The Association's membership, assembled at Los Angeles last September, acted wisely in giving itself another year to reflect on the need (if any) for total constitutional revision. A new charter had been prepared in two versions, one by a committee headed by Professor Aaron Wildavsky, and the other by the Association's outgoing Council. So engrossed had each of these bodies been in its labors, and perhaps in the minor differences between the resulting documents, that their first publication, in the summer 1970 issue of PS, was delayed until just before the Annual Meeting. Nor was either version, as published, accompanied by any rationale or explanation. All anyone had to go by was the bare text of the two proposed charters—which most of us saw for the first time when we picked it up at the entrance of the ballroom of the Los Angeles Hilton, on the way to the session that was to choose between these two alternatives—or the status quo ante.

Professor Wildavsky still has not supplied the missing rationale for the document that he helped to father; and the 1969–70 Council allowed its term to expire without venturing any public justification of its further emendations. Meanwhile, however, two members of the Constitutional Revision Committee, Professors Hawkinson and Rosenblum, claiming “obviously … to speak only for themselves,” have published one modest argument in favor of the Committee's draft (see PS Winter 1971, pp. 6–18). Above all, the membership has now had time to study the two proposed charters and to compare them to the one under which, with gradual historical accretions and deletions, American political scientists have managed to operate for about seventy years. A close reading of the three texts is likely to make a conservative of even the most impetuous of our colleagues.

If I, in some final reckoning, were asked to state my view of the essential impact of the proposed Wildavsky constitution, I should say that it transfers the debate from the substantive to the procedural. I would say that it abstracts, mystifies, and confuses what was originally a rather clear cut disagreement within the Association. (For a more specific critique of the provisions of the Wildavsky draft see Dankwart A. Rustow, this issue.)

The original disagreement and the one that is still with us may be viewed as a difference of opinion as to certain boundaries: the boundaries between science and politics, science and policy, the Association and the government and/or the regime norms. Those engaged in this disagreement tend to cluster around two positions. One position, that has been called the “establishment” position, tends to draw the older and more established behavioral scholars. For their part they view the boundaries as being rather well established, and since workable, it is felt that they should be maintained. An opposing position, generally attracting younger scholars and some “traditionalists,” has developed around the Caucus for a New Political Science. In its search for what might roughly be called more “relevance,” it sees the “establishment” position as part of the given status quo. According to this position the boundaries are arbitrary, somewhat hypocritically maintained and supportive of a regime that is considered, if not absolutely evil, certainly ill advised as to its priorities. In a word, the distinction between science and politics is surely arbitrary, probably false, and maybe specious.

Most of what Professors Hawkinson and Rosenblum have written on behalf of the proposed new Constitution for the Association—about membership qualifications, about purpose and about taking positions on current public issues—appears to me to argue equally in favor of the Constitution we already have. On these matters the two documents are not far apart. Since I find their arguments for the status quo well stated and persuasive, I shall confine my comments to some major points of difference between the documents, and to changes proposed that would, as I think, be for the worse.

1. The draft is loaded with unnecessary and impractical detail. To be sure, Hawkinson and Rosenblum make a virtue out of relieving the membership of the power to pass on the dues structure by way of constitutional amendment. I will not dispute that view myself, but I can sympathize with those who feel that a referendum on dues is not merely “pointless and wasteful.” On the other hand, what is gained by specifying that the President shall (Art. VII, Sec. 2(f)) “be responsible for the preparation of the budget…” and that the Executive Director shall (Art. IX, Sec. 4 (b)) “assist the President in preparing the annual budget”? Who else, when the natural office for that responsibility, an elected Treasurer, is to be abolished?

I have just read with dismay, Council-proposed amendments to the proposed Constitution, PS, Winter, 1971, page 17, Article III.

Apparently Council members feel only those who possess Doctor of Philosophy degrees are capable of knowledge and perceiving “truth”. This type of blatant elitism is difficult to believe or understand coming from those professing a concern for the minorities within APSA who have difficulty communicating and developing. I wonder if Council members feel restricting membership will increase the participation of the minorities.

I was a late appointee to the Constitutional Revision Committee, appointed by President Deutsch. Unfortunately, no meeting of the Committee was arranged at a time when I could attend.

Had I been able to attend meetings of the Committee, I would have vigorously opposed the proposed Constitution for many reasons. I will mention ONLY ONE; the proposed Constitution sharply reduces the opportunity for members of APSA to participate in important decisions. During the last three years, the Ad Hoc Committee has proposed three amendments to the present Constitution providing for broader participation by the whole membership in the governance of the Association. These amendments gave members an opportunity to vote for officers and Council members in contested elections, to vote on constitutional amendments, and to vote on resolutions. All three amendments were adopted by large majorities. I cannot believe that those who voted for these amendments will vote for a new Constitution that greatly curtails their chance to participate in governing the Association.

The offer to join the University of California faculty came soon after the New Year, when we had returned to Middletown, Connecticut, after our trip to Washington, D.C., recounted in the last chapter, where we renewed our life-long friendship with my mother, Edythe Polsby (later Mrs. H. X. Salzberger), the well-known capital hostess and short-order cook.

My wife had a slight cold, and so did not join me for the evening at the home of our neighbor, Professor Clement E. Vose, then Chairman of the Wesleyan University Department of Government. Vose was a sparkling raconteur and wit, a fact not known to many people. In consequence they were often puzzled by his conversation. He was in rare form that evening, no doubt stimulated by the presence of several of the wives of the younger faculty, and also by the guest of honor, Professor Samuel Krislov of the University of Minnesota, then on leave and teaching at Columbia. Vose described in detail the process by which he had acquired knowledge of efforts to repeal the 18th Amendment, and this in turn led naturally to a series of toasts to the memories of Messrs. Joseph Choate, John W. Davis, Harrison Tweed, and so on, all of whom had been in the forefront of that important movement.

At the heart of the debates which have resounded around political science these past few years are charges and countercharges as to the “politics” of the contenders. Terms like conservative, liberal and radical are no longer reserved for analysis of positions in the larger society; they have become part of the regular vocabulary with which political scientists evaluate their colleagues. This increase in visible and self-conscious political dissensus extends, of course, throughout the university, but it has left a special mark on political science and the other social sciences where the issues and objects of political disagreement are so enmeshed with the regular subject matter of the discipline.

In spite of all of the discussion, and the now seemingly general recognition that the politics of members of the profession has a lot to do with its development and contributions, we still don't have very much firm information on the distribution of political views among the approximately 6,000 faculty members regularly engaged in the teaching of political science in the United States. There have been a number of studies, of course, of party identification and voting behavior, showing political science to be one of the most Democratic fields in academe.

Like any nervous author, I anxiously awaited and carefully scrutinized each of the reviews of my book (The United Nations Force in Cyprus, Ohio State University Press, 1968). It's been a sobering experience reading the fifteen or so reviews that appeared. I suppose I should be pleased and hold my tongue, since nearly all the reviews are “favorable,” a few even embarrassingly gushy; but if my experience is typical, it seems to me that book reviewing as a form of intellectual communication is in such a poor state that we all ought to be concerned, if not alarmed. So I offer my personal observations and proposals to promote the time-honored purpose of stimulating the consideration and discussion that must precede reform.