The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) was founded in 1889 to promote progress in the social sciences. Sparked by Professor Edmund J. James and drawing from members of the faculty of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, Swarthmore College, and Bryn Mawr College, the Academy sought to establish communication between ''scientific thought and practical effort''. The goal of its founders was to foster, across disciplines, important questions in the realm of

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

, and to promote the work of those whose research aimed to address important

social problems A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society and ones that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's cont ...

. Today the AAPSS is headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and aims to offer interdisciplinary perspectives on important social issues.

Establishment

The primary modes of the Academy's communication were to be the bimonthly journal, ''The Annals'', annual meetings, symposia, and special publications. Difficult topics were not avoided. The 1901 annual meeting was on race relations in America, and included a paper by Booker T. Washington. The Academy began as a membership organization. Membership was ''open and inclusive'' with an emphasis on educated professionals; even from its establishment, women were permitted to obtain membership. The Academy's members have included not only academicians, but also distinguished

public servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

such as Herbert Hoover and Frances Perkins. Perhaps for this reason, it is not a member of the American Council of Learned Societies. In 2000 the Academy began selecting and installing ''Fellows'' in recognition of social scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the field.Pearson, Robert W. (2003) "A New Look at The American Academy of Political and Social Science" ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 585(Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century): pp. 6-7, p.7 Since 2008 the Academy has presented an annual Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize to recognize public officials and/or scholars who have used social science and informed judgment to advance the public good. The Academy continues to publish its bimonthly journal, and holds congressional briefings, special conferences, and biannual meetings of its board of directors. The Academy has moved away from the membership model, however.

Presidents of the Academy

* 1889–1895 - Edmund J. James * 1896–1900 - Roland P. Falkner (acting in the absence of Edmund J. James) * 1900–1902 - Samuel McCune Lindsay * 1902–1929 - Leo S. Rowe * 1930–1952 - Ernest M. Patterson * 1953–1970 - James C. Charlesworth * 1970–1972 - Richard D. Lambert * 1972–1998 - Marvin E. Wolfgang * 1998–1999 -

Kathleen Hall Jamieson Kathleen Hall Jamieson (born November 24, 1946) is an American professor of communication and the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She co-founded FactCheck.org, and she is an author, most recently ...

* 1999–2001 -

Jaroslav Pelikan Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. (December 17, 1923 – May 13, 2006) was an American scholar of the history of Christianity, Christian theology, and medieval intellectual history at Yale University. Early years Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. was born on Dec ...

* 2001–2005 - Lawrence W. Sherman * 2006–2015 - Douglas S. Massey * 2015–2021 -

Kenneth Prewitt Kenneth Prewitt (born March 16, 1936) is the Carnegie Professor of Social Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he is also director of the Scholarly Knowledge Project. He was Director of the United Stat ...

*2021–present Marta Tienda

Publications

''The Annals''

''The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', a policy and scientific journal in political and social science, began publication in July 1890 and has continued uninterrupted up until the present."Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," in International Magazine Co., ''Periodicals,'' vol. 1, no. 1 (October–December 1917), pg. 5. The journal began as a quarterly but switched to a bi-monthly schedule effective with volume 2 in the summer of 1891. From 1897 (volume 6), volume numbers began to be changed every three issues, with each single issue after volume 38 constituting its own volume. A number of pamphlet supplements were also issued during the journal's early years. ''The Annals'' recent authors and editors have included Henry Louis Gates Jr., Richard A. Clarke, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and William Julius Wilson. ''The Annals'' has been published by SAGE Publications since 1981. In 2003, it changed from its traditional plain orange cover to a more graphic cover containing photographs. ''The Annals'' has covered topics including "The World's Food" (November, 1917) to "The Motion Picture and its Economic and Social Aspects" (November 1926), "Women in the Modern World" (May, 1929), "America and Japan" (May, 1941), "Urban Renewal Goals and Standards" (March, 1964), and "The Global Refugee Problem" (May, 1982). More recent volumes have focused on such topics as "Confronting the Specter of Nuclear Terrorism" and "The Moynihan Report Revisited: Lessons and Reflections after Four Decades". According to the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collec ...

'', the journal has a 2017

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

of 2.401, ranking it 33rd out of 169 journals in the category "Political Science" and 11th out of 94 journals in the category "Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary".

Editors

* 1890–1895, Edmund J. James * 1896–1900, Roland P. Falkner * Jan. 1901–Mar. 1902,

Henry Rogers Seager Henry Rogers Seager (July 21, 1870 – August 23, 1930, Kiev, Russia) was an American economist, and Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, who served as president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. Inspired by t ...

* May 1902–Sept. 1914, Emory R. Johnson * Nov. 1914–July 1929, Clyde L. King * Sept. 1929–July 1968,

Thorsten Sellin Johan Thorsten Sellin (26 October 1896 – 17 September 1994) was a Swedish American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology. Biography Sellin was born in Örnsköldsvik in ...

* Jan. 1969–Nov. 1995 Richard D. Lambert * Jan. 1996–Nov. 2003 Alan W. Heston * Jan 2003–May 2006 Robert W. Pearson * July 2006–Dec. 2010 Phyllis Kaniss * Dec. 2010-Dec. 2011 Emily Wood * Dec. 2011–present Thomas A. Kecskemethy

The Academy Online

In 2006, the Academy created a blog to take advantage of the Internet to provide a forum for ideas and research in the

. Today, the Academy'
website
is the main source for news of the Academy, recently published Annals volumes, and information about the Fellows and Moynihan Prize.

Moynihan Prize Winners

* 2008 -

Alice M. Rivlin Alice Mitchell Rivlin (born Georgianna Alice Mitchell; March 4, 1931 – May 14, 2019) was an American economist and budget official. She served as the 16th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. Before her appointment at the F ...

* 2009 -

David T. Ellwood David T. Ellwood is an American economist and university administrator. He served as the dean of Harvard Kennedy School and as the Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. Early life Ellwood grew up Minnesota. His fathe ...

* 2010 - Robert Greenstein * 2011 -

Diane Ravitch Diane Silvers Ravitch (born July 1, 1938) is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. ...

* 2012 -

Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended th ...

* 2013 - William Julius Wilson * 2014 - Joseph Stiglitz * 2015 - Rebecca M. Blank * 2016 - Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins * 2017 - Alan Krueger * 2018 -

John Holdren John Paul Holdren (born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, March 1, 1944) is an American scientist who served as the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues through his roles as Assistant to the President for Science and ...

* 2019 -

Samantha Power Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an American journalist, diplomat and government official who is currently serving as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. She previously served as the 28th ...

*2020 - William Nordhaus

Notes

External links

''American Academy of Political and Social Science'' official website
{{Authority control Sociological organizations Academic organizations based in the United States Non-profit organizations based in Pennsylvania 1889 establishments in Pennsylvania Organizations established in 1889 Political science in the United States