1982
In addition to periodicals, IPSA has commissioned and published books since its inception. However, during the first thirty years of IPSA's operations, there was no long-term book program. Instead, ad hoc publications were based on the work of rapporteurs at Congresses or roundtables and on studies commissioned by UNESCO, with different publishing houses being used. The books published in the 1950s included Study of Teaching by William A. Robson (IPSA President, 1952-1955), La participation des femmes à la vie politique by Maurice Duverger (IPSA Vice-President, 1952-1955), New States and International Organizations by Benjamin Akzin (IPSA Vice-President, 1955-1958), and several subsequent works.
It was only in the 1980s that IPSA finally launched an ongoing book series titled Advances in Political Science: An International Series. The Executive Committee and the Council approved this project in 1979, to be pursued in association with Sage Publications. Richard L. Merritt (IPSA Vice-President, 1979-1982) was appointed general editor of the series, and a small editorial committee was established in 1981. The series was launched in 1982 with two books.
As the series editor noted in his introduction, the new project was animated by the same core concern as IPSR: The need to counteract tendencies towards parochialism and over-specialization. The new series was designed to present the best work then being produced:
(1) On the central and critical controversial themes of politics and/or;
(2) In new areas of enquiry where political scientists, alone or in conjunction with other scholars, are shaping innovative concepts and methodologies of political analysis.
Within the first five years of the series, five volumes were released. A sixth volume was published by Butterworth in 1987 as part of a once-off arrangement, and a contract was signed with Cambridge University Press in the same year. Three further volumes appeared under the terms of this contract.
When the contract with Cambridge ended in 1991, the search for a new publisher began under a new book series editor, Itzhak Galnoor. Although a number of promising lines of enquiry were followed, including one for a series dealing with “basic concepts” in political science, it was decided to proceed slowly until an arrangement could be made with a publisher that took full account of IPSA’s interests. A satisfactory contract was achieved in 1995 with Macmillan Publishers, negotiated by the new book series editor, Asher Arian.
By the end of 1999, five books had appeared in the relaunched series, and contracts had been signed for several others (the titles that have appeared to date are listed below).
Advances in Political Science books published by Macmillan Publishers from 1996 to 2000
- Klaus von Beyme, Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe (1996)
- Christa Altenstetter and James Warner Bjorkman, eds, Health Policy Reform, National Variations and Globalization (1997)
- Frank P. Harvey and Ben Mor, eds, New Directions in the Study of International Conflict (1998)
- Henry J. Jacek and Justin Greenwood, eds, Organized Business and the New Global Order (1999)
- Ofer Feldman, The Political Personality of Japan: Analysing the Motivations and Culture of Freshman Diet Members (1999)
- Klaus von Beyme, Parliamentary Democracy: Democratization, Destabilization, Reconsolidation, 1789-1999 (2000)
