Political Scientists

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Abstract

merican political scientists make relatively infrequent Aattempts to conununicate directly with nonacademic political actors. Given what is believed to be our primary goal-a systematic construction of political reality-the discipline’s utility for political actors directly serves that end. Although utility is no prerequisite for good scholarship, in part its value may lie in its usefulness as a test of validity for what the political science community accepts as &dquo;knowledge.&dquo; Successful application increases our belief that we have at least begun the process of grounding our theories someplace other than in our colleagues’ heads. Political scientists rarely have stepped back to examine the