HOLDEN, Mathew, Jr <br/><br/>
The competence of political science :  "progress in political research" revisited presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1999 

 -  2000 
<br/><br/> Political science is two realms, the intellectual and the organizatinal, and the task is to consider how the organizational realm might be adpated to the highest improvement of the intellectual realm. Political science has a certain competence (domain) in the study of politics as the organization of  power. It also seeks to expand competence as capability. Charles Merriam provides a point of departure. Merriam`s most successful ida has ben that of enhancing competence through improvments in "the field of method". Competence, however, now demands methodological flexibility, so as to probe more into the exercise of power. Four fields are strategic: public administration, political interests, unbanization, and the  interpenetration  of politics and economics. Competence also leads into unorthodox subjects, such as force  and foolish, irrational, and pathological decision making (or "the Oxensitierna-Mullins Effect"). Finally, competence, demands (and is enhanced by) the reach of political science into serious parctical problems of human affairs