In a speech to the German Bundestag in 1998, the well-known Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer stressed the role of intellectual elites and especially university professors in making the Holocaust possible. To this, he added the question: ‘If we have indeed learnt anything, it is whether we do not still keep producing technically competent barbarians in our universities’. This article is a reflection on the implications of this question for present-day teaching and research in political science.

For many years, the dissemination of academic research has been controlled by commercial publishers. However, in light of the continuing inflation of subscription prices for scholarly journals, many academics are investigating open access publishing over the Internet. Although most advanced in the natural sciences, given its essentially political character, open access publishing should also be carefully considered by political scientists (and associated disciplines). This article explores open access publishing and suggests the reputational pay-off of ‘normal’ publishing can easily be maintained in the open access realm.

This article reviews Giovanni Sartori's contribution to contemporary political science. Sartori, who has just turned eighty, re-founded Italian political science and taught a generation of political scientists. He has made important contributions on democracy, party systems, and on political and constitutional engineering, and has written many significant methodological articles. Conceptual clarity, analytical rigour, methodological awareness, and interest in theory-building have allowed Sartori to become one of the most prominent political scientists of the 20th century.

The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy project examines West European parliamentary politics from a principal–agent perspective. The project involves thirty-five scholars from Western Europe and the Americas. It has made both conceptual and empirical contributions in the fields of comparative politics, parliamentary democracy in general and coalition politics in particular. In this report, the project leaders present the project, its ‘structured collaboration’ approach and share some observations on the practice of conducting a large-scale cross-national project.

This article surveys two concomitant developments in European political methodology. First, we point to a recent methodological convergence across Europe and the Atlantic. Second, we note a broadening methodological divide between explanatory and interpretive approaches to political phenomena. This survey provides a backdrop for introducing a new ECPR Standing Group in Political Methodology as an outlet for new methodological techniques and a venue for exchange across Europe's broad methodological spectrum.

The implementation of the Bologna Declaration differs considerably across participating countries. This is most true with regard to the introduction of a two-tier study system. The varying rates of development within Europe present a unique opportunity for countries to learn from one another. This article focuses on the alternative design options available, on the one hand, and the concrete experiences with the implementation of these options at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, on the other.

Drawing on a survey of 25 political science associations in Europe, this article identifies four basic models of doctoral training: the standardised programme, the apprenticeship, the lone scholar and the hybrid models. These differ in their degrees of standardisation and opportunities for professional integration. While the apprenticeship model is under strain due to financial pressure, standardised models are increasingly popular. Hybrid models offer a flexible credit-based alternative, and may capture the best of both worlds.

This article argues that European doctoral programmes in political science should have three main aspirations. First, students must master the cutting edge research literature, and thus should get the high-level training that they need in both theory and methodology. Second, programmes should expose students to multidisciplinary influences and strong skills of critical analysis, so that they may see further than the current generation. Finally, in order to reproduce the profession, students must be taught to become excellent teachers.

Political science is an established discipline in practically every German university, and has been for quite some time. However, the German university system now faces external pressures to internationalise, such as those exerted by the Bologna process, and internal pressures associated with resource constraints and challenges to established career paths, such as the Habilitation (higher doctorate). An amendment to the German Framework Act for Higher Education, which would eliminate the Habilitation and replace it with a new instrument, the Junior Professorship, has recently been ruled unconstitutional. All this contributes to great uncertainty about future career trajectories in political science.

This article provides a quick pan-European overview of the role played by political science and scientists in the education and training of (future) top civil servants. It then raises two broader issues: the question of the ‘social usefulness’ of political science and the complex nature of the relationship between academics and decision-makers or social actors. The article concludes with a strong reassertion of the essential scientific autonomy of our discipline.

The ESRC 1+3 funding model represents a major reform to postgraduate training in the United Kingdom. To ensure universities produce graduates with an adequate skills base, the programme prescribes a set of research methods and general and transferable skills, and restricts funding to institutions with accredited programmes. Although applications for places on accredited PhD programmes remain strong, one possible disadvantage is the potential concentration of funding among a small number of UK institutions.