We read with interest David C. Earnest's recent (July 2006) PS article about the pedagogical challenges surrounding the statistical computation of pseudo-random numbers (PRNGs). We write to clarify some issues regarding the testing and setting of PRNG seeds, and to direct readers' attention to a set of resources for configuring computationally accurate simulations and statistical analyses.

Dissertations into books? and Editors' correction.

We are gratified that Prof. Bennett has now read the full Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy report that he critiqued in the January 2006 issue of PS, but we find his response puzzling. He characterizes our report as “illustrative of many political scientists' left-wing tilt” and buttresses his assertion, not by analyzing the report itself, but by referring to studies of the political leanings of college faculty. Clearly, the test of our heavily annotated work—the bottom line of which is that “there are no easy conclusions when it comes to changing inequality of political voice” (APSA Task Force 2004, 35)—is whether we have been faithful to the relevant scholarly research. Since Bennett provides no evidence to the contrary, we leave it to the reader to decide who is driven by ideological, rather than scholarly, concern.

I read Anil G. Jacob's piece in the January 2006 issue of PS (“Asian American Political Participation: Research Challenges for an Emerging Minority,” 103–106) with a mixture of admiration and consternation. He has my admiration for getting published as a graduate student, and that too in PS—a feat that I'm sure will stand him good measure when he is on the job market. However, he has my consternation because he makes slight of a field that has, especially in the last five years, produced a good deal of scholarship on a myriad of questions relating to Asian-American political behavior.

Professor Schlozman feels that unless one also assesses three long memos that accompanied the report by the APSA's Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, one should refrain from commenting. She accuses me in my response to the Task Force reports (Bennett 2006) of “not bother[ing] to read the full materials on which … [I comment]” (Schlozman 2006, 55). Schlozman indicates she'd be “interested in … [my] reactions to the whole report instead of an abbreviated version” (55). Since she asks, here goes.

By far the most significant form of gerrymandering is partisan gerrymandering. It is painfully ubiquitous and yet can be covert, hidden in plain view. More importantly the advent of the computer and the growing polarization of the electorate have enhanced its importance. Already the House of Representatives has become virtually safe for most incumbents and in recent elections experienced less turnover than the Senate, which has far fewer members and only one-third of its members up for reelection.

Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham resigns after pleading guilty to bribery. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is indicted and forced to relinquish his leadership position, and later resigns from Congress. House Democrat William Jefferson is stripped of his position on the Ways and Means Committee after an FBI raid of his congressional office and amid reports that he hid $90,000 in alleged bribes in a freezer at his home. Stories of wrongdoing in government surface almost daily as members of Congress come under a microscope for close ties to lobbyists. As the 2006 congressional elections approach, Democrats have made corruption a central theme in their campaigns, arguing that a series of scandals adds up to a full-blown culture of corruption. In response, Republicans have rejected this characterization and attempted to point the finger back at Democrats, suggesting that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.We thank Rosie Clawson and Bert Rockman for helpful comments.

James Madison contributed much to political science and to the art and science of governing democratic regimes. A major contribution was his recognition of the multiple threats facing the newly established Confederation (see, e.g., Dougherty 2001). Madison was willing to invest heavily in converting these threats into new opportunities. In his “Preface to Debates in the Convention” ([1984] 1840, 19), Madison reflected on the causes for alarm.James Madison Award lecture presented at the American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., September 1, 2005. The author is appreciative of support from the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Science Foundation and useful comments by Bill Blomquist, Eric Coleman, Sue Crawford, Joshua P. Hill, Marco Janssen, Robert Keohane, Mike McGinnis, Lesa B. Morrison, Amy Poteete, Mike Schoon, David Schwab, and Kenneth Shepsle on an initial draft of this paper. As always, I deeply appreciate Patty Lezotte's careful editing.

While not the worst of political pathologies, corruption is the one most likely to be found thriving in electoral democracies. Not as dangerous as war, nor as urgent as terrorism, some have even argued that the little bit of corruption that comes with democracies makes them work better—by lowering transaction costs, reducing the inefficiencies of cumbersome rules, and generally making things happen (Anechiarico and Jacobs 1996; see also Leys 1965; Huntington 1968).This article draws on Warren (2004).

It was my good fortune to have known John Gaus and to have attended a lecture course and participated in a seminar that he offered in 1949. His Alabama lectures entitled Reflections on Public Administration, published in 1947, included such titles as “The Ecology of Government” and “Politics and Administration.” His concluding chapter, written after the initial presentations, was entitled “A Theory of the Process of Government.” Gaus was broadly engaged in reflections about the place of public administration in systems of governance and the constitution of order in human societies.The author is appreciative of detailed comments by Paul Aligica, Barbara Allen, Krister Andersson, Robert Bish, Sheldon Gellar, Stephan Kuhnert, Michael McGinnis, Elinor Ostrom, Andrew Revelle, Filippo Sabetti, Amos Sawyer, Sujai Shivakumar, Mark Sproule-Jones, and Lihua Yang.

