What’s in a Name? From New Political Science to Critical Political Science
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Abstract
Abstract There is no evidence that the founders of the Caucus for a New Political Science (CNPS) put much thought into the organization’s name because it was initially founded as an ad hoc caucus and there was no expectation that it would still exist more than a half-century later. However, even in the intellectual context of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the name “New Political Science” was something of an oddity as comparable dissident movements in other social science and humanities disciplines were adopting the terms Radical or Critical to name their new insurgent organizations. After decades of debate, the CNPS finally voted in September 2021 to change its name to the Caucus for a Critical Political Science and to adopt a new mission statement identifying it as “an association of critical scholars committed to making the study of political science relevant to building a more democratic and egalitarian economic, social, and political order.”