September 2009                   Volume 07                           Issue 03

Editor's "Introduction and Comments": 

Over the past four years I have come to understand that journal editors actually have even less control over the shape of particular issues than they do over the trajectory of the journal as a whole. This is due largely to the vagaries not just of the pattern of submissions but also of the editorial process which relies on the responsiveness (or otherwise) of referees. So, this issue of Perspectives on Politics, heavily laden with articles on American politics, is not the result of any plan. It just happened that way.

We open with two studies of American public opinion. First we have a study by Leslie McCall and Lane Kenworthy addressing public reaction to wide and increasing inequality of income in the contemporary United States. McCall and Kenworthy argue that while Americans in fact tend to be dissatisfied with economic inequality, they tend to support indirect remedies such as education rather than direct redistributive policies. Our second essay also explores American public opinion, this time on a persistent “cultural” issue—whether evolution should be taught in public schools. Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer focus primarily on the ways that the state-level distribution of opinion and the relatively fragmented nature of the American judicial system combine to mitigate the impact of efforts by the scientific community to police the bounds of “science” in disputes over the teaching of evolution.
- Jim Johnson, Former Editor

Read the full Introduction and Comments »

Table of Contents » 

Perspectives Introduces New Editor
Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science and Director of the Indiana Democracy Consortium at Indiana University, began his term as Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives on Politics in July 2009. Professor Isaac assumes responsibility for editing the entire journal, including the Book Review, following his service since 2005 as the journal’s Book Review Editor.  More »

Members: to view all articles online, login to MyAPSA and click the Perspectives on Politics link in your Access Areas.

Editorial

Editor, Staff, & Editorial Board

Philosophy and Submission Guidelines

Copyright Agreement

Permissions 

Advertising in Perspectives