John Gunnell’s piece provides a useful occasion to reflect critically on the impact of “perestoika.” In doing so, I use the term perestroika to refer to the spontaneous movement, fueled by discontent and demands for reform, which originated in 2000 with an anonymous e-mail, signed “Mr. Perestroika” and sent to seventeen recipients who were encouraged to forward it to others. The e-mail advocated “dismantling … the Orwellian system” in the American Political Science Association (original perestroika letter) and, in particular, increasing methodological pluralism to make political science more relevant and accessible to non-specialists. The movement originated in what perestroika considered the perceived effort by practitioners of quantitative/mathematical work to establish hegemony over publications and appointments within political science and, more broadly, an arrogant and narrow understanding about what constituted good scientific work. perestroika’s main goals were to broaden the type of methodological work deemed “acceptable” and to increase diversity within the APSA power structure by including in the profession’s decision-making structure scholars who did more varied work, on a wider range of topics, utilizing an expanded range of methodologies, and who included political scientists outside the traditionally prestigious colleges and universities. The name Perestroika Glasnost—roughly “warm house”—was meant to signal the movement’s desire that political science as a discipline be more welcoming to diverse types of work.

What did perestroika accomplish? A lot. Its most critical triumphs were its successful challenge to the view that there was only one way to do political science and its legitimization of the view that political science was a humanistic as well as a scientific discipline. In the ferment of perestroika, APSA established a new journal—Perspectives on Politics (POP)—designed to be edgier, more creative, controversial, and less tradition-bound than the American Political Science Review (APSR). The first editor, Jennifer Hochschild, did an excellent job searching out more innovative work. Her followers continued this tradition. Now widely respected, POP is read by many political scientists in preference to the APSR. Hochschild herself is the APSA’s President-elect.

Both the existence and popularity of POP and the professional prominence of the journal’s founding editor are emblematic of a deeper change achieved by perestroika: the shift in the discipline’s attitude toward methodological pluralism. My sense is that debates—fights, if you will—between quantitative and qualitative political scientists are largely a thing of the past. To newly-minted Ph.D.s, arguing over the superiority of quantitative versus qualitative analysis seems what it always should have been labeled: silly. I do not say this cavalierly; a residue of arrogant disdain for scholarly work that does not have a number attached to it remains a pernicious, ugly part of some political science departments. Perestroika’s concern with an artificial and narrow conceptualization of what is good “scientific” work was and is an important one. But perestroika shifted the battle, with more scholars, especially younger ones, now realizing there are many ways to examine a political issue and that good work will address a political problem using all the appropriate instruments available in the methodological tool-kit.

I note one example. One of my students, Bridgette Portman, examined the psychological underpinnings of political belief systems, asking whether ontological and existential differences exist between liberal and conservative politicos. Rooted in terror management theory, Portman’s thesis utilized multiple methodologies—interviews, surveys, content analysis of speeches and public documents—to reveal the psychology of activists involved in politics in the United States, including their belief systems, personality traits and senses of individual and collective identity. By approaching a political problem using such diverse methodological tools, Portman was able to discern various facets of the diamond, not just to present a one-dimensional analysis. In this, Portman followed in the tradition of V.O. Key’s Southern Politics, itself a methodological masterpiece and one suggesting perestroika’s demand for increased sensitivity to how methodological pluralism can enrich our substantive analysis is not a radical change so much as a reminder to do good, methodologically-rich scholarly work. Insofar as this change is a generational one—and I hope it is—perestroika has been wildly successful, and should be applauded by the discipline as a whole.

Perestroika’s success in challenging the existing power structure is more difficult to assess. In part, it did succeed. Certainly several of the scholars whose work initially was lauded by perestroika—Susanne Rudolph and Jim Scott—were given top offices in the APSA, Scott on Council, Rudolph as APSA President. Yet the APSA power structure itself remains surprisingly staid. Part of what perestroika desired was an opening of that structure to include people not automatically embraced, whose work might not immediately be seen as relevant for political science. ^{Footnote 1} In this, the APSA remains elitist, still dominated by the traditionally-prestigious universities. (Both Rudolph and Scott were at high-status universities, the University of Chicago and Yale, respectively.)

At a 2014 APSA panel organized on equality and exclusion in political science, Rodney Hero noted that he is both the first Latino and the first APSA president ever to attend a junior college. While the APSA has responded well to demands for inclusion from many excluded groups—Latinos, women, African-Americans, LGBTs, women of color, and others—it has so far failed to address the issue of socioeconomic class. ^{Footnote 2} The APSA should do more to select as Council members and officers—including especially the presidency—political scientists who are not at prestigious Research 1 universities, or who do not work in academia at all. ^{Footnote 3} I hope this is changing. Hero has put this topic on the official agenda, and has scheduled a theme panel on inclusion at the 2015 meetings, noting that who is allowed in the discussion greatly influences how the discussion gets structured, and that many disparate voices need to be heard. The panel honors David Easton, who saved the APSA from splintering into two groups, one an academically-isolated professional association and the second a more politically or policy-oriented one, in the 1960s, when similar issues of relevance were raised by a group of so-called radical scholars.

Will the profession listen, and respond to the demand that a wider-range of scholars be included at the table in which decisions are made, with all the implications that has for how we define the very nature of our professional work and life? This remains an open question. In this regard, perestroika’s call to open the profession to all—as a welcoming warm house does—constitutes a battle that even now remains to be fought. Sadly, it can still be lost, to the detriment of us all.