Thread by @henryfarrell

1. There are a lot of people in political science today complaining that John Eastman is speaking at APSA 2021 and suggesting APSA should do something about it. My opinions of Eastman and his memo are exactly what you'd expect given my past writing washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-cyni… But ...

2. The complaints - if they are more than just popcorn throwing, don't seem particularly deeply thought out. I say this as someone who has co-chaired an APSA meeting in the past but has no current role in the organization beyond membership and is speaking purely as an individual.

3. The first point is that APSA-as-an-organization has much less power over who does or does not attend its meetings than people seem to believe. There are some theme panels that the chairs can put together, and other places where there is a little wriggle room ...

4. But most of the panels are put together by sections and other organized groups. APSA leadership, the meeting chairs and others don't have any direct say on who is invited and who isn't. There aren't - as best as I know - any formal procedures for vetoing controversial speakers

5. That leads to an obvious question: should there be such procedures? Maybe! But obviously, there are going to be tradeoffs, when you delegate that power to officials, elected or otherwise, who may or may have different priorities from some or all of the members.

6. So are there other things you could do? Maybe you could change the procedure under which APSA treats "associated groups" - which aren't organized sections but can get a couple of panels. Eastman is speaking because the Claremont Institute has an associated group.

7. That too has tradeoffs. Obviously, it won't do anything about Eastman right now. And if you make it harder to become an associated group, you potentially shut off the opportunity for a wide variety of smaller interests to participate in the conference.

8. A third possibility is to change APSA from a professionally focused organization to one that explicitly holds to some normative or ethical standard - perhaps a shared commitment to democracy. That is the most attractive potential reform for me personally.

9. But again - tradeoffs. What will a shared democratic commitment look like after it has been processed through the sausage factor of a profession with widely varying but strongly held understandings of what democracy is? And would it protect against anti-democratic individuals?

10. How would it work practically? Through some legal bar type process, where those who are held to have breached the professional standards would be disqualified and excluded? Would there be appeals procedures? Might this be weaponized in unanticipated ways?

11. There may be good answers to these questions. But again, they are likely to involve messy and painful tradeoffs and costs. And if you want to get past Twitter condemnations, you need to start thinking about which tradeoffs are acceptable, and which aren't.

12. (in fairness, that is a discussion that is hard to have in chunks of 280 characters or less). So my point is this. If condemnations of APSA for allowing Eastman to present are just a backhanded way of signaling in public that Eastman ought be shunned, OK.

13. That doesn't really present an accurate picture of how APSA works, or what power APSA leadership or convention chairs have - but maybe accuracy and practicability are irrelevant to what the speech is trying to convey (a generalized refusal of assent to him being there).

14. If, instead, these condemnations are meant as serious suggestions for action or reform (or the beginnings of them), people ought at the least explain what APSA ought to do, and think through the side-effects and possible unanticipated consequences.

15. And if they care deeply about this, they should start drafting proposals that specify what they think needs to be done, and the reforms that would allow it to be done, and start canvassing for these proposals.

16. My sense is that APSA's decision making process is not fantastic - but 80% of that is member apathy. When a substantial number of members coalesce around something, people pay attention, because they have to (the organization depends on member dues). Finis.