SSHA Politics Network News

Inside This Issue: SSHA and the Politics Network in New Orleans Network Minutes from 1995 H-Pol's On-line Seminar on Nominating Process Book Reviews Politics of Inequality - Boston Area Seminar on American Political Development H-Net at the APSA Conference

From The Editor: Welcome to the Internet Edition of the SSHA Politics Network News. Thanks to the good services of H-Net and our electronic voice, H-Pol, we are able to offer the Politics Network News on-line. This format avoids mailing and printing costs and gives us all the space we would like for features and stories. At last year's Network meeting, I agreed to take over the newsletter, but indicated at the time that I was uncertain if we could obtain publication support from Kansas State. Alas, the University's great leap into cyberspace has reduced its interest in supporting print publications. I have therefore turned out this edition and will bring some copies to New Orleans for those of us who lack an internet connection. The newsletter is an interactive document: it contains hypertext links to among its contents and to items of related interest on the Internet. By clicking on text underlined and highlighted in blue, your browser will connect to the item described by the hypertext phrase. I hope that you find it informative and useful. This issue of the newsletter includes information about the upcoming annual meeting of the Social Science History Association and the sessions sponsored there by our network. Scott Barton, the Network's program coordinator, assembled quite a cluster of sessions; read his column and scan the list of sessions below. The newsletter also reprints important items from last year's Network meeting and from H-Pol. The minutes of last year's Network meeting are here, and we are reprinting portions of H-Pol's Online Seminar on the Nominating Process, which was coordinated and edited by Network regular Jack Reynolds. I have also sketched some notes about H-Net's invasion of the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco, where H-Net representatives worked with APSA sections to develop online resources in political science. Ballard Campbell has forwarded to us a report of the most recent meeting of the Boston Area Seminar on American Political Development. This session of the seminar featured panelists on the politics of inequality in the twentieth century, including Claudia Goldin, Allen Hertzke, Elizabeth Sanders, Nelson Lichtenstein, Martin Shefter, David Weaklien, John Gerring, Jeffrey Berry, Paul Pierson, Steven Steinmo. Finally, we have incorporated links to H-Net book reviews of interest to political historians. Click on the hypertext link to jump to the review. It's my hope that this first internet edition will inspire future editions that combine the daily network distribution of H-Pol, the graphical capabilities and accessibility of the World Wide Web, and the in-depth features on the research, publication, and scholarly activity of our members that we have come to expect of this newsletter. Book features -- reviews, notes, publication notices -- would be of special value. I am also seeking announcements about conferences in our field, as well as information about members' research activities. See you in New Orleans.... Peter Knupfer Kansas State University Editor

On to New Orleans: The Politics Network at the SSHA Annual Meeting

By Scott Barton
East Central University
Politics Network Program Coordinator

The Politics Network and the SSHA will be meeting at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans, October 10-13, 1996, for the SSHA's 21st Annual Meeting. (For local information about New Orleans, including local maps, tourist information, and weather, visit Yahoo's New Orleans search site. ) The preliminary schedule of conference sessions can be viewed at the H-Net SSHA site. Our Network is scheduled to gather at 12:30-1:15 on Friday, October 11. Check the final conference program for location.

It's almost time for another annual meeting and the Politics Network has lined up another year of promising sessions. In addition to sessions organized by the members of the Politics Network there are a number of sessions organized by other networks which will interest members of the politics network. My year as the Politics Network Representative is almost over and it has been a most hectic year in working with the program committee to produce the 1996 annual meeting's sessions. I know we have some very good sessions planned for New Orleans.

There were a number of good ideas presented at the 1995 annual meeting for sessions, but only a few of those sessions became part of the 1996 program. Good ideas only become sessions when someone presents a proposal. The network idea of working with States and Societies produced some sessions. The session on Progressivism is a product of the network meetings as is the roundtable on Minority Voting Rights.

I had also hoped that the 1994 elections, the upcoming 1996 election, and the anniversary of the election of 1896 and Plessy v. Ferguson would generate session proposals. We do not have any sessions on the 1996 election or the 1994 elections. We do have a session on Populism.

Most of our paper proposals came from scholars who read the call for papers on H-Pol. The cooperation of H-Pol generated a number of individual paper proposals.

The individual paper proposals while welcome are and have been the major headache for our network. Most networks have full session proposals. These full session proposals make the network representative's job easier. When you have a variety of individual paper proposals it complicates the job of submitting sessions. In conversations with past network representives, I discovered this problem has often plagued the Politics Network.

I've learned a great deal in the past year because I made a number of mistakes. I am willing to be a co-network representative for politics next year, or I can easily let it go on to someone else. Although I do not think it is a task that can be handled by one person. I hope people continue to come to the annual meeting with good ideas for sessions. I further hope that more people follow up their good ideas with sessions. I believe that H-Pol will continue to provide us with a number of papers and I also hope that more scholars will submit panel proposals. Even if you do not submit a panel proposal, it would be helpful if you could identify one or two scholars working on similar topics. I don't mind dropping someone a line or making a phone call on behalf of the network. Jack Reynolds and Phil VanderMeer both said individual papers were an opportunity to attract new people to the Association. I hope all of those people coming to our annual meeting for the first time consider the SSHA Politics Network as a home for their future presentations. I also hope that more long-time members of the Association will consider giving papers next year.

Sponsored by Politics:

• A02 Populism and Labor Politics in the Gilded Age

• C06: Progressivism and Urban Politics

• F13: Class, Property, Parties

• H01: A Roundtable: The Supreme Court's Recent Decisions on Minority Voting Rights

• I04: Process and Power in Progressive Era Politics

• J01: Race and Politics in the United States and Southern Africa

• K09: Explorations into Twentieth Century Conservatism

• A08: Comparative Movements for State Transformation

• F04: States and Politics in Early Modern Europe

• I01: States and Money: Fiscal Capacity and State Building in the 20th Century

• X13: The Continuing Significance of Race and the Failure of Social Policy

• A05: How Did We Get Into this Mess, Anyway? Historical Approaches to the Undoing of Aid to (Families with) Dependent Chldren

• B01: Varieties of Acceptance: The Political Integration of German Americans in the Civil War Era

• B15: Women and Political Mobilization in Comparative Perspective

• C02: Religion and Reform Politics: Great Britain, The United States, and France, 1850-1914

• F08: Religion and the 1996 Elections: A Roundtable

• G05: American Nativism, Past and Present

• G09: Islam and Politics

For more information