The Political Science Program of the National Science Foundation is the primary source of support for basic research conducted by university-based political scientists. While the scientific progress of the discipline depends on what happens in the minds, the fields, the laboratories, the libraries, and the typewriters of scholars across the country, there is little question that the size of the Program budget and its usage affects the type and quality of research done by political scientists.

This article offers a public accounting to an interested clientele. In no way is it an officially sanctioned statement from NSF. It is a set of personal reflections with some analysis, parts of which my superiors at the Foundation find objectionable. Some of the arguments will not please important sectors of the discipline's intellectual and political leadership as well. I offer it in hopes of stimulating reaction and change. It is limited to basic research support, primarily through the Political Science Program, and does not extend to support for applied research funded typically through RANN-NSF. Finally, the Foundation is effecting a major reorganization which may have far-reaching consequences for the Division of Social Science of which the Program is a part; thus what is said here is subject to change over the next few years.