July 19, 2002

How Political Scientists Can Help Fight the War on Terrorism

By RICK VALELLY

Since September 11, political scientists in my subfield, American politics, have spent considerable time and energy trying to assess what the events of that day and its aftermath "did" to American politics. Remarkably, it has not occurred to us that we might also have to modify how we do political science.

Before the attacks, we conducted our research within a rational-actor framework -- using the assumption that citizens and their representatives act in an informed way toward

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