Post–World War II political science in America has been
described (by me, that is) as an excuse, concocted by college
professors, for avoiding actual political engagement while not actually
achieving science. Too much work by too many colleagues over too many
decades deserves that dismissive characterization, but not so for the
report penned by the professors who led the American Political Science
Association Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy.
Theirs—ours!—is arguably the most important and timely
report ever produced by APSA. As I told the task force when I served as
one of its discussants, the report is terrific and makes me proud to be
a card-carrying member of APSA.At Penn,
John J. DiIulio Jr. serves as faculty director of the Program for Research
on Religion and Urban Civil Society. In 2001 he served as the first director
of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He is
coeditor with E. J. Dionne of What's God Got to Do With the American
Experiment?