Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform requests member feedback on new draft APSA bylaws-2016

The Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform has posted a new set of draft bylaws for the Association. Read the new bylaws and rationale for reform here. Post a comment, share your views and be part of the conversation here on PSNow (see form below), or email comments directly to the governance reform committee chair, David Lake.

10 Comments

  1. Will you please proved a list of the organized sections? Is oversight of organized sections a departure from current practice? If so, what is the impetus for this change? What will this oversight entail? Will the heads of organized sections be represented on the Council (note: I see that there is a new committee on organized sections).

    • Valeria

      The list of current organized sections can be found here: http://www.apsanet.org/MEMBERSHIP

      The current Constitution and Bylaws were adopted before Organized Sections became important constituent units of the Association. Indeed, our current governing documents are largely silent on sections. There has always been oversight of the sections by the Council, but it has been uneven over time. The proposed Bylaws merely formalize this role.

      Neither the Organized Sections nor any other constituent units with the Association will be formally represented on the Governing Council. The existing membership committee on Organized Sections will continue to exist and function as in the past (see Art. IX, section 4). The language in this section codifies existing structure and practice.

  2. I would like to hear more about the shift from votes during the business meeting to electronic voting. Is there an expectation of greater participation? Also, please explain the requirement for a majority vote– is this an absolute majority of APSA members? Why was this change deemed necessary and/or desirable? Will this change engender “campaigning” and, if so, what are the expected benefits and costs to the body?

    • Valeria

      Business meetings have been sparsely attended in the past. Indeed, last year’s meeting (2015) failed a quorum count towards the end, meaning that less than 100 members were in attendance. Electronic voting is intended to maximize participation of members in determining matters of consequence for the association. In practice, most votes in recent decades have been conducted electronically and not at the Business meeting itself.

      By majority voting, I assume you are referring to Art. V, Section 4, paragraph 3. As you likely know, voting for officers and Council members of the association has been controversial in recent years, especially when there is a single slate proposed by the nominating committee. The requirement for a majority of the votes properly cast is to ensure that any officer or Council member has the support of at least half the members who choose to vote. We hope that this will ensure that members so elected will be seen as legitimately endorsed by the membership even in the case of single-candidate elections. Please note, however, that this is a majority of the votes cast, not a majority of all members of the Association.

  3. The language of the current Constitution, Article II, Section 2, is

    “2. The Association as such is nonpartisan. It will not support political parties or candidates. It will not commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above. But the Association nonetheless actively encourages in its membership and its journals, research in and concern for significant contemporary political and social problems and policies, however controversial and subject to partisan discourse in the community at large these may be. The Association shall not be barred from adopting resolutions or taking such other action as it deems appropriate in support of academic freedom and of freedom of expression by and within the Association, the political science profession, and the university, when in its judgment such freedom has been clearly and seriously violated or is clearly and seriously threatened.”

    The revised language in the proposed Bylaws, Article 1, Section 3, reads

    “b. In achieving these purposes, the Association strongly supports academic freedom, freedom of
    expression, and the equal protection of members and other Political Scientists regardless of
    country of origin or residence.
    c. In pursuance of its purposes, the Association may not act in any way that is inconsistent with
    its tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
    d. The Association as such is nonpartisan and does not support political parties or candidates.
    The Association encourages individual members in their research, publications, teaching, and
    public engagement to address significant political and social problems and policies, even when
    these problems and policies are controversial and subject to partisan discourse. As a corporate
    body, the Association may take positions on matters of public policy that directly affect its
    ability to function as an association and conduct business for the good of its members.”

    In other words, the general commitment not to “commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above” (subject to subsequent exceptions) has been deleted. What had been a limited set of urgent exceptions is now a broader permission, with no statement that taking corporate stands will be limited to the cases described.

    This seems to me a serious mistake. APSA has been well-served by insulating itself from the fights within academic associations to take stands on controversial public matters. I can understand the case for broadening the original exception in a way that brings in the new language. But it should still be an exception. I strongly urge that the original “It will not commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above” be retained as the default rule, subject to specified exceptions.

    Failing that, I urge that the change be flagged as an important one, alerting members that it should be discussed and debated; it is not mentioned in the current memo describing changes.

  4. David Lake and Steven Rathgeb Smith earned my gratitude this past year for their openness to the concerns some of us raised last summer about whether the draft by-laws sufficiently preserved the principle that the Association should not commit its members on public policy issues unconnected to free inquiry and the promotion of political science as a discipline. I think the 2016 draft is an improvement, not least because it restores the old Constitution’s support for individual members’ working on controversial problems and policies, but I believe we should also restore the prohibition on committing the collective membership on “questions of public policy… not immediately concerned with its direct purpose.” Thus I invite the Committee’s and the Council’s endorsement of amending Article I, section 3, paragraph d of the 2016 Proposed Draft By-Laws to read:

    d. The Association as such is nonpartisan and does not support political parties or candidates. The Association encourages individual members in their research, publications, teaching, and public engagement to address significant political and social problems and policies, even when these problems and policies are controversial and subject to partisan discourse. As a corporate body, the Association may take positions on matters of public policy that directly affect its ability to function as an association and conduct business for the good of its members, but the Association may not otherwise commit its members on questions of public policy.

    As you’ll see by comparison, this endorses the draft and adds a final clause.

  5. I agree with both Jacob Levy and James Stoner above. APSA should protect the interests of all political scientists and should neither “commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above.” That language should remain in the Constitution in some form. I support an amendment to the proposed bylaws to that effect.

  6. I agree with Jacob Levy, James Stoner, and Lauren Hall. While I am open to various ways of phrasing the matter (whether preserving the old language or adding an explicit proviso to the bylaws), I think it is very important that the bylaws commit APSA to not taking stands on political or policy issues except those directly related to the Association’s mission. At least as important: like Jacob, I think it crucial that this matter be flagged as a controversial issue in the memo flagging important changes–as is not now the case.

  7. I agree with Levy et al. that the removal of the general prohibition on taking positions on political matters (as opposed to matters of academic freedom) is problematic and seems designed to promote conflict within the association. Having watched other academic associations tear themselves apart over. e.g. resolutions about Israel/Palestine, I have no wish to bring such conflicts to APSA.

    This prohibition in no way prevents the Association from taking strong stands about the abuse of academic freedom (e.g. as it has recently done, quite laudably, about the situation in Turkey). Nor does it prevent the Association from calling attention to general threats to intellectual inquiry (as with recent Congressional threats to the NSF).

    In short, the current policy appears to give the Association sufficient latitude to defend its core principles and values publicly, while the proposed changes add little except the potential for further internal conflict.

  8. In response to the comments by Levy, Stoner, Hall, Sabi, and Dienstag, the proposed amendment on Art. I, Section 3, paragraph d. will be submitted to the Governing Council for discussion and its consideration at the Council’s meeting on August 31. The Council’s position on the amendment, if any, will be announced when the amendment is proposed at the Business Meeting on Thursday, September 1. I encourage everyone concerned with this issue to attend the Business Meeting and make the case for or against this proposal.
    Editor: Meeting is noon on the 1st in the Philadelphia Convention Center 114

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