In 2011, more than 3% of all black men in the United States were imprisoned, compared to only 0.5% of all white men. Among prisoners ages 18 to 24, black men were imprisoned at a rate more than seven times that of white men (Carson and Sabol 2012). It is becoming increasingly urgent for researchers to understand what accounts for these race-based disparities. While a broad constellation of social problems exist that likely contribute to these disparities in concert, different fields of social science tend to focus on different types of explanations. Political scientists and sociologists have tended to emphasize the role of institutional factors, including criminal justice policies and practices, in maintaining race-based disparities. Social psychologists, in contrast, have tended to emphasize individual factors, including punitive responses to crime by jurors, judges, and criminal justice professionals.

A dozen years before this PS symposium, several political scientists came together in a similar manner to honor Louis Fisher's scholarship and highlight his contributions to the discipline (Spitzer 2000). Many wonderful insights and observations were made to shed light on Fisher's versatility and impact. However, that effort missed an opportunity to highlight a key contribution of Fisher's work: a revival of pre-behavioral era functions and concerns within political science. In many ways Fisher is a throwback to a traditional political science approach where scholars did not select subfields or specialties but sought to engage in broad public debates about governing and, most importantly, believed that normative and empirical studies could and should go hand in hand. With the latter approach Fisher has made his most important contribution to political science.

Clay Bennett is the editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor, based in Boston. Bennett joined the Christian Science Monitor in 1998 and produces five cartoons a week, which are nationally syndicated by the Christian Science Monitor News Service. Previously, he was the editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times from 1981–1994. He began his career as a staff artist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Fayetteville Times after graduating from the University of North Alabama in 1980 with degrees in Art and History.

Upcoming International Events: 2006

When I was looking for a quotation to garnish the introduction to my doctoral dissertation on Senate committees, I turned, like hundreds of graduate students before and since, to Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government. “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition,” he wrote (1885) and I quoted (1972), “whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.” But the book deserves better than simply to be mined for quotations. As Wilson's doctoral dissertation, it offers insights into his developing political thought. It illumines the operations of the national government during what was indeed a period of congressional and standing-committee ascendancy, although Wilson's account was neither objective nor totally reliable. And it prompts reflection on certain recurring dilemmas in the practice of American democracy.This essay is adapted from a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 14, 2005.

It is three minutes of ten on a Monday morning. A long buzzer sounds. Quickly sweeping papers and books aside, climbing the 40 steps in a score of bounds, crossing the wooden barrier to enter by a side door, one slips into a chair in the extreme back and side of the courtroom, at the foot of one of the great columns of Italian marble, in time to hear Al Wong, the Marshal, intone “Oyez, oyez….”

The formal announcement of the Judicial Fellows program which appears annually in PS and other professional journals, and the posters which are seen outside placement offices, convey little of the essence of the experience. Since the Judicial Fellows Program is not only the younger sibling of the Congressional and the White House Fellows, but much, much smaller—with only two or three Fellows selected annually—relatively little is known about it.

This article discusses the benefits and challenges of offering an onsite seminar on Canadian politics and foreign policy and assesses how this format contributes to achieving the goals of the 2011 APSA report, Teaching Political Science in the 21st Century. First, the author describes the development and requirements of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Global Seminar series at Iowa State University, the structure of the seminar, and its operation in Ottawa. Second, several of the pedagogical and experiential benefits, as well as the challenges, for making the seminar successful are identified and discussed. Third, by weighing these benefits and challenges, the author concludes that such a seminar has the potential to serve as an effective model for increasing an understanding of Canadian politics among American students, as well as to meet several important recommendations for improving the teaching of political science today.

Three of our arguments drew no objection from Dr. Koza. One is that plurality rule—the heart of his proposed reform—can be anti-majoritarian. In our three-candidate example, Libby was the plurality favorite but Maude beat each of her rivals, Libby included, by a majority. A plurality can be a majority, of course, but the Electoral College has never reversed a popular majority.