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Political scientists share problems in common with practitioners of other scholarly disciplines. But, the recognition that they also encounter ethical problems unique to their professional concerns led APSA in 1967 to create a committee with a broad mandate to explore matters. "relevant to the problems of maintaining a high sense of professional standards and responsibilities." A lasting contribution of the committee was the development of a written code consisting of twenty-one rules of professional conduct.
Today, the Committee on Professional Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms takes its direction from A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science which remains the benchmark by which cases referred to the committee are measured, and PS constitutes the primary medium through which the committee addresses its political science colleagues. While most of the committee's cases are resolved discreetly and without public attention, there are instances where the resolution of the issue requires wider attention.
This note provides details on two issues recently considered by the committee. It is the committee's hope that in periodically addressing in PS such issues, we can broaden the Association's understanding of its own ethics guide and sensitize our colleagues to the need for thoughtfully addressing some practices before they become widespread and cause for greater concern.
1.
A paper...