Current Criticism of APSA Is Nothing New

Over the several decades of my professional career, complaints aboutAPSR and petitions to change the structure ofAPSA have been perennial features of life among politicalscientists. To a remarkable extent the agenda of concerns hasremained quite constant, focusing on issues of allegedly excessiveemphasis on technique and method, the representativeness of theReview, and the APSA's governing structures.Over the years the Association has tired to address these concerns,sometimes with a degree of success, but rarely enough to satisfy orsilence the critics. In part, the problem lies in the supposedincompatibility of the ostensible polarities; teaching versusresearch, technique versus substance, real world politics versustheoretically driven research. Of course, these are not either/orchoices but questions of degree, and the appropriate balance mayvary considerably across both time and the spectra of subject matterand professional career paths. Moreover, though we may give it morelip service than true commitment, the principle of interdependencereally does operate on each of these dimensions of our disputes. Asthat splendid scholar and wise man, V.O. Key, Jr., said in hispresidential address 40-odd years ago, “Method without substance maybe sterile, but substance without method is only fortuitouslysubstantial” (1958, 967).