A preview of some of the articles in the July 2012 issue.

We report on the journal's operations during the year from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011. We once again express our thanks to the APSA: Presidents Brady and Pateman, the staff (especially Michael Brintnall and Polly Karpowicz), Council, and Publications Committee. (While we have enjoyed ready access to previous presidents, it has been a new experience to have an APSA president right down the hall from the lead editor.) Members of our Editorial Board, this year as last, have given us wise counsel on more than a few submissions. Joseph Riser, our senior editor, has continued his seemingly tireless and unflappable service; and our editorial assistants, Joslyn Barnhart, Darin Dewitt, and Beltrán Undurraga, have pulled together in harness as have few previous teams, keeping our technical processing rapid and our backlog almost always at zero. As rotation on the panel of co-editors continues, we express our profound gratitude to departing editor Jeff Lewis, who exhibited a new level of masochism by becoming UCLA department chair, but who also agreed to finish (and since has finished) all of his pending assignments and to be available for consultations on an “as needed” basis. We also thank, once again, the authors who submitted their papers for consideration, the referees who reviewed them, and the patience, dedication, and forbearance that all demonstrated.

In 2011, PS: Political Science and Politics published articles covering a vast range of topics. The journal's commitment to publishing articles on pedagogy and the profession, as well as exemplary topical scholarship on a spectrum of issues, call for an equally broad stable of reviewers. PS cannot publish such diverse work without the outstanding work (and openmindedness) of our peer reviewers. The peer-review process relies on the professionalism and generosity of those who contribute their time and knowledge to read and evaluate the work of others. In 2011, 451 reviewers were asked to review, 132 agreed and completed their review. The editor and staff of PS thank the following scholars who served as manuscript reviewers between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2011.

Our publisher's report for PS: Political Science & Politics for 2011 gives us some insight into what you, our readers, are reading here in the pages of PS. In total, more than 101,000 readers completed full-text downloads of online articles in 2011, up nearly 30% from 2010 and 26% compared to 2009 figures. This figure only represents electronic downloads; we know that print is very important too and we hope to report on that readership in the future.

One of Washington, DC's best-kept secrets is an organization that houses a plethora of programs, initiatives, and resources for students, citizens, and educators, as well as current and former members of Congress: the United States Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC).

In recognition of their outstanding academic and personal achievements, APSA is pleased to announce the APSA Minority Fellows for the 2012–13 academic year. The APSA Minority Fellows Program (MFP) was established in 1969 as an effort to increase the number of minority scholars in the discipline and has designated more than 400 fellows and contributed to the successful completion of doctoral political science programs for more than 100 individuals. APSA has refocused and increased its efforts to assist minority students in completing their doctorates by concentrating not only on the recruitment of minorities, but also on the retention of these groups within the profession. The MFP designates up to 12 stipend minority fellows each year. Fellows with stipends receive a $4,000 fellowship that is disbursed in two $2,000 payments—one at the end of their first graduate year and one at the end of their second—provided that they remain in good academic standing. Awards are based on students' undergraduate course work, GPA, extracurricular activities, GRE scores, and recommendations from faculty. Members of the selection committee for this year's fellows included Irasema Coronado, University of Texas, El Paso, Committee on the Status of Latinos and Latinas in the Profession; Eric L. McDaniel, University of Texas, Austin, Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession; and Wendy K. Tam Cho, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Committee on Asian Pacific Americans in Political Science. Learn more about the program by visiting http://www.apsanet.org/content_3284.cfm. This year's APSA Minority Fellows are described here.

APSA is pleased to announce that four former APSA Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (RBSI) Scholars recently attained their PhD.

The APSA Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs continues to assist APSA scholars in both their residential research and nonresidential field work. The following brief descriptions summarize the work of two recent, in-residence scholars in the fall of 2011 as well as grants offered in the late 2011 and early 2012. Combined, we hope this information encourages more applicants for Centennial Center funding. For more information about the Center, visit wwww.apsanet.org/centennialcenter or contact Veronica Jones at 202.483.2512; vjones@apsanet.org.

On February 13, 2012, President Obama sent a proposed fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request to Congress. In general, programs affecting historians, archivists and other National Coalition for History (NCH) stakeholders would receive funding levels comparable to those they received in the FY '12 budget.

Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation's oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives, and international scholars gain “hands on” understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs. Through this unique opportunity, APSA enhances public understanding of policy-making and improves the quality of scholarship, teaching, and reporting on American national politics. For more information visit https://www.apsanet.org/cfp. The assignments for 2011–12 are listed below.

On a foggy Monday morning in late September 2010 in Kiel, Germany, I received a phone call from Berlin. “Do you have any plans for November through summer of next year?” the voice inquired. One of the two German Marshall Fund congressional fellows for the 2010–2011 round had suddenly dropped out and a replacement was needed. The call came five months after I had been initially rejected for the fellowship, and while my life had certainly moved on (I had begun work on my PhD dissertation at the University of Kiel and had expected to stay in Northern Germany for two or three years), I quickly regained my composure, asked for time to discuss this with my dissertation director as well as with my parents, and shortly thereafter accepted the selection. Exactly how I managed to cram the amount of work required for moving overseas into four weeks instead of the usual four to six months remains blurry. Eventually, however, I was able to tie up the loose ends in Germany, get the appropriate work visa for the United States, and even participate in a prestigious, long-planned naval reserve exercise that the German Navy's chief of naval operations had invited me to attend.

Passed by the US House of Representatives as part of the annual defense authorization bill in May 2011, provisions of the New START Implementation Act (NSIA) represented an attempt by Congress to exercise more robust involvement in US nuclear policy, an area historically subject to a great deal of deference to the executive branch. The bill sought to implement the “grand bargain” that preceded the ratification of the New START treaty—namely, that the treaty's seven-year window of reductions to US nuclear forces should be made in tandem with a 10-year modernization program of both the weapons themselves and their aging delivery systems. The context of this arrangement was growing concern about the ability of the United States to retain a sustainable nuclear deterrent for the indefinite future. Although the NSIA provisions were abandoned during conference with the Senate in December 2011, their underlying concerns remain unresolved, and the sustainability of the nuclear enterprise is certain to reappear as a future point of controversy.

After a competitive application process, the APSA Africa Project Steering Committee has selected this year's workshop leaders. The US-based facilitators of the workshop are Parakh Hoon (Virginia Tech) and Lauren MacLean (Indiana University). Their Africa-based colleagues are Joseph Mbaiwa (Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana, Maun Campus), Sethunya Mosime (University of Botswana, Gaborone Campus), and Lungisile Ntsebeza (University of Cape Town). The theme of this year's workshop is “Local Communities and the State in Africa.” The event will be held in July 2012 at the facilities of the University of Botswana in Gaborone.

The administrative committee consists of the president, president-elect, treasurer, and four other council members whose main duties include preparing agendas for council meetings and annual business meetings and acting on behalf of the council to dispose of policy issues deemed of insufficient weight to require decisions by the council.

APSA is pleased to include here the names of individuals who have completed their doctoral dissertations at political science departments in the United States during 2010 and 2011. The list is based on data collected in the APSA member database and includes information reported by both individuals and departments. Dissertations are listed by fields of interest as labeled by APSA: American politics, comparative politics, international relations, methodology, public administration, political philosophy and theory, public law and courts, and public policy.