Organized Section for Research on Women and Politics. Her most recent research is on the politics and ethics of interspecies relations.

Statement of views: I have a longstanding commitment to the cultivation of methodological pluralism and diversity in the profession. In addition to the recent focus on mentoring graduate students and junior faculty, I would like to see the APSA devote sustained attention to the situation of part-time and non-tenure track faculty, who are under-represented in the organization and at the annual conference, so that we might do a better job of serving their professional needs. And finally, I would be very interested in developing and supporting efforts to promote the public face and presence of the profession.

James N. Druckman

James N. Druckman is the Payson S. Wild Professor of Political Science and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern Uni-versity. He is also an honorary professor of political science at Aarhus University in Denmark. His research focuses on political preference formation and communication. He also researches the relationship between citizens' preferences and public policy, and how political elites make decisions under varying institutional conditions.

Druckman has published more than 75 articles and book chapters in political science, communication, economic, science, and psychology journals. He co-edited the Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. He has served as editor of the journals Political Psychology and Public Opinion Quarterly as well as the University of Chicago Press's series in American politics. He currently is the co-principal investigator of Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). He also sits on the board of the National Election Studies, has served as president/chair of the APSA sections on experimental methods and political psychology and was a vice president of the International Society for the International Society of Political Psychology.

Druckman's work has been recognized with numerous awards including over 15 best paper/book awards and grant support from several entities. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and also in 2012 received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. His teaching/advising has been recognized with the Outstanding Award for Freshman Advising, and an Outstanding Faculty citation by Northwestern's Associated Student Government.

Statement of views: As a part of the APSA council, I aim to work particularly on student mentoring and education/professionalization as well as on ways to stimulate increased conversation on the evolution of the discipline. I believe these conversations/actions will help better blend the subfields. Moreover, I view these goals as intertwined insofar as my experience over the last 15 years has been to witness increased fragmentation of the field that trickles down to students and generates patterns that may be deleterious to education; there is less appreciation of breadth/education and more focus on the immediacy of production (e.g., publication, presentation). I hope such goals can be put into action via APSA guidelines and suggestions for education and interdisciplinary exchange (e.g., panels) as well as an even more active mentoring programs involving faculty and students.

Hank C. Jenkins-Smith

Hank C. Jenkins-Smith is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma. He is a professor in the OU political science department, and is a director in the university's Center for Risk, Crisis and Resilience (www.crcr.ou.edu) and the Center for Applied Social Research (http://casr.ou.edu/about.html).

Jenkins-Smith studies the public policy process, with particular interest in applied public policy problems that involve high levels of perceived risks by stakeholders. He has co-authored books on the public policy process, the evolution of public opinion about energy and security policies and public perceptions of the American the presidency. In 2010 he won (with Paul Sabatier) the Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award from the APSA Public Policy Section for his co-authored book Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach (Westview, 1992). Much of his recent work has focused on energy and environmental policies and has been the basis for both published articles and reports for federal agencies. Jenkins-Smith has served on a number of Committees for the National Research Council and is an elected member of the National Council for Radiation Protection.

Jenkins-Smith served as president of the APSA Public Policy Section, and was the editor of the Policy Studies Journal (the journal of the APSA Public Policy Section) from 2003 to 2009. He is currently editor of the Policy Studies Journal Yearbook (www.psjyearbook.com).

Statement of views: My professional experience and personal interests lie at the intersection of political science and applied public policy. Political scientists and public policy scholars have a unique and important opportunity to develop and apply theoretically grounded and empirically based policy recommendations that improve people's lives and make society more resilient. I believe it to be important that scholars find ways to preserve and enhance the institutional capacities, at all levels of government, to make intelligent collective decisions about the urgent environmental, energy, and security issues with which we are faced. I believe that collaboration across disciplines—with STEM fields and the humanities as well as other social science disciplines—to be necessary as collective action issues become recognized as core problems on issues that previously have been seen as primarily “technical” in nature. One of our most critical challenges is to work with our undergraduate and graduate students so they can meet these challenges.

