Perestroika: For An Ecumenical Science of Politics

The Perestroika movement is a reaction against scholars who wish to turn the study of politics into what Thomas Kuhn called a “normal science.” They seek to impose a consensus on epistemological and methodological questions in order to hasten scientific progress. This group of scholars comprises mainly rational choice theorists, formal modelers, and those who do exclusively quantitative research. I refer to them as advocates of “hard science.”

Almost a decade ago, historian Gary Okihiro asked “Is yellow black or white?” (Okihiro 1994). Although Okihiro argued for solidarity between nonwhite groups, he noted that yellow is neither black nor white: That dichotomous racial framework does not adequately represent Asian Americans. Similarly, a political framework that was developed when African Americans were overwhelmingly the nation's most numerous minority does not fully capture the politics of Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry. As recent waves of non-European immigrants have required a broader conception of what it means to be an American, they have also made it necessary for political scientists to develop an expanded notion of the scope of minority politics.The distinct Characteristics of Asian Pacific-American (APA) politics have led to the formation of Asian Pacific American Caucus (APAC), an APSA-related group. APAC helps to bring together political scientists and other scholars who study APA politics.

Introduction: The Emerging Political Status of Asian-American Elected Officials

Research on Asian-American elected officials is scarce, but Asian-American officeholders are not. The National Asian Pacific American Political Almanac (Lai and Nakanishi 2001) lists hundreds of Asian Americans who hold elected offices in national, state, and local governments, in addition to a number of appointed officials and judges. Furthermore, increasing numbers of Asian-American, political candidates run for national and state-level offices (Cho 2000a; Lien forthcoming), and there have been periodic Asian-American political movements (Wei 1993). Nevertheless, Asian-America political leadership and Asian-Americans' roles in campaigns have often been overlooked in the discussion of minority politics, in part due to the community's relatively young and largely foreign-born population (Brackman and Erie 1995).

For at least 150 years, Asian Pacific Americans have faced racial discrimination, violence, and segregation. Unable to vote before World War II, many used legal challenges and other non-electoral means to fight for equality (Salyer 1995). Family and regional associations formed for economic needs, while other groups organized to defend worker rights (Bulosan 1973; Kwong 1997; Yoneda 1983). Civil rights organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League (founded in 1930) and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance (founded in 1915) promoted assimilation and opposed discrimination.

Studying Asian-American politics with public opinion data is a relatively new phenomenon. Only in the last decade have a number of surveys (collected mostly at the local or regional level) been taken, reflecting expanded interest in the growing Asian-American population and the development of ethnic sampling and interviewing techniques.In this article, the terms “Asian” and “Asian American” are used interchangeably. While most research on Asian-American political behavior focuses on voting, some work examines other forms of political participation. Recent scholarship concerns not only individual characteristics, but also contextual and institutional factors.

The Los Angeles rebellion of 1992 was a flashpoint in which the struggles of blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans converged with explosive consequences. Dubbed the nation's first “multiracial” riot, it drove home the point that racial dynamics in the United States cannot be understood through a simple black–white framework. The events in L.A. were only the most dramatic example of interminority conflicts that have emerged in many American cities during the post-1965 era, as economic restructuring and immigration have brought racial/ethnic groups into more extensive contact with one another, reshaping their identities and relationships and creating new pressure points for conflict. Rapid economic and demographic change has also opened up new possibilities for coalition and cooperation among racial/ethnic groups, from electoral politics to grassroots community activism. Asian Americans, often depicted as an “interstitial” group and a potential “swing vote,” have played and will continue to play a key role in interracial conflicts and coalitions in American politics.Although we focus on the post-1965 period in this article, conflict and cooperation between Asian Americans and other communities of color date back into the 1800s.

In his contribution to an important new collection on Asian-American politics, Don T. Nakanishi calls for “renewing a search for a paradign of Asian Pacific American politics” that takes into account “nondomestic political experiences and relationships” (2001, 106). This article addresses Nakanishi's challenge to consider efforts by Asian Pacific Americans to influence U.S.–Asia relations, especially in advocating changes in American foreign policy towards their countries of origin; the ways in which international processes and policies related to the flow of people, money, goods, and ideas impinge on the political behavior and status of Asian Pacific Americans; and the impact of international political conflicts and domestic political crises involving Asian homelands on interethnic and intracommunity political relations involving Asian Pacific American communities (2001, 106-7).

Debates over displays of the Confederate flag have roiled Southern politics in recent years. Opponents of the flag view it is a symbol of slavery and Jim Crow, and consequently an insult to black Americans and evidence of the refusal of many Southerners to let go of an inglorious past. Supporters of the flag, however, argue that the flag today has no linkage with slavery or Jim Crow, but instead symbolizes Southern heritage and tradition.

On December 12, 2000, for the first time in America's history a court of law determined the outcome of a presidential election. Before an anxious citizenry, the United States Supreme Court issued the decision that would ultimately give George W. Bush the presidency, if not absolute victory. Remarkably, the U.S. Supreme Court justices were not the only jurists pulled into the fray. In numerous lawsuits, several Florida state courts rendered decisions that figured prominently in the 2000 presidential election.

As the initial results of the 2000 Census were made public, the December 2000 issue of PS was published. In that issue, articles by Lynne Billard (2000), Thomas Brunell (2000a), and by us (Anderson and Fienberg 2000a) explored the technical innovations for adjusting the census to ameliorate the effect of the differential undercount and the political controversies surrounding the implementation of some of those innovations in the 1990 census. We commented on Brunell (2000a) in Anderson and Fienberg (2000b). Brunell (2000b) responded to our article on mythmaking, which focused on the implication for apportionment of a computer error in the proposed adjustment. This is our response to Brunell's comments on our original article about census adjustment and apportionment in 1990. In particular we point out that Brunell misread both out tables and our discussion about the computer error. In his comments, Brunell (2000b, 2000c) also raises new issues about adjustment. We respond to these, albeit briefly.

