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Political Science Should Be More Responsive to Demographic Change, Report Argues

October 21, 2011, 8:00 am

Among the social sciences, political science already attracts an uncommonly high number of female, African-American, and Hispanic students. But the discipline’s departments, scholarly journals, and classroom practices could be more responsive to an increasingly diverse population, the American Political Science Association argues in a report released Friday. The report, “Political Science in the 21st Century,” summarizes existing research to support its call for “a spirited and constructive debate” on how to make scholarship more inclusive of work on race and gender, teaching more relevant to current issues, and the professoriate more reflective of larger demographic shifts.

Political science is well positioned to play a leading role among social sciences in understanding demographic changes under way in the United States and abroad, the report says. “The study of who wins and who loses in public policy—arguably the heart and soul of political science—gives the field great responsibility to directly contribute to helping citizens fully understand the consequences of the choices they and their governments make.”

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  • Think68

    Most of the manuscripts published in the American Political Science Review are read by few political scientists.  It is time for the discipline to get back to the study of “politics.”

  • dopefein

    Ah yes, the tank counters want to find a way of being more responsive to the challenges of policy.  Political science long ago became nothing more than a statistical shell game of r-squared and such.  Good luck engaging them in a conversation about Locke or Rawls — they will look at you like you just spoke a foreign language.  How about trying to think about the principles at conflict and get away from mere statistical analysis.

  • paldy

    I thought science improves society.  What is improving, except the extremes are getting louder masking the process of getting anything done.  I know, that is a practical view, but what is the theoretical doing for the American people. 

  • dashwood

    After years of understudying race and gender, the political science pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Political science journals and scholarly presses already publish a substantial amount of research on race and ethnicity, and the APSA convention program and council minutes give far more attention to race and gender than is warranted. But this report threatens to turn the study of race and ethnicity into an unhealthy fetishism. The political science discipline is already at the cusp of overplaying the role of race and gender in the study of politics, and this APSA report stands to push the discipline over the edge.

    By all means, let’s study race and gender. But let’s have some balance and not convert the study of politics into the study of race and gender. While race and gender are important and worthy subjects of study in political science, there is more to the study of politics than these two topics. One wonders if this APSA task force report is more about a political agenda than about a legitimate scholarly call to action.

  • katisumas

    Political science is not the study of “politics” as such.  It’s the study of power processes in society and/or any group as large as millions and as small as two individuals interracting. 

    If you don’t want to know how human  societies work, well, isn’t that the same as saying you don’t want to know how your own body works? 

  • collier

    As one trained in political science over 30 years ago, the primary variables of the discipline were power, interest aggregation, and conflict and its resolution.  I think those are still the appropriate primary variables for study.

  • sand6432

    As an acquiring editor in the field for over 40 years, I agree with this comment. I do not see what problem the APSA is trying to correct, since for several decades now publishing on race and gender has been quite healthy. I was acquiring books in these areas for Princeton U.P. way back in the 1970s, and the stream of them have, if anything, increased significantly since that time.—Sandy Thatcher

  • drburlbaw

    Only a minor quibble – the ngrams, as you say show the number of mentions – word frequency.  I am not sure that I would equate frequency of occurrence in the 15M books google has scanned with relative importance.  Other than that conclusion, students find ngrams fascinating and want to put their terms in. Good post on philosophy and digital humanities.

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