We encourage the APSA members to be creative in thinking about possible content for submission to PS.
Unlike many journals, PS has substantial flexibility in the content which we publish. For instance, the authors of “Campaigning Online: Web Display Ads in the 2012 Presidential Campaign,” in this issue of PS provide a coding guide and screenshots illustrating their coding process. The “Art of Elections” symposium from the January issue also provided innovative graphics to supplement the text and appear on the cover.
Our point here is that PS can go beyond the standard article format that dominates much of academic publishing. Think creatively! You are writing for an audience of ten thousand or more members of the discipline, and we want our content to not just highlight important issues of concern to the profession, but to be entertaining and visually appealing.
We’d also like to highlight three symposia in this issue.
First, we are pleased to publish a symposium organized by Carl Klarner (klarnerpolitics.com) titled “Beyond the Ivory Tower: Political Science Careers Outside Academia.” This symposium grew out of a chance meeting on the sidewalk outside the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco, where Carl regaled us with tales of the rewards and challenges of building his new political consulting business focused on state legislative contests.
At the same time, we were reading an active thread in the Political Scientists Facebook group about political scientists working in the policy world, started by Lee Drutman of New America (https://www.newamerica.org/experts/lee-drutman/).
Out of these two conversations—one in person and one virtual—grew the idea to organize a set essays by political scientists who have pursued successful careers outside of the academy. We asked Carl to take the lead, and he did a great job helping us assemble the symposium.
Recognizing how difficult the job market is in academia, we find the variety of professional opportunities outside of academia which these authors highlight to be encouraging. But more importantly, we’re excited to see our fellow scholars doing such important and interesting work in the private sector, in non-profits, and for governments, yet continue to identify as political scientists.
A second symposium in this issue provides another stellar example of the public relevance of political science: a set of essays by current members of our profession who serve in the US Congress.
Representative David Price (https://price.house.gov/), who has remained engaged in political science despite a long and distinguished career representing the fourth district of North Carolina, deserves much of the credit for prompting us to move forward with this symposium. We realized a year ago that it had been a decade since David had written about his career in Congress, and an initial outreach to write an updated essay quickly grew into the larger set of essays you will find in this issue.
Michael Crespin, Director of the Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma (http://psc.publishpath.com/michael-crespin) and Anthony Madonna, associate professor at the University of Georgia (http://spia.uga.edu/faculty_pages/ajmadonn/) did the heavy lifting on soliciting the essays, keeping the members on track, and writing a provocative cover article on the current state of Congressional politics.
Finally, we are excited about the symposium on philanthropy led by Kristin Goss (kgoss@duke.edu) of Duke University, “Why Political Scientists Should Study Organized Philanthropy.” We think the authors make a compelling argument for why political scientists need to pay attention to the future of philanthropic giving.
PS has also helped to organize a set of panels at the Annual Meeting on the future of philanthropy. Kathryn Webb Farley, assistant professor of public administration at Appalachian State University (http://gjs.appstate.edu/faculty-staff/webb-farley) and Steven R. Smith, executive director of APSA, are co-organizers of a panel that was originally going to be sponsored by PS, but has now been accepted as one of the theme panels for the conference. Congratulations to Kathryn and Steve (and thanks to Hahrie Han, UC Santa Barbara http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/people/hahrie-han, who helped move the panel forward). We are currently working with Kathryn and Steve to create a roundtable panel of decision-makers from prominent non-profits, public charities, and other foundations to discuss all these issues.
We did not plan to have a thematic set of panels, articles, and symposia on transformations in philanthropy, but circumstances and some wonderful proposals have taught us how important these changes have been to the processes of political, social, and economic change. We agree with authors in the Goss symposium that political science should pay much closer attention to the non-profit world. We hope you agree, and look forward to seeing you at these two panels in Philadelphia.
