Critical Political Science from the Age of Nixon to the Epoch of Trump

Abstract Within the American Political Science Association (APSA) as well as most American political science departments, the origins and operations of the Caucus for a New Political Science (CNPS) since 1967–69 often are dismissed as antiscientific, insignificant, or unprofessional. However, these reactions misrepresent how the Caucus and its members have developed more critical, innovative, and pragmatic approaches to both politics and political science for over five decades, which often are highlighted in its journal, New Political Science. The CNPS continues to critically reexamine the workings of academic analysis by political scientists around the world. the discipline’s limited impact on politics and policy in the United States, and the growing illiberal turn in American democracy. Caucus members still resist the conformist apolitical tendencies of mainstream American political science training, as it is framed around APSA conferences and publications, and contest how common professional practices in the discipline advance narrow interests favored by rigid state bureaucracies more than the diverse values of free, sovereign democratic citizens.