Business Meeting: APSA Organized Section on Experimental Research

1. Business Meeting: APSA Organized Section on Experimental Research September 2, 2011 Seattle, WA

2. Agenda Update on Membership / Finances. Awards. Nomination of Officers. Communications. Junior Scholar Update. New Committees. Proposed Amendment. Standards. Journal.

3. Section Membership Drive Our Section (#42) opened for membership after last year’s APSA. Need 250 members to survive. Jan., 2011  214 members. Feb-March, 2011 Membership Drive  now 390 members (26th largest section). Still at least 70 petition signers have not joined!  Finances (Kevin Esterling).

4. Awards Best Paper Presented at the Previous Year's APSA featuring experimental analyses (Josh Tucker, chair) 2010 Best Dissertation prize (Sean Gailmard, chair) Best book published in 2010 that either uses or is about experimental research methods in the study of politics (Ted Brader, chair)

5. Outgoing Officers(parentheses indicate calendar year terms) President: Jamie Druckman (2011) President-elect: Rebecca Morton (2012) At-large Council: Rose McDermott (2010), Mike Tomz (2010-11), Lynn Vavreck (2010-11), Don Green (2011-12) Treasurer: Kevin Esterling (2010-11) Secretary: Costas Panagopoulos (2010-11)* Newsletter editor: Dustin Tingley (2010-11) APSA Program Chair: Kevin Arceneaux (2011) *Agreed to take notes one more time!

6. Nomination of Officers*(parentheses indicate calendar year terms) President: Rebecca Morton (2011) President-elect: Alan Gerber (2012) At-large Council: Andre Blais (2012-13), Jennifer Jerit (2012-13), Jamie Druckman (2012-13), Don Green (2011-12) Treasurer: Jennifer Merolla (2012) Secretary: RikhilBhavnani (2012) Newsletter editor: Dustin Tingley (2010-12) Webmaster: Kevin Esterling (2010-12) APSA Program Chair: Ken Williams (2012) *Nominating Committee: Cindy Kam (chair), Don Green, Leonie Huddy, Ken Williams

7. Section Communications Newsletter (biannual). A. Edited by Dustin Tingley. B. Seeks Submissions (many opportunities here): dtingley@gov.harvard.edu Kevin Esterling’s Section website, listserv.

8. Junior Scholar Committee Mentoring program. Possible grants next year. Committee Chair: YannaKrupnikov.

9. New CommitteesSeeking Volunteers! Best Paper at prior APSA Best Dissertation in prior calendar year Best Book in prior calendar year Nominating Committee Junior Scholar Committee

10. Proposed Amendment Current voting procedure  “Voting on officers and all other matters subject to the membership’s votes shall take place annually, at the Section business Meeting held during the Annual Meeting of the APSA.”

11. Proposed Amendment Current voting procedure  “Voting on officers and all other matters subject to the membership’s votes shall take place annually, at the Section business Meeting held during the Annual Meeting of the APSA.” Proposal voting procedure  “Voting on officers and all other matters subject to the membership’s votes shall take place either: A. annually, at the Section business Meeting held during the Annual Meeting of the APSA, OR B. On-line via the APSA Connect Website. On-line voting requires: 1) 15 day advance warning, 2) 30 day minimum to cast vote, 3) at least 100 votes cast.

12. Standards Committee  Alan Gerber (Chair), Kevin Arceneaux, Tom Palfrey, Cheryl Boudreau, Conor Dowling, Sunshine Hillygus Point  to provide a guide to help researchers in designing and reporting experiments. Preliminary report will be posted in Nov. 30 day comment period. In making comments, consider ways the standards would help think through experimental design. Committee will revise standards. Possible vote next year  requires a 2/3 majority of ALL section members (via on-line voting). Satisfaction of (a sub-set) of the standards will be required for publication in the proposed journal.

13. Journal * Committee on launching a journal. A. John Geer (chair), Rose McDermott, Don Green, Rick Wilson, Scott Gartner, Dan Posner. B. Proposed (paper) journal consisting largely (but not entirely) of shorter articles. C. Articles that use experiments (broadly defined) and/or experimental methodology. D. Challenge  obtaining quality submissions, ensuring broad representation of experimental traditions.

14. Journal * Committee to design journal governance rules. A. Jamie Druckman (chair), Chris Larimar, Macartan Humphreys, Don Green, Kevin Arceneaux, Rick Matland, Rose McDermott, Tom Palfry, Rick Wilson. B. Call for editors (to >60 active section members)  accepted proposal from Becky Morton and Josh Tucker. C. Developed governance structure. D. Part of structure is Advisory committee:  John Geer (chair), Kevin Arceneaux, Macartan Humphreys, Tom Palfrey, and Lynn Vavreck.

15. Journal: Next Steps Post governance structure. On-line forum to discuss (but will not be revised). (Members only, non-anonymous.) Separate On-line forum to provide feedback to editors (Members only, non-anonymous.) On-line vote (with caveat that section dues will not increase by more than $30)  requires a majority. If the section votes for the journal, Becky Morton will step down as section president. President will be named unilaterally by the nominating committee. Apply to APSA for recognition. Sign publisher agreement.

16. Closing Comments Ecumenical spirit of the new Experimental Research Section. Active collaboration with other APSA Sections in co-hosting panels, conferences; opportunities to build bridges to other disciplines. Need to sustain the momentum generated by the recent growth in experimentation and identification-oriented social science. Q&A