In recent years, a growing chorus of voices in the political science discipline has become concerned with the balance among alternative methodological approaches in empirical research and publications. Accordingly, these scholars have issued a call to further develop and refine rigorous methods for qualitative studies, in contrast to studies that rely on quantitative methods and formal modeling (Bennett, Barth, and Rutherford 2003; Yanow 2003; George and Bennett 2005). My own interest and reason for conducting the following survey is rooted in the observation, even frustration, that the literature on qualitative research methods largely focuses on democratic and not on authoritarian regimes or the Middle East in particular. Research in the Middle East is clearly essential and has received increased attention since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, but given how critical this work is and will continue to be in coming years, what are the challenges? Do qualitative methodological tools need to be adapted for research in the Middle East? And, if so, how?The author would like to thank Anna Szczurk for her help in designing the survey and the contributors to the symposium and Melissa Gabler for their help in the research and writing of the article. The author also is grateful to the survey respondents for the time and effort they devoted to answering the questions.

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.

The European Union is going about its regular business. It is putting forth proposals to keep the Doha Round alive, continuing to negotiate a major trade agreement with Mercosur in South America, keeping peace-keeping troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina, spending development aid in numerous poor countries, financially supporting the Palestine Authority while giving Israel preferential access to the EU market, investigating Microsoft's business practices, and battling over the reach and scope of an ambitious new legislative attempt to regulate the chemical industry. The EU Greenhouse Trading Scheme, the largest greenhouse emissions trading scheme in the world, is up and running. The European Central Bank is making monetary policy decisions while the euro makes up almost 20% of central banks' foreign currency holdings. The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has called for suspending the sale of the children's vaccine Hexavac. The European Court of Justice, for its part, has recently declared illegal a high profile Italian law designed to prevent foreign takeover of Italian energy companies. And the commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection is playing a leading role in the EU's response to the threat of a pandemic of avian bird flu.

There was and continues to be nothing easy about being poor in the Big Easy, or anywhere else in America for that matter. The callous or incompetent handling of the evacuation of the poor from New Orleans smacked of Marie Antoinette's concern for the hungry of Paris, and underscored both the existence and consequence of income inequality in America.

“Don't Vote—It Only Encourages Them!”

The words appeared on a chalkboard outside a London pub the day after Margaret Thatcher called the 1987 general election, but they might just as well be the motto of half or more of the American electorate in 2006 as well. Deep into a midterm election campaign in a time of war and economic worries—a campaign that could change control of one or, conceivably, both houses of Congress, and that will set the stage for the next presidential election—disenchanted voters far outnumber political enthusiasts. Between 60–70% of poll respondents say the country is “on the wrong track,” and roughly the same percentages say they are “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.” “Wrong track” responses are more common among non-registered voting-age respondents than in the population as a whole. Neither party in Congress enjoys a net positive assessment by the public. The Pew Research Center regularly asks, “Regardless of how you feel about your own representative, would you like to see most members of Congress reelected in the next congressional election, or not?” In June of this year 29% answered “yes” and 57% “no”—a major change from October of 2000 when 40% said “yes” and 34% responded “no.” Despite these levels of apparent alienation, and the sizeable stakes in play this year, there are few signs that voter turnout in 2006 will rise above the dismal levels traditionally associated with midterm federal elections.

Field research on politics in the Middle East poses far less problems for Western female researchers than many Westerners assume. The questions most commonly asked of me by colleagues include whether anyone will speak to an American woman (yes), and whether I need to wear a veil (no, but see below). Female researchers do face many challenges, but most have less to do with gender than with examining sensitive political issues in highly repressive environments. Of those that do concern gender, many vary by degree rather than type from the issues faced by female scholars conducting field research elsewhere. I draw heavily on my own overwhelmingly positive experiences with ethnographic research in Jordan and Yemen—totaling more than four years over the past decade, including nearly a year of research conducted post-September 11—and those of many friends in outlining the following issues facing Western female political scientists conducting field research in the Middle East.I would like to thank Laryssa Chomiak, Janine Astrid Clark, Sam Fayyaz, and Lisa Wedeen for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Because it is a slice of one's life as well as a method for gathering data and insights, and because it entails socio-cultural immersion and interpersonal trust, field research confronts political scientists with a special set of normative issues not encountered in libraries, laboratories, or home countries. This essay weighs four plausible yet fallible positions on the ethics of fieldwork overseas, with particular reference to American political science research in the Arabic-speaking world in the 21st century. I am raising questions I cannot really answer: specifically, amidst American military engagement and a good deal of spying by governments all around, can we, or ought we, practice scholarly detachment, reciprocity, activism, or, perhaps, espionage?

The last symposium on Canada in PS was published in 1993, but little seems to have changed in the attitude of American political scientists toward this nation. To quote from the previous symposium introduction:

A large body of research has documented comparative levels of inequality among nations and also the substantial change in inequality across and within nations. Political scientists, sociologists, and economists have used these databases to make a number of claims about changes in inequality and their interrelations with economic and political life, patterns of redistribution, social institutions, and social and individual wellbeing more generally.

The Dutch have been counted among the staunchest supporters of European integration ever since the parliamentary ratification of the European Community for Coal and Steel in late 1951. The major political parties—the Christian Democrats (CDA) and its forerunners, the Labor Party (PvdA), and the liberal parties VVD and D66—supported all important European treaties of the past decades. Only the smaller orthodox-Calvinist parties, some smaller left-wing parties, and, more recently, the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) have opposed these treaties in parliament. This overwhelmingly large support in the Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament included the Treaty of Rome of 2004—the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe. One hundred twenty-eight out of 150 members of parliament favored the ratification of the European Constitution. This article draws on several chapters in Aarts and van der Kolk 2005.