Introduction and Comments

This is my final introduction as editor of Perspectives on Politics, and I'll conclude with a few thanks and hopes. But my main task here is to introduce the articles in this issue. They cluster around two themes—leadership and dilemmas of action (those themes are, of course, intimately related).

It does not take much discernment to find the first cluster; three articles have “leadership,” an American president's name, or both in the title. Nannerl Keohane has been a political theory professor, college and university president, and member of boards of trustees, and she is returning to the professoriate. She is therefore well suited to channel Niccolò Machiavelli and to update The Prince. Keohane concurs with some of Machiavelli's precepts: a leader must be willing to accept distress among followers in pursuit of a worthy goal; a leader should use power rather than shirk from it, even at some personal sacrifice. But she is not a sixteenth century courtier: Keohane insists on inclusion of those previously left out, and she entertains the possibility that one should remain a member of Virginia Woolf's Society of Outsiders. I discovered Woolf's Three Guineas in the company of Nan Keohane many years ago; it has shaped much of my teaching and been a moral beacon (as well as being one of the funniest books I have ever read). So it has been a pleasure to help shepherd into print Keohane's most recent thoughts about this book.

Stephen Skowronek reflects on leadership from the outside rather than the inside, in “Leadership by Definition: George W. Bush and the Politics of Orthodox Innovation.” But he is no less analytic, and his ability to place President Bush's style of governance in a long historical context gives us a great deal of leverage on understanding such a politically controversial figure. Skowronek's concept of leadership by definition explains much of what seem baffling about Bush to skeptics, such as his insistence on maintaining a stance once chosen rather than learning from new evidence—an insistence especially difficult to accept for those of us who earn a living by teaching and persuading. Leadership by definition also explains much of Bush's impressive political and policy success, and puts the definition-shattering events of September 11, 2001 in stark relief. I predict that historians will one day point to this article as the most prescient of all those written during the Bush presidency.

Historians' judgment of a president and his behavior under stress is a central theme of Benjamin Kleinerman's “Lincoln's Precedent: Executive Power and the Survival of Constitutionalism.” Did Lincoln act outside the Constitution when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and jailed people accused of treason during the Civil War—or did he act within his constitutional mandate? And if he acted outside the Constitution, was he justified in so doing? When are other presidents justified in taking extraordinary, perhaps extra-Constitutional, measures to address national crises? In tackling these questions, Kleinerman adduces several lessons from Lincoln's speeches and action. Most importantly, Lincoln claimed that political necessity—not popular approval or constitutional mandate—legitimated his actions; that claim sets a standard that is correct in Kleinerman's view, but is extraordinarily difficult for both leaders and their followers to live up to.

Leaders face dilemmas, and our judgment of their leadership largely depends on how effectively they resolve (or escape) them. But non-leaders also face quandaries, and the rest of the articles in this issue of Perspectives analyze an array of dilemmas in widely dispersed contexts. Michael Barnett, in “Humanitarianism Transformed,” dissects the vexed relationship between political action and would-be apolitical assistance to individuals in desperate straits. In theory, humanitarians ignore wars, factions, ideologies, and power plays in their efforts to feed the starving and care for the ill. But increasingly in practice, humanitarian organizations are drawn into political conflicts, whether because they are co-opted by states or nonstate actors or because they seek a way to eliminate human rights violations rather than endlessly alleviating them. Humanitarian organizations are also becoming more, well, organized as they grow. Barnett lays out the many defects and occasional virtues of this seemingly inexorable politicization of aid, and calls for new ways to help preserve humanitarian organizations from drowning in standard operating procedures and lobbying.

Janice Stein's commentary on Barnett's article, entitled “Humanitarianism as Political Fusion” is a little more sanguine about this dilemma. She interprets institutionalization and standardization as a process of maturing—and those of us of a certain age certainly hope that maturation includes benefits as well as costs. Politicization provides opportunities as well as constraints, largely because it makes explicit what has been implicitly the case all along. There is no neutral, apolitical stance, Stein argues, and by coming to grips with that fact, humanitarian organizations can do their job more effectively and creatively. Stein does not, however, have many encouraging words about the increasing bureaucratization of aid agencies; under some conditions, “the demand for accountability is profoundly corrupting.” This dilemma is not easily resolved.

