Candidate List
Biographical Sketches and Programmatic Statements
Candidates for C&M Chair & Vice-ChairChair: John Gerring / Vice-Chair: Andreas Schedler
John Gerring received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. He is currently associate professor of political science at Boston University, where he teaches courses on methodology and comparative politics. His books include Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Global Justice: A Prioritarian Manifesto (under review), Centripetalism: A Theory of Democratic Governance (with Strom Thacker; under review), Concepts and Method: Giovanni Sartori and His Legacy (with David Collier; under review), and Democracy and Development: A Historical Perspective (with Strom Thacker; in process). His articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Journal of Policy History, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Polity, PS: Political Science and Politics, Social Science History, Studies in American Political Development, and World Politics. He was a fellow of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (2002-03). He is the former editor of Qualitative Methods: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section on Qualitative Methods and president-elect of the Qualitative Methods section.Andreas Schedler is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Political Studies at CIDE in Mexico City. His extensive work on political concepts includes journal articles, edited books and book chapters on politics and antipolitics, political disenchantment, democratic transition and consolidation, public accountability, vote buying, electoral authoritarianism, and democratic support. His current empirical research focuses on processes of democratization by elections worldwide since 1980. His latest (edited) book is Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Elections (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2006).
Programmatic Statements
John Gerring
I have several objectives, should I be chosen as the next president of IPSA's Committee on Concepts and Methods. First, I hope to work with our members to strengthen the visibility and range of activities of the Committee. Second, I plan to exploit synergies with APSA's Qualitative Methods section so as to enhance – without additional resources – the range of functions that we can perform for our members across the world. Third, I hope to build bridges between qualitative and quantitative methods, as I have done for the past several years as editor of Qualitative Methods (APSA's section newsletter). Finally, I hope to create the conditions for methodological renewal beyond the borders of the continental US, so that a broad-based reflection on methods can become an integral component of political science everywhere.
Andreas Schedler
I have been chairing the Committee on Concepts and Methods over the past six years, which has been a pretty lonely undertaking, endowed with scarce resources, be they financial or administrative. Basically starting out from zero, my main efforts (and accomplishments) over the past years, have been centered on the construction of the web-based communicative infrastructure for the committee. The current website contains (1) a mechanism for members to join and quit the committee, and to subscribe to the newsletter, with the corresponding register of members and subscribers; (2) a mechanism for electronic voting to elect the committee chair, its board members of the committee, and to conduct eventual future consultations of members; (3) the C&M Newsletter, published three times a year, edited by Professor Bernhard Kittel at the University of Amsterdam; (4) two series of highly-regarded working papers that focus on core concerns of the research committee: “Political Concepts” and “Political Methods”; (5) the tri-annunal Award for Conceptual Innovation in Democratic Studies (co-sponsored by CIDE) that will be given for the second time at the upcoming IPSA Congress in Fukuoka; (6) the playful, yet rich and enlightening Les Intraduisibles: The Dictionary of Untranslatable Terms in Politics. As a vice-chair of the committee, I would work to guarantee the continuity of the committee website as well as of its associated projects (in particular, the award, the newsletter, and the working papers). At the same time, I would strive to make myself increasingly superfluous, especially by delegating specific tasks to colleagues within the committee. In addition, I would work to deepen collaborative ties with related academic networks, such as the APSA Organized Section Qualitative Methods and the ECPR Standing Group on Political Methodology. I would also strive to improve our possibilities for engaging C&M members more actively and continuously in the committee’s activities. Only to the extent that the committee effectively functions as a horizontal communicative network among its members will it accomplish its mission of serving as “an open and plural platform of deliberation on basic conceptual and methodological problems in political science.”
