Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2005
The question “What is political science?” is nearly as old as thediscipline itself. Political science continually self-examines thediscipline to evaluate who we are and how we have changed. Inaddition, there are numerous studies of groups within politicalscience, including political science in the U.S. South and women inpolitical science. There are also reviews of the development andstate of subfields, e.g., urban politics , international relations,comparative politics, and political theory. Each of these historiesprovides an image of what political science is or what it should be.These self-reviews provide images of the discipline that shape ouridentities as political scientists and advance the progress ofpolitical science. Even if the images do not affect futuredirections in political science, they are “an important dimension ofidentity and critical reflection on the theory and practice ofpolitical science”. Developing and critiquing these images areimportant academic exercises.J. TobinGrant is assistant professor, department of political science,Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is coauthor (withThomas Rudolph) of Expression vs. Equality: The Politicsof Campaign Finance Reform (Ohio State UniversityPress, 2004).I thankBadredine Arfi, Gregory Kasza, Scott McClurg, Thomas Rudolph,Edward Schatz, and Herbert Weisberg for their comments andsuggestions on this article.