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Participation in APSA Annual Meetings, 1964–1969

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

Donald D. Barry
Affiliation:
Lehigh University
James G. Bommer
Affiliation:
Lehigh University

Extract

This is a study of participation in six annual meetings (1964–1969) of the American Political Science Association. Participation was defined to include not only membership on panels but also membership on the Program Committee (i.e., program chairman and chairman of the panel categories-here called subject area chairman). Data on participation were gathered from the programs of the meetings and background data on participation were obtained from the APSA Biographical Directory (Fifth Edition, 1968 and Fourth Edition, 1961) and from other sources.

The study is divided into three parts: multiple participants and two sub-groups thereof, “rule violators” and the leadership group. Multiple participants (MPs) are those who participated in APSA annual meetings two or more times during the period 1964–1969. “Rule violators” (RVs) are those who, contrary to what is stated to be APSA general policy, participated more than one time in any single year. The leadership group includes members of the program committee.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1970

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Walter E. Beach, Assistant Director, APSA, for his help throughout the course of the project; to the personnel of the Registrar's Office, Lehigh University for the use of their data-processing equipment; to Carol Barry, for editing and data-processing; to Roy Herrenkohl of Lehigh University for advice on data organization. This article is a substantially abbreviated version of a longer study completed in January, 1970. A limited number of copies of the original study are available and may be obtained from the authors on request.

References

1 In addition to regular panels, plenary and special sessions were included but presidential addresses, breakfast and luncheon meetings, membership and organizational meetings were excluded. Also excluded were sessions with individuals such as those with Professors Strauss and Deutsch listed on p. 32 of the 1964 Program. Although defined as a plenary session, the Plenary Session of the Caucus for a New Political Science (p. 40, 1968 Program) was excluded. One “special session” (number IV in 1969, pp. 79–80 in 1969 Program) was excluded. This was a report of the preliminary findings of the APSA student-faculty Committee on Graduate Education, and the program simply listed the nine members of the Committee.

2 In addition to the traditional breakdown of panel chairman, paper readers and discussants, some panels were set up as round tables or panel discussions with the participants listed as participants, panelists, members of a panel discussion or discussants. In spite of the latter term, all of these participants were classified as paper readers on the ground that they were making some kind of formal presentation rather than responding to the work of others. “Speakers” at plenary meetings were also classified as paper readers. While this increased the number of paper readers, the latter heading seems the best place to put participants from these rather ambiguous categories. With regard to workshops, demonstrations and special meetings (for example, the “America Votes” panels) at which only one participant is listed and where the format appears to be that of an informal discussion, the participant is listed as a panel chairman.

3 Other sources used In the collection of background data included the following: American Men of Science: The Social and Behavioral Sciences, New York, 10th ed., 1962, 11th ed., 1968; Directory of American Scholars, New York, Vol. II, History, 5th ed., 1969; ibid., Vol. IV, Philosophy, Religion and Law, 5th ed., 1969; The Canadian Who's Who, Toronto, 1966; Directory, Constitution and Bylaws, American Sociological Association, Washington, 1967; The 1964 Handbook of the American Economic Association (Vol. LIV, no. 1, Jan., 1964 of American Economic Review); The 1966 Hand book ot the American Economic Association (Vol. LVI, no. 4, part 2, September, 1966, American Economic Review); “News and Notes” and “Dissertations Completed” sections of all issues of PS through Summer, 1969 and of APSR from the September, 1960 issue (Vol. LIV, no. 3) through the September 1967 issue (Vol. LXI, no. 4).

4 PS, Vol. II, Special Supplement, Summer, 1969, p. 538.

5 Ibid., and correspondence with the authors. At the time this article was going to press, It was brought to the attention of the authors that a “policy decision” had been announced in September, 1958 by the then Program Chairman Marver H. Bernstein “that no person be listed to appear on more than one panel.” This would appear to be the provenance of the rule. See APSR, December, 1958, p. 1222. In 1970, the Counsel affirmed its commitment to the policy of “no double participation.”

PS, Summer 1970 Vol. 3, no. 3, p. 412.

6 Of the 501 multiple participants in our study, complete background data on the “important” categories of information (all categories are considered important except country of origin, marital status and past employment) were found on 455. On another 29 all but one important piece of information was found and on the remaining 27 two or more important pieces of information proved impossible to locate. This explains the variation in Ns in the following presentation. All percentages given in this report are of the number of participants on whom relevant data are available. In editing the study for publication space considerations required the elimination of most of the data on year of birth and time of receipt of terminal degree of participants.

7 Marital status is one of the “changeable” categories we investigated. We are confident that some of our information on this subject is out of date. But we consider marital status of marginal Importance to our analysis and have limited its use in the study. Accordingly, It has not been calculated for the two smaller groups. Other changeable categories that we think we have traced down more successfully include place and time of terminal degree, present position and rank and past position(s) and rank(s). Because of space limitations, only place of terminal degree and present position (i.e., institutional affiliation) are discussed in this report.

8 The available data on race was on blacks in the profession, and this determined the way in which coding was done. The authors are aware of at least one Oriental in the non-black category.

9 Secondary schools, private associations, business firms, foundations, government agencies, and research institutes.

10 The Brookings Institution had six, the Rand Corporation, five, and the institute for Policy Studies, two.

11 The 26 multiple violations mentioned in this paragraph were spread among 20 multiple violators.

12 One of these eight served during two years in a leadership post.

13 Somit, Albert and Tanenhaus, Joseph, The Development of American Political Science (Boston, 1967), p. 155.Google Scholar

14 Correspondence from Professor Josephine Milburn, University of Rhode Island, Chairman of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession.

15 Somit and Tanenhaus, op. cit., p. 164.

15a At the time this article was going to press, the Washington Office of APSA brought to our attention a number of efforts that have been made by the APSA leadership, especially since late 1969, to encourage more blacks to participate in annual meetings. These efforts are certainly to be commended, and should be extended to other groups within the APSA.

16 To some extent the process may work both ways: persons get a chance to participate frequently because of their ties with certain educational institutions, and frequent participators (who publish a lot, including the work on which they have reported at meetings) become affiliated with higher-prestige iInstitutions. It is also likely that the reportedly greater “pressure to produce” at a few prestigious institutions leads persons at these schools to seek more frequent participation.

17 A fourth possible group, those from elsewhere than the ten northeastern states, probably in large part parallels the above institutional grouping, and will not be discussed further.

18 See above, text accompanying Note 13.

19 “For an American Political Science Association,” PS, Vol. 1, No. 3, Summer, 1968, p. 36.

20 Included in this investigation, of course, should be an examination of the background characteristics of the APSA membership as a whole, to determine more precisely how the groups herein examined depart from the general membership.