Preview of the articles that will be published in the April issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, Washington Insider, Center Page, and In Profile.

Collection documents Staten Island politics.

Linda Lopez joins NSF.

Ralph Bunche Summer Institute names 2006 class.

Putnam awarded Johan Skytte prize.

PS Political Science & Politics October 2006 preview.

Washington Insider.

APSA names 2006 Small Research Grant recipients.

Center PAGE.

APSA Congressional Fellowship Program 2005–2006 office assignments.

A great divide between “Ivory Tower” academics and those engaged in applied politics characterizes popular perceptions for those on both sides of this chasm. Yet, after spending a year in Washington, D.C., as part of the APSA's Congressional Fellowship Program, it is evident that there are commonalities as well as differences between these two groups. However, applied career opportunities are rarely investigated by graduate students in political science, who aim instead for a tenured position in academe. According to the most recent data collected by the APSA, only 7 to 13% of Ph.D.s selected a non-academic position or career track during the period from 1990 through 2000, and this trend remained stable during the early part of this decade (Lopez 2003, 836).The author would like to thank Jeff Biggs, director of the Congressional Fellowship Program, and Michael Brintnall of the American Political Science Association. She also thanks Gene Alpert, Stan Bach, Arthur Burris, Beth Fuchs, John Haskell, Scott Keeter, Bill Koetzle, George Kundanis, Celinda Lake, Congressman Dan Lipinski, Thomas Mann, Norm Ornstein, Neil Pinney, John Ratliff, and Ben Scott for their contributions and insights. Those included in this study are not intended to be an exhaustive or representative list of political science Ph.D.s working in applied settings.

Washington Insider

The pacted nature of democratic transition seems to define the divergent path taken by Chilean elites in comparison with their Argentinean counterparts. However, using a Most Similar System Design (MSSD), two new elements enhance opportunities for explaining the different outcomes. First, the content of a mandate that has the ability to co-opt people from outside the privileged class; and second, the capacity of the elite to generate a process of political systematization and economic monetarization that ensures stability with no apparent democratic setbacks.

The Social Science Research Council, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is pleased to announce a new program of fellowships and workshops for predissertation research and dissertation proposal development. The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) program is designed to intervene at a critical moment in the career development of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences by aiding their transition from students to researchers. The DPDF program invites interested faculty to participate as research directors leading groups of 10–12 graduate student fellows in two four-day workshops. Each group will be led by two research directors, who will receive a stipend of $7,500 each. More information about the program may be found at: www.ssrc.org/programs/dpdf.

Israel and United States have been closely allied since Israel's founding. President Harry S Truman officially recognized Israel almost immediately after it declared independence, and popular support for this new state grew among Americans Jews and Christians alike. Support for Israel has remained high even as the strategic value of the alliance has apparently diminished. Indeed, in supporting Israel the United States has at times pursued a sub-optimal foreign policy. This presents an interesting political puzzle: in a country where public policy is made by majoritarian institutions (Congress and the president) designed to represent local interests and opinion, how has the cause of this small country maintained consistently high levels of support from policymakers and the public alike? That is the question we, together with our colleagues Kenneth Wald and Beth Rosenson, investigate in this research project.

CFP announces 2006-2007 fellows.

I have no interest in setting a precedent with this short valedictory, and trust none of my colleagues who chair other standing committees will think this presumptuous. There is, however, something about chairing the Association's Committee on Professional Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms which makes the experience somewhat unique, and I am hopeful this short message will help sensitize my colleagues into keeping the question of ethics in their minds as they ply the academic vineyards.

As we approach the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006, the American Political Science Association is financially sound, able to support a wide range of professional programs and projects to serve the membership. This strong condition arises from a solidly positive balance of assets against liabilities, and an operating budget well-matched to APSA's current scope and activities.

No year is like any other for the successive classes of APSA Congressional Fellows. Over the last few years Fellows have encountered the impeachment of a president, the repercussions of the terrorist bombings of New York City's Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the invasion of Iraq, and the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. One of this year's 2004–2005 Fellows, Amy Steigerwalt, is still waiting for the University of New Orleans to open so she can resume her teaching position.

The APSA Nominating Committee welcomes your suggestions for candidates for 2007 Council seats and offices. This year, eight Council seats, three vice presidencies, and the offices of president-elect and secretary are open. Council members serve staggered two-year terms. The president-elect, vice presidents, and secretary all serve one-year terms.

Special thanks, call for papers, Berlin seminar, Ella T Grasso collection, and National Archives offers Summer Institute for Educators.

Given our national obsession with efficiency, time management, and resource allocation, it is astounding that political scientists have not recently examined the organizational structure of congressional offices. Between the House of Representatives and Senate, there are 535 individual fiefdoms that employ those who toil away on Capitol Hill. What becomes abundantly clear from working on the Hill is that each of these offices marches to the beat of a different drummer. Every morning, after the ritualistic quest for coffee and the obligatory trot through security scanners, over 17,000 staffers find their way and open the doors to their respective offices. It is assumed that what works for one office is not a panacea for all.

With five years of experience under our collective belt, the French Politics Group (FPG) (a related group of the APSA) has moved into a new phase of network development and international collaboration across North America, Europe, and other continents. The goal of this article is to map out these networking efforts, to present the ingredients for our success, and, in so doing, provide some possible avenues of collaboration for other APSA members to consider in their own efforts to develop international work groups and networks.

A look at the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs.

The redirection of the Steiger Fund several years ago to provide Centennial Center research support for former APSA Congressional Fellows (CFP) has been a classic case of hiding your light beneath a bushel. Hopefully this brief article can begin to reverse the trend. Who was William Steiger, and why should he be remembered?

In January, 2006, APSA staff met with the President Alexander Nikitin of the Russian Political Science Association (RPSA) for discussions at the National Office in Washington, D.C. APSA is interested in establishing functional and research-based ties with scholarly communities overseas and these talks were an encouraging part of this process. As a start, APSA has agreed to provide RPSA with information on news and events in the discipline, while the RPSA has invited Thomas Remington, department chair at Emory University, to serve as a plenary speaker at their upcoming Annual Meeting in Moscow this October.

The following tables display the 10 most frequently downloaded APSA journal articles from the Cambridge University Press web site from January 2003 to present.