The 102nd APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia refocused the discipline's take on the true crux of politics: power. Program Co-Chairs Judith Goldstein of Stanford University and Rick Valelly of Swarthmore College worked closely with plenary speakers, theme panel participants, and with a 51-person Program Committee drawn from all of APSA's 35 organized sections to realize their central vision: a revival of the discipline's examination of how power is used (and abused) in politics.

On Thursday evening, APSA President Ira Katznelson delivered his presidential address, “At the Court of Chaos: Political Science in an Age of Perpetual Fear.” The lecture, an elegant summation of the interrelations of power and fear in the 20th century, was recorded and scheduled for broadcast on C-SPAN Radio on September 10th, and will be published in the March issue of Perspectives. After the address, attendees enjoyed an evening of camaraderie in the Grand Hall of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where they were treated to the musical stylings of Rational Choice, perhaps the world's first jazz quartet headlined by political scientists (Perspectives on Politics Book Review Editor Jeffrey Isaacs on piano and Stanford University's John Ferejohn on sax).

Recognizing excellence in scholarship is one of APSA's most important activities. In Philadelphia, the APSA presented awards for best dissertations, papers, articles, books, and career achievements at its annual Awards Ceremony and Luncheon, sponsored by Polity. Among those honored, Kenneth Meier of Texas A&M University received the John Gaus Award for achievement and exemplary scholarship in political science and public administration and delivered the honorary lecture to APSA attendees on Friday evening. The lecture, entitled “The Public Administration of Politics, Or What Political Science Could Learn from Public Administration,” will be published in the January issue of PS.

Other Annual Meeting highlights included the APSA Reception Honoring Teaching, sponsored by Pi Sigma Alpha and Rowman and Littlefield, which recognized over 100 scholars who have received teaching awards on their own campuses.

Twenty-six Theme Panels addressed all facets of power, shattering the discipline's recent silence on this most central of political themes (see Co-Chair Rick Valelly's essay on this quiescence in the Chronicle Review ‘Vol. 52 (49): B6’ and in the Annual Meeting Program ‘pgs. 12–15’). Plenary sessions were both closely tied to the overarching theme of power, and yet uncommonally diverse. Individually, they focused on broad yet distinct interactions of power with gender, race, language, and place, and more specifically of power within certain governments and countries. Together, these panels and roundtables represent a renewal of the concept and study of power.

Other plenary events featured a variety of well-known voices on politics. Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell spoke about leadership at the Pi Sigma Alpha Lecture, after which he interviewed with Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne for a piece published in the periodical's September 5th edition. Representative John Conyers (D-MI) spoke at the New Political Science Plenary Saturday night.

APSA will gather for its 103rd Annual Meeting in Chicago next year to discuss the intersection of disciplines for the theme, Political Science and Beyond. Check out the 2007 Annual Meeting's Call for Papers in this issue (starting on page 981). For more information on the 2007 APSA Annual Meeting, check www.apsanet.org, and look for more details in PS throughout the year ahead.