What Is APD Now? And What Comes Next?

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

In recent years, scholars in American Political Development have been struggling to define (or redefine) the field. Challenges seem to come from every direction: For starters, the rise of a vigorously anti-statist Trump-defined Republican party, institutionalized in the Supreme Court majority, challenges the field's implicit expectation of institutional development. Moreover, new methods and problem definitions (in political science, history, African-American studies, gender studies, queer theory and more) open up new perspectives and challenge old ways of thinking.

We propose a roundtable to try to make sense of APD today. This is the perfect format to bring many different perspectives and begin to formalize a conversation that’s already informally taking place whenever APD scholars meet.

The participants include scholars who have helped define the subfield from the start as an APSA section and continue to drive it forward (James Morone, Rogers Smith, Desmond King). Others have pushed APD’s empirical and methodological boundaries. These new directions include a focus on the development of the carceral state (Marie Gottschalk & Megan Ming Francis), attention to health policy (Andrea Campbell), and attention to urban political development (Kimberley Johnson & Timothy Weaver). Others have emphasized the benefits of nurturing a comparative sensibility (Robert Lieberman) and deploying mixed-methods or IPE approaches (David Bateman). Of course, the coeditors of the field's flagship journal, Studies in American Political Development (Paul Frymer, Marie Gottschalk, and Kimberley Johnson) will have an especially useful overview.

Each presenter will assess APD’s most important contributions, reflect on its present condition, and suggest potential futures.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Chair

• David Alexander Bateman Cornell University

Presenters

• Timothy Weaver SUNY, University at Albany

• James A. Morone Brown University

• Andrea Louise Campbell Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Megan Ming Francis University of Washington

• Paul Frymer Princeton University

• Marie Gottschalk University of Pennsylvania

• Kimberley S. Johnson New York University

• Robert C. Lieberman Johns Hopkins University

• Rogers M. Smith University of Pennsylvania