Nor is that of individuals deciding whether to remain in an all-encompassing community in which they have been raised. In “Consenting Adults? Amish ‘Rumspringa’ and the Quandary of Exit in Liberalism,” Steven Mazie considers the situation of teen-aged members of the Amish society after a rumspringa—a mandated year of loose living in secular America. The Amish insist that people commit to join the church after experiencing alternatives; theirs is a genuine social contract. But is it really? asks Mazie. He uses this unusual case to raise larger questions about the relationship between illiberal groups and the would-be liberal society in which they are located. Roughly speaking, liberal political theorists promote either autonomy for such groups, on the condition that people may freely exit from them, or a requirement of some tolerance within illiberal groups. But in Mazie's view, the Amish case shows that both sets of liberal theorists have made it too easy on themselves—genuine freedom of exit is much more difficult than the former imagine, and real liberalism within groups would require excessive intervention. Like Barnett, Mazie does more to lay out than to resolve the dilemma discussed in his article, but it is a wonderful demonstration of how a particular case can disrupt a large theory.

Vivien Schmidt paints on a larger canvas than either Barnett or Mazie; her field is the continent of Europe. In “Democracy in Europe: The Impact of European Integration,” she considers the tensions facing democratic European governments as they seek to enforce mandates of the European Union (EU), respond to the needs and demands of national constituents, and negotiate with other governments facing the same tensions. She parses this array of difficulties by dividing states into simple and compound democracies; the former have relatively tight governance structures with a single accountable authority, and the latter have loose governance structures with many loci of political engagement such as states or multiple branches of government. The EU is compound, so its institutional fit is more disruptive to simple than to compound member states. However, the EU's messages are more difficult to diffuse in compound than in simple provinces. No institutional fit is ideal. But the biggest problem in the EU (as demonstrated by the recent rejection of its constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands) is that leaders in all states evade discussion of the genuine disruptions that creation of a supranational government inevitably entails. All Europeans (except currently elected officials, perhaps) would benefit from Stein's commitment to make implicit politics explicit, or Mazie's attention to the dynamics of group membership—or simply from the sorts of bolder leadership described by Keohane, Skowronek, or Kleinerman.

Helen Marrow returns us to the difficulties facing individuals—in this case new immigrants to the United States who are settling in places where there are few others like them. In “New Destinations and Immigrant Incorporation,” Marrow transcends the usual disciplinary divide among sociology, economics, and political science with the simple observation that a given person lives his or her life in all three domains of society, economy, and polity simultaneously. But that is all that is simple about this review of the new literatures on immigrant incorporation. Complexities multiply—across nationality or racial groups, among different types of destinations, among forms of political or social engagement, between qualitative and quantitative scholars, and more. Marrow is a steady, reliable guide through this maze; she carefully documents when and how immigrants are able to sort through the dilemmas facing them and move toward successful incorporation. Her main conclusion should be welcome to political scientists; researchers and activists should focus more on structures and contexts of reception, and perhaps less on the qualities that a given immigrant brings to his or her new home. Luckily for us, the immigrants are cooperating with this research agenda by moving to many different locations, which elegantly sets the scene for comparative research.

In a review essay about several important new books, Helen Milner moves back to the global arena, to consider the dilemmas facing international organizations seeking to help developing nations. In “Globalization, Development, and the Role of International Institutions,” Milner asks whether the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and similar operations really benefit their supposed beneficiaries. That is, of course, their mandate and presumably a sincere commitment of the workers within the organizations. But just as humanitarian organizations get caught up in politics and organizational straitjackets, so banking organizations become caught up in the norms and niceties of banks—perhaps to the detriment of the people and nations who they aim to assist. Milner works through the arguments in the books that she reviews, and then contributes her own resolution to this dilemma, including importantly an analysis of the normative issues surrounding nongovernmental organizations involved in international development.