Candidates for C&M Board
Amy Poteete
My research focuses on the dynamics of political development as captured in contestation over natural resources. I am concerned with the interplay of electoral politics, both national and local, with policy processes; how competing understandings of complex resources and management problems affect decision-making by resource users and policy makers; and the distributional implications – political as well as economic – of particular management strategies. My research has appeared in Development and Change, Governance, Human Ecology, and Journal of Southern African Studies. I teach courses on research design, interdisciplinary empirical research methods, comparative politics and policy, environment and development, and African politics. I received my Ph.D. from Duke University, spent one year as a visiting lecturer at Yale University, and then served as research coordinator for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research program, an interdisciplinary and international research network based at Indiana University. I am currently in the process of moving from the University of New Orleans to Concordia University, where I will join the Department of Political Science in July 2006.Programmatic Statement
Given my research interests, there is no alternative to field research and I am constantly grappling with the practical challenges it presents. How can we, as a community of scholars, balance the requirements of intensive field work with the demands of comparative analysis? A general consensus now exists that no single method is best in all situations, and that combining multiple methods often yields better results than any single method in isolation. At the same time, there are practical limits to using multiple methods and combining field intensive methods in broadly comparative analysis. Career incentives influence methodological strategies and generate mutually unfamiliar dialects. I have been exploring some of these issues in on-going work with Elinor Ostrom, inspired by our experiences conducting research as individual scholars, members of small teams, and participants in larger research networks. These challenges also affect my approach to teaching graduate courses on research design. If elected to the board of IPSA’s Committee on Concepts and Methods, I would encourage sustained attention to these sorts of practical concerns in the committee’s newsletter, working paper series, and other committee initiatives.
Bernhard Kittel
Bernhard Kittel holds a chair in social science methodology at the University of Amsterdam and has recently accepted the chair in social science methodology at the University of Oldenburg, starting September 2006. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Vienna, the diploma of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and an MA in Social Science Data Analysis of the University of Essex. Previous appointments include the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, and the University of Bremen. His research interests cover methods of comparative research, political economy, and collective decision making.Programmatic Statement
My "methodological mission" is to build bridges between nomological and interpretive approaches and quantitative and qualitative techniques, and to find out the potentials and limits of the various approaches to analysis in the social sciences. In the IPSA context, this is done by attempting to channel the discussions in Concepts and Methods, the Newsletter of the IPSA Research Committee on Concepts and Methods in directions which foster such debates. A second endeavour within the confines of IPSA would be to support local initiatives on a world-wide scale for methodological training in political science.
Cas Mudde
Cas Mudde is senior lecturer and former chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. After receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Leiden (Netherlands), he taught at the Central European University (Hungary) and the University of Edinburgh (Great Britain). He has held visiting positions at New York University (US), Charles University (Czech Republic), University Jaume I (Spain), and UC Santa Barbara (US). In 2006 he was a Fulbright EU Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Cas Mudde is the co-founder and convener of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism & Democracy, a virtual community of over 600 academics from more than 50 countries worldwide. He is also co-editor (with Roger Eatwell) of the Routledge Studies in Extremism & Democracy book series. His most recent publications include the edited volume Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2005), the co-edited volume (with Roger Eatwell) Western Democracies and the New Extreme Right Challenge (Routledge, 2004) and the articles “The Populist Zeitgeist” (Government & Opposition, 2004), and (with Luke March) “What's Left of the Radical Left?” (Comparative European Politics, 2005). Forthcoming publications include the chapter “Anti-System Politics” (in Developments in European Politics, 2006) and Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge UP, 2007).Programmatic Statement
Although a novice to the IPSA Committee on Concepts and Methods, I have long had an interest in conceptualization and methodology. However, while much current discussions on methodology are about statistical innovations and detailed technicalities, I prefer to focus on the underlying assumptions and logic of methods, particularly those used in qualitative comparative research. I would like to broaden and further the debate about recent innovations in these fields, such as QCA and fuzzy-set logic. My key interest and purpose to join the board, however, has to do with concepts and conceptualization. Good comparative research is impossible without concepts that can travel. Unfortunately, much comparative research devotes very little attention to conceptualization, let alone to the various problems involved in it. Some members of this committee have made some important contributions to the conceptualization of key variables and processes such as culture and democratic consolidation. I would like to bring various scholars together to further develop conceptualizations on key terms in the political and social sciences, such as liberal democracy or political party. In addition, I would like to investigate new strategies of conceptualization, such as the recently proposed “min-max strategy” (Gerring & Barresi 2003).
