Jane Mansbridge's intellectual career is marked by field-shifting contributions to democratic theory, feminist scholarship, political science methodology, and the empirical study of social movements and direct democracy. Her work has fundamentally challenged existing paradigms in both normative political theory and empirical political science and launched new lines of scholarly inquiry on the most basic questions of democratic equality, deliberation, collective action, and political representation. Her three best-known books—Beyond Adversary Democracy (1980), Why We Lost the ERA (1986) and Beyond Self-Interest (1990a)—have become part of the political science canon and remain staples on graduate course syllabi decades after their publication. The importance of Mansbridge's work has been recognized by her colleagues through a trifecta of major APSA awards: the Gladys M. Kammerer Award (1987), the Victoria Schuck Award (1988), and, most recently, the James Madison Award and Lecture (2011).

The APSA Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World has released its report Democratic Imperatives Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World. The report argues that in emerging and established democracies alike, the promise of democracy remains unfulfilled. The report focuses on policies and institutions designed to deepen democracy by increasing respect for human rights, promoting participatory governance, and se-curing the economic bases of democratic citizenship. It documents how these measures can help to reduce democratic deficits by making government and politics more responsive, more accountable, and more transparent and by enabling citizens to take a greater role in governing themselves.

At its recent meeting in Madrid, Spain, the council of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) elected 16 new executive committee members for 2012–14 and a new president. APSA member Helen V. Milner of Princeton University was elected IPSA's president. Milner is the B.C. Forbes Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. She is currently also the chair of the department of politics. She taught at Columbia University from 1986 to 2004. Her Statement of Objectives are posted at www.ipsa.org/news.

The author draws upon his experience and observations outside academia to provide ten suggestions for graduate students in political science who are exploring nonacademic career options. Their mentors may also find this advice useful.

Today I am a researcher at Google and one of a handful of employees, out of a global workforce of more than 30,000, the with a PhD in political science. But less than two years ago, I was a tenure track professor of political science at a research university and could barely have imagined the unusual path my professional life would take. That path has been incredibly rewarding, as well as instructive both of the broad value a PhD in political science (and the social sciences more generally) and of the growing role for quantitative research outside of the academy. I recount much of that path below, with the hope that it might prove useful for those graduate students, post-docs, and professors who might be inclined to apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired in unconventional professional paths of their own.

This year was an unusual one for the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program—three fellows were placed with the same congressional office. The fact that three fellows, each with very different backgrounds, were drawn to the Senate Finance Committee, says something about the unique role that the committee plays in congressional policymaking. As one of the “A”s of the four “Super-A” committees, along with Appropriations, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations, the Senate Finance Com-mittee is one of the committee assignments most sought after by Senators. Its vast policy jurisdiction enables members to affect many different parts of the economy, society, and government. In addition to Chairman Baucus, the majority membership of the committee includes chairs of six other committees: Senators John Kerry of Foreign Relations; Jeff Bingaman of Energy and Natural Resources; John D. Rockefeller of Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Debbie Stabenow of Agriculture and Forestry; Kent Conrad of Budget; and Chuck Schumer who serves both as chairman of the Rules Committee and the Democratic Policy and Communications Center. On the minority side, in addition to the ranking member, Senator Orrin Hatch, the panel includes three ranking members of other committees: Senators Chuck Grassley of Judiciary, Olympia Snowe of Small Business, and Mike Enzi of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. They serve alongside with the Republican Whip Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican Conference Chair John Thune, and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas. This concentration of senatorial experience testifies to the importance of the work undertaken by the Finance Committee.

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. The program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives, and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this opportunity, the association enhances public understanding of policymaking and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching, and reporting on American national politics. For more information, please visit http://www.apsanet.org/content_3031.cfm.

As a result of generous contributions by Association members and friends to the Centennial Campaign, APSA created nine endowments to support a diverse range of grant programs to encourage individual research and writing in all fields of political science and to facilitate collaboration among scholars working within the discipline and across the social and behavioral sciences and humanities. More details on the Centennial Center, these endowments, and application requirements visit [email protected].

From July 15 to 27, APSA launched the fifth annual Africa Workshop in partnership with the faculty of social sciences at the University of Botswana in Gaborone. The program is part of a multiyear initiative to support political science research and teaching in Sub-Saharan Africa through a series of residential political science workshops at African universities and research institutions. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Africa Workshop is a major component of APSA's efforts to support research networks linking US scholars with their colleagues overseas and engage political science communities outside the United States.

A preview of some of the articles in the January 2013 issue.

Recognizing excellence in the profession is one of the most important activities of APSA. The following awards were announced in August 2012.

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 approved by this Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and more than two hundred other professional and educational organizations which have endorsed the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Under threat of Hurricane Isaac, APSA cancelled the 108th Annual Meeting, scheduled to begin in New Orleans August 30, two days prior to its start. Preconference activities scheduled for August 29 already had been canceled because of the storm threat. In the words of then-president G. Bingham Powell, Jr. and incoming president Jane Mansbridge this cancellation was “a disappointing intellectual loss and a particular problem for the untenured members of our association who were counting on various ways on their participation.” The storm's slow, persistent trajectory over the Gulf Region made it impossible to seek to restart the meeting after its opening days. The devastation to the Gulf Region from Hurricane Isaac was significant, and APSA expresses sympathies to the families of those who lost their lives and their homes, and to the thousands who suffered emotional, financial, and physical damage.

In addition to the APSA awards (see full listing and citations in the Gazette, this issue) the following recognitions were announced by the APSA Organized Sections.

The following Ralph Bunche Scholars were selected to present their Ralph Bunche Summer Insitute research papers in a poster session at the 2012 APSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As the world becomes more interdependent and its governance more complex, both within and between nation-states, the two biggest resources for human cooperation — persuasion and legitimate coercive power — become harder to generate across cultural and linguistic lines and sovereign boundaries. Yet the future will require more of these resources. To help societies meet the needs for political interactions of increasing complexity and scale, political scientists need to understand better the uses and abuses of both persuasion and power in varying contexts and scales. This year's program theme encourages scholars to consider the politics of persuasion and power, along with their many intersections.