In his book review essay, George Thomas takes a rather different tack, with not much attention to either leadership or dilemmas of governance and action. Instead, in “The Qualitative Foundations of Political Science: Moving beyond KKV,” he reminds us of another mission of Perspectives on Politics. Rather than using political science to address issues in the Real World, he uses political science to address issues within the discipline. Typically, the standard for excellent scholarship in our discipline is taken to be the scientific rigor exemplified by the best research analyzing a large number of discrete variables. Qualitative research with purportedly less rigor and fewer variables (both terms as understood through quantitative lenses) is thought to be best suited for generating hypotheses, describing how variables operate, or providing striking examples of a relationship that “science” has demonstrated. Thomas stands this whole logic on its head. In his review of several recent books on qualitative methodology, he argues that qualitative logic and research provide the foundation on which “scientific”—or at least quantitative—work necessarily builds. And more than just being the starting point, qualitative research, according to Thomas and most of the authors he reviews, provides more of the genuine information and insight that political scientists seek. King, Keohane, and Verba (“KKV”) wonderfully provoked an argument, and Thomas and the books he discusses have eagerly taken up the gauntlet; readers and the next generation of scholars will judge the tournament.

As always, we have a full complement of informative book reviews; perhaps this is the moment to confess that I always turn to them before rereading articles in the front half of Perspectives. I want to take this chance to thank Greg McAvoy (and earlier in my term as editor, Susan Bickford), for their wonderful leadership in resolving the dilemmas of being a book review editor. They were a pleasure to work with—fun, professional, responsible, creative. I, like other authors and aspiring authors, look forward eagerly to the book review editorship of Jeffrey Isaac of Indiana University. He has a high standard to meet, and will undoubtedly do so.

I want also to thank the other people without whom my editorship, and the journal itself, could not have happened. We had in succession three excellent managing editors, Lisa Burrell, Kevin McKenna, and Thomas Kozachek, who all did a great deal to begin and constantly improve this complex operation. The Ph.D. student assistants to the editor were also invaluable—and if any readers are seeking junior colleagues, they are now expert researchers and evaluators! They were, in alphabetical order, Michael Fortner, Brian Glenn, Melissa Kayongo, Daniel Kenney, Jason Lakin, Eric Lomazoff, Anna Nelson, and Meg Rithmire. Dan was there from beginning to end (and is still working, as I write). The APSA staff in Washington did their usual heroic job with their usual efficiency and good humor. Editors at Cambridge University Press, especially Mark Zadrozny and Ed Barnas, provided essential expertise. And I want especially to thank the five associate editors—Henry Brady, William Galston, Atul Kohli, Paula McClain, and Jack Snyder—with whom it was an honor and a deep pleasure to work. Despite their overloaded schedules and their own agendas, they gave a great deal of time and care to the editorial mission. We went through some difficult moments–more than once, I thought about the painted signs on old barns urging drivers-by to “impeach Earl Warren”—but never with each other. And they never wavered in their commitment to excellent scholarship, political science, and Perspectives on Politics.

I may write a more extensive reflection on what I learned during the past very full three and a half years, so I will conclude here with just two thoughts. First, there is a lot of talent, good cheer, graciousness, and hard work in our profession, and I have been privileged to see and learn from it. Second, and more grouchily, we risk selling ourselves short by settling too often for poor writing, underdeveloped arguments, inattention to questions of “so what?”, and unwillingness to take seriously the views of people who disagree with our position. Perspectives on Politics exists to take advantage of the former and contest the latter. I have loved my time as editor, but am now happily immersed in wrestling with my own writing demons. Perspectives has a fine new editor, James Johnson of University of Rochester, and “now sits Expectation in the air” (Chorus, Henry V ).