The term paper is a standard requirement of undergraduate political science courses, yet for both students and faculty it is frequently unsatisfying. When teachers allow students to choose their own topics from the range of issues covered in a course, students often flounder for direction. Papers based on a professor's preselected questions suggest the need for a thesis but leave undergraduates uncertain about how to construct one. The result: papers that deal with a broad topic rather than presenting a sharp thesis. While the writing process alone may be a valuable learning experience for some undergraduates, many other simply throw together a mass of information without spending time integrating their work into a coherent whole. Students complain of being overwhelmed, and the grader is left to sort through a paper in search of its point.

Quite often, people make jokes at the expense of political science majors. These jokes suggest that political science majors—and especially those graduating from liberal arts colleges and universities—have not acquired the necessary practical skills to make a living, let alone to acquire a lucrative career.

Introduction

John Pike, former director of space policy at the Federation of American Scientists, once said to me: “Everything there is to know about nuclear strategy can be learned from Dr. Strangelove.” “Everything” is only a mild overstatement. I show Dr. Strangelove annually to Notre Dame audiences to teach about nuclear war, and I will continue to do so until nuclear weapons and war itself are no longer problems. The film offers lessons about war, politics, and history and can serve as a teaching aid for classes in introductory international relations, foreign policy, defense policy, causes of war, organizational politics, and Cold War history.Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worying and Love the Bomb, screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern. Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. Based on the book by Peter Bryant (a pseudonym for Peter George), Red Alert (New York: Ace Books, 1958). The British title for Red Alert was Two Hours to Doom. The book based on the screenplay is: Peter George, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (New York: Bantam Books, 1963. Published January, 1964). The film was scheduled for release on December 12, 1963, but was not shown until January 1964 due to President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. Ed. note: when talking about Dr. Strangelove, the film, the title is italicized. The character Dr. Strangelove is not italicized. A longer version of this guide is available via: <www.nd.edu/~dlindley/>.

Each year since 1993, the American Political Science Association has recognized its campuswide teaching award winners in the December issue of PS. From 1993 to 1999, more than 400 faculty were recognized for their achievements in the classroom. Though we know who receives teaching awards, we know little about these exceptional teachers. What are the demographic backgrounds, behaviors, and attitudes of “star” teachers? Do they value teaching in qualitatively different ways than other university faculty? Do they use similar particular teaching strategies? Do different institutional settings value different styles of teaching? Are there meaningful variations in the approaches and activities of star teachers with different demographic backgrounds?

The relationship between reputational rankings of political science departments and their scholarly productivity remains a source of discussion and controversy. After the National Research Council (1995) published its ranking of 98 political science departments, Katz and Eagles (1996), Jackman and Siverson (1996), and Lowry and Silver (1996) analyzed the factors that seemingly influenced those rankings. Miller, Tien, and Peebler (1996) offered an alternate approach to ranking departments, based both upon the number of faculty (and their graduates) who published in the American Political Science Review and upon the number of citations that faculty members received. More recently, two studies have examined departmental rankings in other ways. Ballard and Mitchell (1998) assessed political science departments by evaluating the level of productivity in nine important disciplinary and subfield journals, and Garand and Graddy (1999) evaluated the impact of journal publications (and other variables) on the rankings of political science departments. In general, Miller, Tien, and Peebler found a high level of correspondence between reputation rankings and productivity, Ballard and Mitchell did not, and Garand and Graddy found that publications in “high impact” journals were important for departmental rankings.

Should we trust the results of our statistical computations? Closely following the development of the mainframe computer, Longley (1967) criticized the accuracy of the first regression programs. Approximately every 10 years thereafter, similar comments echoed for each new generation of statistical software. In a recent criticism, McCullough and Vinod (1999) argue that commonly used statistical packages may give “horrendously inaccurate” results, which have gone largely unnoticed (635–37). Moreover, they argue that in consequence of these inaccuracies, past inferences are in question, and future work must document and archive statistical software alongside statistical models (660–62). When political scientists discuss accuracy in computer-intensive quantitative analysis, however, we are relatively sanguine. Numerical accuracy is almost never discussed in articles or even in textbooks geared toward the most sophisticated and computationally intensive techniques (e.g., King 1989; Mooney 1997). Notable exceptions are a forthcoming APSR controversy that depends on the meaning and evaluation of numerical accuracy in ecological inference (King 2001; Tam Cho and Gaines 2001) and a study of numerical accuracy issues in replication (Altman and McDonald 2001).

Activities

James Brent, associate professor, department of political science, San Jose State University, elected chair of the Academic Senate for 2001–02.

Donald E. Boles

Donald Edward Boles died on Monday, February 12, at his home in Marieta, California, due to complications from a massive stroke he had suffered in November 1999. He was 74 years old. For more than 36 years (1955–91) Don was a faculty member in the Department of Political Science, Iowa State University.

In an era in which some political scientists are concerned that an emphasis on formalism has weakened the realworld commitment and impact of the discipline, APSA President Robert D. Putnam has led the way in melding research and action. Putnam's research has been driven by attention to the big, basic questions of governance: How do national traditions of ideological style affect political decision making? What determines the success or failure of political institutions? What domestic political factors help or hinder efforts by political leaders to reach cooperative international agreements?

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted from AAUP's May–June 2001 issue of Academe with the permission of the AAUP. Updated information from the 2001 AAUP annual meeting is also included. Investigations by the American Association of University Professors of the administrations of the institutions listed below show that, as evidenced by a past violation, they are not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure endorsed by this Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and more than 150 other professional and educational organizations. The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure may be found in the May–June 1990 issue of Academe.