Consuelo Cruz
Consuelo Cruz received her Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1994. She is currently associate professor of political science at Tufts University. She previously taught at Columbia University, where she served for a year as Director of the Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies. Cruz was twice a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s CIS, where she also co-taught a comprehensive course on democratic theory and application at the Woodrow Wilson School. Her book, Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World-Making in the Tropics, came out with Cambridge University Press in 2005. Her articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, World Politics, and edited volumes. In addition, Cruz has published in non-academic outlets such as The New Republic and The Washington Post. Prior to entering academia, she worked in the area of macroeconomic analysis for the World Bank. Cruz has an ongoing interest in empirical theory. Her new research project focuses on the relationship among state-formation, citizenship, and political violence in Latin America.Programmatic Statement
I would like to serve creatively yet responsibly and in a collegial spirit with the chair and other committee members of the Concepts and Methods section. I am especially interested in contributing to the enrichment of empirical theory by promoting open exchanges and rigorous blends among the disciplines of the social sciences and the sub-disciplines of political science.
Fabrice Lehoucq
Fabrice Lehoucq is a professor of political science at the Division of Political Studies, Centro deInvestigación Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City. He has published widely on issues of institutional analysis, electoral politics, and political economy. He is currently working on a project tentatively entitled "Political Institutions, Instability, and Democratic Performance in Latin America."Programmatic Statement
The C&M committee can play an important role in underscoring the importance of good data collection and good concept formation in the study of politics. If elected to the C&M council, my main concern would be to contribute to the better measurement of concepts in comparative politics and political science, more generally.
Gerardo Luis Munck
Gerardo Munck, Argentinian by birth, teaches in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California, and does research on political regimes and democracy, methodology, and Latin America. He has recently completed (with Richard Snyder) a book consisting of interviews with leading scholars in comparative politics, Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics (Johns Hopkins, forthcoming, 2007), and is currently editing a manuscript on Regimes and Democracy in Latin America. He worked on Democracy in Latin America (2004), a report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and is active in various initiatives to promote and monitor democracy. He is active in the Organized Section on Qualitative Methods, of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and has contributed to the section’s newsletter. His publications include: “Debating the Direction of Comparative Politics: An Analysis of Leading Journals” (with Richard Snyder), Comparative Political Studies (forthcoming, 2007); “Democratic Politics in Latin America,” Annual Review of Political Science (2004); “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy” (with Jay Verkuilen), Comparative Political Studies (February 2002); “The Regime Question,” World Politics (October 2001); “Game Theory and Comparative Politics,” World Politics (January 2001); and Authoritarianism and Democratization. Soldiers and Workers in Argentina, 1976-83 (Penn State, 1998).Programmatic Statement
I consider the Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M) to be a key forum for the exchange of ideas about methods in the social sciences. In particular, I see its role as drawing attention to concepts as an essential aspect of the research process, and fostering both methodological and applied work that helps us better define and measure the concepts that run through our empirical research. In recent years, I have been involved in various efforts to generate cross-national data and the issues that are emerging in this work are at the heart of the mission of the Committee on Concepts and Methods. Can we develop consensus about how key concepts might be defined? Can we develop measures that capture normatively important distinctions? Can we explain why we produce different measures of the same concept? Can we produce measures that are more robust? These are my current concerns and are likely to be the ones I work on in the next years. I think we can succeed in meeting the challenges I outline inasmuch as we draw on multiple traditions and embrace innovation. As a member of the C&M Board, I would seek to promote such a pluralistic approach to methods.
