Identity challenges: Facing the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences

Founded in 1980, the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) sought to establish biopolitics as a recognized field and to integrate biologically based research methods into mainstream political science. The association's founders established these goals to encourage a generation of scholars and promote the spread of biopolitical knowledge. There was early success when the American Political Science Association (APSA) recognized biopolitics as an organized section. However, this development did not leave an appreciable imprint on the political science profession and the experiment conjoining the two did not last long. The other goal of the founders, to integrate biologically based research methods into mainstream political science, faced more formidable obstacles and still faces challenges, though not without some progress.