David C. Kang

David C. Kang is professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California, with appointments in both the School of International Relations and the Marshall School of Business. At USC he is also director of the Korean Studies Institute and the East Asian Studies Center. Kang's latest book is East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (Columbia University Press, 2010). He is also author of China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007); Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (co-authored with Victor Cha) (Columbia University Press, 2003). Kang has published numerous scholarly articles in journals such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Politics, and International Security, and his co-authored article “Testing Balance of Power Theory in World History” was awarded “Best article, 2007–2009,” by the European Journal of International Relations. Kang serves on the editorial boards of numerous academic journals and is an associate editor for the Journal of Asian Studies. He received an AB with honors from Stanford University and his PhD from Berkeley.

Statement of views: APSA is an organization that is constantly changing and adapting to both new scholarly approaches and also the changing environment within which its members work. If elected, I would work to ensure that APSA continues to broaden its focus on international and local issues; becomes an effective voice to reflect our membership's interests on important national and international issues; and emphasize and strengthen APSA's efforts to attract, train, and mentor younger scholars of all kinds to our discipline. This would involve supporting interdisciplinary scholarship, emphasizing in-depth scholarly study of cross-regional issues, and working toward the continued acceptance of different methodological and theoretical approaches to studying politics.

John Sides

John Sides is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He studies political behavior in American and comparative politics. His current research focuses on political campaigns, political knowledge, and national identity. With Lynn Vavreck, he is the author of The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Election (Princeton University Press, forthcoming). He has published a textbook on campaigns as well as articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and several other journals. He helped found and contributes to The Monkey Cage, a political science blog. He has also written for such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Washington Monthly.

He currently serves on the Executive Council of Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of APSA as well as on the editorial boards of American Politics Research and Political Communication. He has served or serves on the advisory board of several survey research projects, including the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, and The American Panel Survey. He has also served on the Best Dissertation Committee for the International Society for Political Psychology and the Best Book Award Committee for the EPOVB section.

Statement of views: As a member of the council, I would advocate for an association that not only works to serve the interests of its diverse membership, but also seeks to become a more public-facing organization. A robust engagement with citizens, journalists, policymakers, politicians, and others outside the academy helps to ensure that the contributions of political science research and teaching are more broadly known and appreciated. Public engagement also helps orient some of the work of the discipline around research questions tied closely to contemporary politics, thereby maintaining and even increasing the relevance of our work.

Evelyn M. Simien

Evelyn M. Simien is associate professor of political science, jointly appointed with the Institute for African American Studies, and affiliated with the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies program at the University of Connecticut. She is also an associate editor for Polity (the journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association). At the University of Connecticut, she has served as both acting director and associate director of the Humanities Institute. She has also served as president of the Women's Caucus for Political Science-South. Simien earned her BA from Xavier University of Louisiana, and her MA and PhD from Purdue University in political science. Her first book, Black Feminist Voices in Politics (State University of New York Press, 2006), uses a national telephone survey of the adult African American population to determine the simultaneous effects of race and gender on political behavior in American presidential elections. She is sole principal investigator of the 2004–05 National Black Feminist Study, which has been used by sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists. Her second book, Gender and Lynching (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2011), focuses on African American women who suffered racial-sexual violence at the hands of vigilante lynch mobs in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her third book, Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes Politics, is under contract with Oxford University Press. She is the recipient of two teaching awards: the 2007 Teaching Promise Award from the American Association of University Professors, and the 2006 Anna Julia Cooper Teacher of the Year Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

Statement of views: I can assure you that I will seize upon every available intellectual resource to contribute in ways that help the association achieve its goals—especially, with regard to diversifying the profession and representing its diversity. I understand that APSA is dedicated to promoting scholarly research and communication, domestically and internationally, as well as promoting high quality teaching and education about politics and government. I believe that my record of publication, teaching, and service speaks volumes about my ability to perform in such a capacity that would strengthen the professional environment for underrepresented groups (and others). As political scientists, we prepare citizens to be effective participants in an increasingly diverse world and global economy. Still, we must defend the legitimacy of what we do by recognizing outstanding work in the discipline and capturing the attention of those state and federal agencies that might support our academic research.