Hans-Joachim Lauth
Born 1957, study of Political Science and Theology in Mainz and Bremen (Germany); 1991 received PhD (summa cum laude) at the University of Mainz, Doctoral thesis on Unions and Politics in Mexico (1964-1988); until 2002 Assistant Professor for comparative politics, University of Mainz. 2002 „Habilitation“ with a work on „Demokratie und Demokratiemessung“ (Democratic Theory and Measuring Democracy). From 2002 to 2004 he worked as professor ad interim in political science at the University of Landau-Koblenz, campus Landau. From 2004 to 2005 he taught in the same position at the University of Heidelberg. Since October 2005 he is professor in political science at the University of Hagen, responsible for the research field: Democracy and Development. His actual topics of research concern measuring democracy, informal institutions (as corruption and clientelism), separation of powers, civil society and comparative methods. He is spokesperson of the working group on “Inter-Cultural Comparison of Democracies” of the German Association of Political Science, member of APSA and editor of several volumes on comparative politics and regional integration.Programmatic Statement
Since several years I am working in the field of comparative politics with special interest on comparative methods and concepts. One result was the design of a concept of democracy which includes regular and diminished subtypes. A current research project deals with the classification of informal institutions and their measurement. As member of the board I would like to intensify the exchange and to improve the communication between Germany and other regions. This could mean to continue the discussion of two topics about we had already arranged two international conferences in Germany: on measuring democracy and about comparative methods. The cooperation should also include individual exchange concerned with teaching and research.
James Gibson
James L. Gibson is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University in St. Louis. He studies mass behavior, law and politics, and democratization in the United States, Europe, and Africa. He is interested in understanding why ordinary people think the way they do about political and legal issues (especially political tolerance) and how such thinking translates into public policy and democratic reform. He has published more than 100 refereed articles, in a wide range of national and international social-scientific journals, including all of the leading political science journals. He has also published five books, with his Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa: Experiments in Democratic Persuasion (with Amanda Gouws) having been published by Cambridge University Press (both in the United States and in South Africa). This book won the Alexander L. George Book Award (for the best book published in the field of political psychology in 2003), 2004, from the International Society of Political Psychology. His book Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? was published in 2004 (paperback 2006) by the Russell Sage Foundation and the HSRC Press in South Africa. Overcoming Apartheid has won several awards, and most recently, the 2006 Award for Conceptual Innovation in Democratic Studies, which is the tri-annual award from the International Political Science Association Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M), and Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico. Gibson is currently working on a major study of the problem of historical injustices and “land reconciliation” in South Africa, as well as several projects on judicial politics in the United States.Programmatic Statement
Professor Gibson believes that the Committee on Concepts and Methods could be made stronger by becoming larger. Many scholars work diligently on questions of conceptualization and measurement (qualitative and quantitative) in many areas of the social sciences, and such scholars would find a natural home and engaging set of colleagues in the C&M research committee. The newsletter is already a very document; perhaps means of making it more widely available would increase awareness of the interesting work of members of the group. I would be especially interested in trying to raise awareness of concepts and methods throughout Africa, where a great deal of highly innovative research is currently being done.
Richard W. Chadwick
Professor of Political Science, University of Hawaii. Ph.D. 1966, Northwestern University. I held various research and teaching positions early in my career at Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Yale, Harvard, System Development Corporation (now Unisys), Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, Inc. (now CALSPAN Corp), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the University of Mannheim, and the East-West Center in Honolulu. Tenured in 1974 and promoted to full professor, 1976, University of Hawaii. Specializations (teaching and research): international relations, global modeling and alternative futures (simulation), methodology, foreign policy, leadership. I usually graduate one or two Ph.D. candidates a year as chair of their committees. My current research interests (subjects of papers presented in conferences in the last two years): (1) globalization impacts on (a) Korean affairs and East Asian politics using global modeling based on the USA National Intelligence Council’s use of International Futures (a global simulation available at ifsmodel.org), (b) outer space exploration and exploitation, (c) democratic development and political theory; (2) use of global models for state and local planning; (3) pedagogy: use of simulation in classroom teaching of international relations and globalization; (4) diasporadic minorities and terrorism; (5) north-south divide mythology. For detailed information visit my webpage at www.hawaii.edu/intlrel/.Programmatic Statement
I am interested in being of service as needed by the chair and other committee members of the Concepts and Methods section, helping to promote its cause by encouraging research paper submissions and membership growth, debate and dialog on theory and method, and contributing in the future to such discussions myself. I am new to the IPSA (except for a brief period early in my career as I recall), but not new to the profession or international environment. I have had a long-term interest in methodology and philosophy of science as realized in political studies generally, and in relations between the various paradigms that are represented in our discipline.
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