constitute the dominant configuration of the discipline at present.
Subdisciplines are far from being hermetically sealed, however. Work
across and between subdisciplinary divides is increasingly common in its
frequency and compelling in its quality.

The original Handbook of Political Science was loosely inspired by the
model of Lindzey and Aronson ( 1954/ 1985) Handbook of Social
Psychology ( Greenstein and Polsby 1975: vol. i, p. vi). While social psychol-
ogy remains central to much political science, it is a mark of the broaden-
ing scope of the contemporary discipline that the New Handbook was
loosely inspired, in like fashion, by the New Palgrave: A Dictionary of
Economics ( Eatwellet al. 1987). Again, our modest single volume cannot
compare with the four-volume sweep of that latter work, nor does it face
quite the same challenge of catching up on a century's worth of develop-
ments since publication of the original. But like the New Palgrave, the New
Handbook of Political Science strives to encourage cutting-edge practition-
ers to stand back from the fray and reflect upon where, collectively, we have
been and where, collectively, we are going in their corner of the discipline.
And like the New Palgrave, the New Handbook of Political Science takes that
disciplinary remit broadly to embrace cognate work in economics and
sociology, psychology and statistics, anthropology and area studies.

In addition to these masterly surveys of cognate disciplines, we should
also acknowledge our debt--and our profession's--to various other
interim assessments of the state of political science itself. Although the sur-
veys of Political Science: The State of the Discipline ( Finifter 1983; 1993) are
not nearly as comprehensive in their aspirations as the handbook, old or
new, several of their chapters have become classics that now stand along-
side corresponding chapters in the original handbook as authoritative
statements upon which any subsequent work must build. Another four-
volume collection, Political Science: Looking to the Future ( Crotty 1991),
also contains many truly excellent chapters which repay careful study.
Subfields of political science have also been well-served, a particular land-
mark being Public Administration: The State of the Discipline ( Lynn and
Wildavsky 1990)--a joint venture between the American Society for Public
Administration and APSA. Looking beyond the Anglophone orbit, there
are also ambitious and excellent handbooks of political science published
in French ( Leca and Grawitz 1985), German ( von Beyme 1986) and Italian
( Graziano 1987). The New Handbook aims not to supplant any of those
previous efforts but, rather, to extend and supplement them.

Greenstein and Polsby felt compelled to remark upon the inevitable
incompleteness of their original eight-volume handbook. So too must we
emphasize, all the more strongly, the inevitable incompleteness of our one-

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