Theodore J. Lowi, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University, has been elected president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

Lowi, who has taught at Cornell since 1972, was elected to a three-year term as president at the IPSA's triennial meeting in Seoul, Korea, Aug. 22. The Cornell professor becomes IPSA's first American-born president and the first to have served as president of the American Political Science Association since 1954.

IPSA is an international organization comprised of 43 national political science associations. Participants at the Seoul Congress represented more than 80 countries.

As president, Lowi will oversee association activities and direct its next triennial meeting, to be held in August 2000, in Quebec City, Canada.

"One of our most important goals is to expand the collective membership, especially with formation of national associations in the newly independent countries, where there is an increasing awareness and importance of the study of political science," said Lowi, who previously served as a member of IPSA's executive committee and as first vice president.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Lowi is a well-known and respected observer of the political scene and an award-winning author and scholar. His 1985 book, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (Cornell University Press) won the Neustadt Award for the best book published on the presidency. He also won the Harold D. Lasswell Award from the Policy Studies Organization, of which he served as president.

His international honors include an honorary doctorate from one of France's leading institutions of higher education, the Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politiques of Paris.