1. Overview
This project wishes to provide an overview of the current state and future perspectives of political science in the countries of Western Europe. It builds on an earlier effort supported by the European Commission under the Political Science in Europe Evaluation Conference which had resulted in a first report delivered in June 1996 (Jean-Louis Quermonne, ed., “La Science Politique en Europe: Formation, Cooperation, Perspectives”, 1996). The proposed project is also conceptualised as a companion volume to “The State of Political Science in Central and Eastern Europe” (Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Ewa Kulesza, and Annette Legutke, eds., Berlin: sigma, 2002). It is part of the effort of the epsNet community to build an information base of political science in Europe or both students, teachers and researchers on the one hand and those responsible for developing education and research policies on the other hand.

2. Aims and Objectives
Right now no up-to-date account of the current state and future perspectives of political science is available for Western Europe. The project is designed to fill that gap. It will provide country reports consisting of two parts: (1) country-specific, with a summary of the historical development of political science as a discipline and the particular problems the discipline faces today; (2) standardised and describing teaching and research, patterns of co-operation, and the state of the art. In addition, two comparative assessments will discuss similarities and differences across Western Europe and between Western Europe on the one hand and Central and Eastern Europe on the other hand

3. General Output
Assess the situation of the discipline in a book entitled “Political Science in Western Europe: Current State and Future Perspectives”.

4. Deliverables
19 country reports (15 EU countries plus Cyprus, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), an introduction as well as two comparative chapters.

5. Project Leaders and Teams
The team leader will be Hans-Dieter Klingemann (based at Sciences-Po Paris). If possible, the authors for the country chapters will be the same as those having contributed to the Quermonne report in 1996. These are: Belgium - André-Paul Frognier, Université Catholique de Louvain; France - Pierre Favre, Institut d’Études Politiques de Grenoble; Germany - Hans-Dieter Klingemann; Greece -Georges Contogeorgis, Panteion University Athens; the Netherlands - Jacques Thomassen, University of Twente; Spain - Josep Valles, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Sweden -Bertil Nygren, Stockholm University; Iceland - Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, University of Iceland; Norway - Tore Hansen, University of Oslo. The contribution on Cyprus, which was not covered by the 1996 report, will be written by Kalliope Agapiou-Josiphides, University of Cyprus. For the other counties, the contributors are currently being identified. Experience is the decisive criteria. However, this relates to the specific authors not to their institutions. The principal investigator tries to make sure that experience and competence are the criteria guiding their selection. The contribution on Switzerland could be written by Klaus Armingeon (University of Bern).