The article introduces a discussion on approaches to the history of political thought based on a panel at the ECPR General Conference in Potsdam, 2009. After reconstructing the three classic approaches, the Cambridge School, the ‘Begriffsgeschichte’, and Foucault's Genealogy as well as more recent developments in the field, the authors outline a scheme for further methodological and comparative research. They also emphasise the importance of historical approaches for political theory and political science.

This paper provides an introduction to the symposium on e-learning in politics. It draws out a number of common themes explored in the papers and places these within the context of wider debates relating to both the teaching and learning of politics and e-learning.

This article, as an introduction to the Symposium, discusses the determinants and evolution of attention to defence and foreign policy issues in France. It thereby contributes to existing debates on the relative power of presidents in this area. It then provides a short overview of the different contributions to the symposium. It argues that there is some measure of agreement in the analyses of current relations between France and the US, especially concerning the weight of history. Yet, at the same time, the articles provide a variety of views and approaches to the current state of these relations.

By looking at political thought in historical periods that mirror our own, we can discern patterns of thought which clairvoyantly recognise the new and fearfully retreat to established patterns of thought. Sixteenth-century thought confronts us with the search for newly emerging political orders. Focusing on four thinkers, this paper explicates the emerging pattern. It reflects on the contemporary relevance of sixteenth-century thought and the relevance of the history of ideas.

There has been an increase in the use of e-learning as a form of delivering higher education. Much of the innovation has gone hand in hand with what has been called an ‘evaluation bypass’ and has seemingly been popular because of its economic efficiency. The literature on new technologies tends to be written by those committed to the innovation. They tend to present innovation as a good, regardless of what the innovation is, and ‘resistors’ as in some senses deviant. Using the example of the Higher Education Funding Council for England-funded multimedia project, ‘Doing Political Research’, this paper argues that some degree of scepticism about innovation can be seen as a positive response. Furthermore, the paper argues that the cost-saving arguments put forward by proponents of innovation are illusory. E-learning can be as costly as other means. However, it does offer alternative ways to teach and can be particularly effective at reaching isolated learners. The conclusion is that for e-learning to be effective it must place learning first.

Nicolas Sarkozy's reintegration of NATO's military command in 2009 has been presented as radical, given the traditional Gaullist stance of an arm's length relationship with NATO and the US. This article argues first, the difficulty for any French political leader to alter radically the course of French foreign and defence policy; second, that Sarkozy’ policy is merely conforming to a longer-term trend of negotiating between European and Atlantic positions dating from the beginning of the twentieth century.

A discipline cannot pretend to be such if political borders are reflected in its organisation, methodologies or practices. While pluralistic approaches are highly desirable, it is crucial for any discipline worthy of the name to professionalise itself. This article argues that in spite of imperfections, drawbacks and differentiated development, huge progress has been made towards this goal through the setting up of common standards, improved Ph.D. and post-doctoral training and international mobility. Cross-national organisations or pan-European programmes have played a major role in this (incomplete) transformation.

Political science has developed rapidly in the last half-century, but this has posed at least three serious problems. First, almost no attention has been given to political activity in private bodies: the scope of political analysis is narrowed as a result. Second, the connection between political science and ‘policy analysis’ is wholly unclear, which raises the danger that political science may want to cover too much or too little! Third, political science has always been concerned with norms, yet aims to be a science: this is no easy relationship.

The Cambridge School has been remarkably successful in its attempt to grasp the character of political thought in the early modern period on the basis of historical data, rather than quasi-philosophical speculations. At the same time, it is questionable whether its research approach is suited to the study of later political thought. Still, the article argues, these difficulties are not insurmountable, and the Cambridge School can indeed serve as a model for historians of modern political thought.

With the onset of the Sarkozy presidency, an ‘era of good feeling’ has set in for the often fraught French–American relationship. But it is also a hyper presidency, as there is no way of predicting what surprise initiatives Sarkozy will think up next, and this may create problems, or at least adjustments, in the way Washington views him. Sarkozy's stated aim to bring France fully back into NATO was fulfilled at the NATO summit in April 2009, although his ‘condition’ that the European Security and Defence Policy first be strengthened clearly fell short of his expectations, due in part to the current financial and economic crisis.

This article explores the use of podcasts in the learning and teaching of Politics and International Relations in a UK Higher Education institution. The article has three main sections. The first explores the pedagogic issues associated with the use of podcasts. The second highlights examples of good practice for using podcast material in lectures/seminars. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it outlines student attitudes to the use of podcasts within learning and teaching.

This article outlines our experiences at the University of Huddersfield of (a) producing and using mini-lectures on the history of political philosophy that were available to students as MP4 and progressive download PC video files (and MP3 audio files), and (b) the student feedback on these files which will help future development. This article largely avoids pedagogical issues regarding the use of technology in teaching and focuses more on student feedback and use of these technologies, along with practical issues regarding the production and hosting of these teaching tools.

More than 40 years after General Charles de Gaulle's historic decision to withdraw France from the integrated military branch of the Atlantic Alliance in 1966, Nicolas Sarkozy has decided to normalize France's NATO ties. Does this decision mark the abandonment of ‘Gaullism’? What will be the impact of France's reintegration and are we likely to see not only an institutional but also a political normalization of France's policies within the Alliance?

This article argues that political science was far less narrow and parochial before the founding of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in 1970 than is often thought. It emphasizes the importance of the interaction between younger European scholars and American political scientists in the 1950s and 1960s. It singles out the substantial American contribution to the establishment of the ECPR and stresses some vital choices made at its inception. On the basis of a statement of the author as outgoing Chairman of the ECPR in 1979, it probes the extent to which problems then foreseen were resolved or not, and raises some new ones.

In traditional approaches to the history of political ideas, the history of democracy is uniformly studied concerning the point of departure, selection of canonical texts, etc. The paper introduces the Koselleckian conceptual history approach (Begriffsgeschichte) and the principle of a broader selection of texts than in the traditional history of ideas to provide a fuller account of usages of the concept, thereby opening up for alternative conceptions of the inventions and development of democracy.