Editor's Note.(strategic planning for the American Political Science Association)(Brief Article)

In September 1999, the APSA Council initiated a Strategic Planning Process (www.apsanet.org/new/planning/). According to 1999-2000 APSA President Robert Keohane, the purpose of strategic planning was to "evaluate the overall condition of the Association relative to its mission and key challenges and opportunities in the external environment; to analyze APSA's strengths and weaknesses, including its financial strengths and weaknesses; to make recommendations on the most pressing issues or critical choices that must be made, including those pertaining to membership, revenues, services, and publications" (www.apsanet.org/new/planning/statement.cfm). Over the course of the next 12 months, the Strategic Planning Committee chaired by Paul Beck of Ohio State University issued three preliminary reports (www.apsanet.org/new/planning/) and a final report published in this issue of PS.

Over the same period, the Council appointed a search committee to select a successor to APSR Editor Ada Finifter, whose second term is slated to end August 2001. (Her annual report appears in this issue of PS]. The search committee, chaired by Peter Gourevitch of the University of California, San Diego, working with a highly competitive list of 17 individual and team applications, enthusiastically recommended Lee Sigelman of George Washington University to President Keohane and the APSA Council. Sigelman was unanimously approved by the Council in September 2000 (see ...