Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:31:17.529Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Science and the Public Sphere Today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2015

Rogers M. Smith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The potential of political science to contribute to debates over public issues has long been hindered by tensions in the discipline's goals of achieving scientific rigor while also serving America's democracy. Those tensions have been exacerbated by recent trends in American higher education working to separate research and teaching activities and to rely more on external donors to finance both. Collectively these trends suggest that political science faces growing pressures to steer away from unpopular topics in both research and teaching, and to abandon the traditional teacher/scholar model of academic careers. It is advisable for the discipline both to seek more actively to promote engagement between different forms of political science scholarship in order to achieve cumulative knowledge that is pertinent to important political issues, and to preserve and strengthen its commitments to effective teaching about politics.

Type
Reflections
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 366 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arum, Richard, and Roksum, Josipa. 2011. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2015. “Obama Proposes Publicly Funded Community Colleges for All.” January 9. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/09/us/politics/ap-us-obama.html.Google Scholar
Basken, Paul. 2013. “Senate Moves to Limit NSF Spending on Political Science.” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 21. http://chronicle.com/article/Senate-Moves-to-Limit-NSF/138027/.Google Scholar
Beard, Charles A. 1993. “Politics.” In Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States, eds. Farr, James and Seidelman, Raymond. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Bender, Thomas, and Schorske, Carl E., eds. 1997. American Academic Culture in Transformation: Fifty Years, Four Disciplines. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Berrett, Dan. 2011. “Want to Be a Good Researcher? Try Teaching.” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 18.Google Scholar
Bok, Derek. 2007. Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bond, Jon R. 2007. “The Scientification of the Study of Politics: Some Observations on the Behavioral Evolution in Political Science.” Journal of Politics 69: 95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, Kevin. 2010. “That Old College Lie.” Democracy 15, Winter, w.democracyjournal.org/15/6722.php?page=all.Google Scholar
Flaherty, Colleen. 2015. “Going After the Donors.” Inside Higher Ed, January 30. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/30/steven-salaitas-long-anticipated-lawsuit-against-u-illinois-includes-twist.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Geiger, Roger L. 2004. Knowledge and Money: Research Universities and the Paradox of the Marketplace. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
George, Robert P. 1995. Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin. 2011. The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glenn, David. 2009. “Senator Proposes an End to Federal Support for Political Science.” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., and Gerber, Alan S. 2008. Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Your Voter Turnout. 2d ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Andrew, and Dreifus, Claudia. 2010. Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do about It. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Skocpol, Theda. 2006. “Restoring the Tradition of Rigor and Relevance to Political Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics at http://www.apsanet.org/Files/Task%20Force%20Reports/PSJan06JacobSkocpol.pdf.Google Scholar
Kaase, Max. 2011. “Should Political Science Be More Relevant? A Comment on the Paper by John E. Trent.” European Political Science 10: 228–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkpatrick, David D. 2009. “The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker.” New York Times, December 20, MM24.Google Scholar
Laitin, David D. 2005. “The Perestroikan Challenge to Social Science.” Politics & Society 31: 179.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur, and Aldrich, John H. 2014. “Improving Public Perceptions of Political Science’s Value.” Report of the Task Force on Improving Public Perceptions of Political Science’s Value. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Monroe, , , Kristen Renwick, ed. 2005. Perestroika: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Nielsen, , Kleis, Rasmus. 2012. Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2003. “The Public Role of Political Science.” Presidential Address. Perspectives on Politics 1(2): 249–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2003. Better Together: Restoring the American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Scott, , Vecchiarelli, Joanna, and Smith, Rogers M. 2010. “Teaching: The Issues Perestroika Neglected.” PS: Political Science and Politics 43(4): 751.Google Scholar
Shear, Michael D. 2014. “Colleges Rattled as Obama Seeks Rating System.” New York Times, May 25, A1.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. 1997. “Still Blowing in the Wind: The American Quest for a Democratic, Scientific Political Science.” In American Academic Culture in Transformation: Fifty Years, Four Disciplines, eds. Bender, Thomas, and Schorske, Carl E.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. 2002a. “Putting the Substance Back in Political Science.” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 5, sec. 2: Chronicle Review 47: B10–11.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M 2002b. “Should We Make Political Science More of a Science or More about Politics?” PS: Political Science and Politics 35(2): 199–201.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. 2005. “Of Means and Meaning: The Challenges of Doing Good Political Science.” In. Perestroika: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, ed. Renwick Monroe, Kristen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. 2014. “Ideas and the Spiral of Politics: The Place of American Political Thought in American Political Development.” American Political Thought 3(1): 126–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. 2015. Political Peoplehood. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soss, Joe, Meghan, Condon, Matthew, Holleque, Amber, Wichowsky. 2006. “The Illusion of Technique: How Method-Driven Research Leads Welfare Scholarship Astray.” Social Science Quarterly 87: 798–807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stainburn, Samantha. 2010. “The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor.” New York Times, January 3, 2010, ED6 Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney G. 2008. “Polarization and Convergence in Academic Controversies.” Theory and Society 37: 513–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trent, John E. 2011. “Should Political Science Be More Relevant? An Empirical and Critical Analysis of the Discipline.” European Political Science 10: 191–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar