The American Political Science Review depends on the kindness of strangers—most conspicuously, on the good will of those to whom we turn for evaluations of the papers that are submitted to us. Although we have little to offer in return, we do what we can to repay this kindness by sending each reviewer an individual thank-you letter along with copies of my decision letter and the other reviews of the paper. Once a year, too, we provide a little extra recognition by printing the names of the hundreds of reviewers, from every part of our discipline and from many neighboring disciplines and interdisciplinary fields as well, who have voluntarily contributed their time and expertise. This year's list, which appears elsewhere in this issue, recognizes those who reviewed for the APSR between mid-August, 2002 and mid-August, 2003. Sine qua non.

Most contemporary theorizing that addresses questions of democracy and difference is framed by broadly constructivist claims. Yet when it comes to thinking about democratic state intervention into social relations of difference, political theorists tend to stress reactive strategies, overlooking the role that democratic states play in helping shape and reinforce social definitions of difference. Exploring the case of the construction of racialized difference in the American city, the author makes the case that arguments for tolerating, for recognizing, and for deliberating across extant differences are insufficiently attentive to the role states play in making difference. Institutional efforts to deal with difference democratically should target the points at which it gets produced, aiming not simply to modify the effects of social definitions of identity and difference—but to democratize the processes through which these are defined and redefined.

Along with the traditional “promissory” form of representation, empirical political scientists have recently analyzed several new forms, called here “anticipatory,” “gyroscopic,” and “surrogate” representation. None of these more recently recognized forms meets the criteria for democratic accountability developed for promissory representation, yet each generates a set of normative criteria by which it can be judged. These criteria are systemic, in contrast to the dyadic criteria appropriate for promissory representation. They are deliberative rather than aggregative. They are plural rather than singular.

Investigating reports of marginalization from Congresswomen of color, I examine legislative practices in the 103rd and 104th Congresses to illuminate dynamics that structure hierarchies on the basis of race and gender. I advance an account of racing–gendering as a political process that silences, stereotypes, enforces invisibility, excludes, and challenges the epistemic authority of Congresswomen of color. Racing–gendering constitutes a form of interested bias operating in Congress, which has important implications for understandings of the internal operations of political institutions, the policy priorities of Congresswomen of color, the substantive representation of historically underrepresented groups, and the practice of democracy in the United States.

Rational choice theorists have not clearly articulated their epistemological positions, and for this reason, their arguments in favor of rational choice theory are inconsistent, contradictory, and unpersuasive. To remedy this problem, I describe how two of the main positions in the philosophy of science, instrumentalist-empiricism and scientific-realism, act as competing epistemological foundations for rational choice theory. I illustrate how these philosophical perspectives help political scientists (1) understand what is at stake in the theoretical debates surrounding the rationality assumption, self-interest, and methodological individualism, (2) identify inconsistencies in the epistemological positions adopted by rational choice theorists, and (3) assess the feasibility and desirability of a universal theory based on the rationality assumption.

We address two long-standing survey research problems: measuring complicated concepts, such as political freedom and efficacy, that researchers define best with reference to examples; and what to do when respondents interpret identical questions in different ways. Scholars have long addressed these problems with approaches to reduce incomparability, such as writing more concrete questions—with uneven success. Our alternative is to measure directly response category incomparability and to correct for it. We measure incomparability via respondents' assessments, on the same scale as the self-assessments to be corrected, of hypothetical individuals described in short vignettes. Because the actual (but not necessarily reported) levels of the vignettes are invariant over respondents, variability in vignette answers reveals incomparability. Our corrections require either simple recodes or a statistical model designed to save survey administration costs. With analysis, simulations, and cross-national surveys, we show how response incomparability can drastically mislead survey researchers and how our approach can alleviate this problem.

Democratic peace theory is probably the most powerful liberal contribution to the debate on the causes of war and peace. In this paper I examine the causal logics that underpin the theory to determine whether they offer compelling explanations for the finding of mutual democratic pacifism. I find that they do not. Democracies do not reliably externalize their domestic norms of conflict resolution and do not trust or respect one another when their interests clash. Moreover, elected leaders are not especially accountable to peace loving publics or pacific interest groups, democracies are not particularly slow to mobilize or incapable of surprise attack, and open political competition does not guarantee that a democracy will reveal private information about its level of resolve thereby avoiding conflict. Since the evidence suggests that the logics do not operate as stipulated by the theory's proponents, there are good reasons to believe that while there is certainly peace among democracies, it may not be caused by the democratic nature of those states.

How does migration affect the security of advanced industrial states, and how does the security environment shape the way states deal with international migration? Migration rests at the nexus of three dimensions of security, including geopolitical interests, material production, and internal security. I argue that migration policy is an integral instrument of state grand strategy in this context, and that examining levels of threat on each facet of security at a given point in time can largely explain variation in policy. I test a series of hypotheses drawn from this security framework using a case-study method that examines policy development in four advanced industrial states, including the United States, Germany, France, and Great Britain in the period 1945–present.

If war results from disagreement about relative strength, then it ends when opponents learn enough about each other. Learning occurs when information is revealed by strategically manipulable negotiation behavior and nonmanipulable battlefield outcomes. I present a model of simultaneous bargaining and fighting where both players can make offers and asymmetric information exists about the distribution of power. In the Markov perfect sequential equilibrium, making and rejecting offers has informational value that outweighs the one provided by the battlefield. However, states use both sources of information to learn and settle before military victory. The Principle of Convergence posits that warfare ceases to be useful when it loses its informational content and that belief in defeat (victory) is not necessary to terminate (initiate) hostilities. Thus, the standard puzzle in international relations that seeks to account for prewar optimism on both sides may not be that relevant.

Ultimatum bargaining models of international interactions suggest that when conflict is costly and the actors are fully informed, the probability of conflict goes to zero. However, conflict occurs with some positive probability when the challenger is uncertain about the defender's reservation value. I employ a simple ultimatum game of bargaining to evaluate two traditional power-centric theories of world politics, balance of power, and power transition theory. The formal and empirical analyses demonstrate that as states approach power parity, information asymmetries are greatest, thus enhancing the probability of militarized conflict. Uncertainty is a central cause of conflict emergence and is correlated with the distribution of observable capabilities. Recognizing the relationship between the distribution of power and the uncertainty offers a more sophisticated interpretation of power-centric explanations of world politics.