Were one to ask the typical, sophisticated American voter what it is that political scientists do, he or she might respond, “Why, they study politics!” Were one to ask the same of the somewhat more sophisticated congressional or campaign staffer, a likely response would be, “they study politics in the abstract,” accompanied by a faintly condescending smile. Lastly, were one to pose the question to the rather more sophisticated subject of this inquiry, the political science practitioner, among the range of amorphous, if not conflicting, responses one might expect would be the following: “We study the how and why of politics, the exercise of power, the underlying patterns and contexts of political and governmental behavior.” Truth, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.

The following contributions, from significant scholar/practitioners, are characterized by an abiding realism as to the hazards of crossing the line, of venturing beyond the tower, towards the enchanted forest of politics. They are marked by an awareness of the distinctiveness of the two life worlds, of knowledge and power, heirs to a reflective tradition traceable to the Platonic Epistles, Hume, Weber (above all), the Frankfurt School, and Foucault. They stand in a line of intellectual activism, from Plato's tutelage of Dionysius to the examples of Sartre, Camus, Malraux, or of Vargas Llosa and Havel in our day.

Political science has its laws, and they can predict what will happen in politics. One such law can predict whether George Bush will be reelected President in 1992.

It is true that political science is not politics. This relationship between the two is no different than that between any science and the reality which it analyzes. Every science is a repository of abstractions which model the critical aspects of a much more complex underlying phenomena. While some political scientists have expected a one-to-one, deterministic relationship between the science and the material it studied, most anticipated the “deterministic randomness” (or “chaos”) paradigm becoming popular even in the physical sciences today. Deterministic, because the science assumes that there are intrinsic underlying laws; but random because, with the inherent complexity, much will necessarily remain unpredictable (in statistical terms, that there always will be an “e” in the equation).

Following is a list of words and terms that the political scientist who finds himself or herself in a presidential campaign should never use:

epistemic concepts of democracy

multivariate logistic models

exogeneity

hegemony

macropartisanship

collective rationality

philosophical dialectic valuably

These terms and others like them may or may not have meaning in a presidential campaign—the point however, is that presidential campaigns are not exercises in theory or in scholarship, they are exercises in communicating to the lowest common denominator in the American public. Because of this they develop a culture and a set of norms that are as anti-intellectual as those found in any reputable truck stop in America (not to mention a vocabulary of four letter words that would put most truckers to shame).

The relation between knowledge and power was already complex when Plato wrote his Seventh Letter. It hasn't gotten any simpler since. Having served in three presidential campaigns (all losing), I am moved to offer a personal report from the front-line. Two opening caveats. I write in the mode of reckless generalization, knowing full well that counterexamples are legion, and I assimilate political scientists to the broader category of “intellectuals,” even though academic political science diverges in some respects from the classic sociological account of that class.

My point of departure is an inescapable fact: most politicians don't trust intellectuals. This is so for three reasons. Faced with a hostile world, politicians crave absolute loyalty, which they suspect intellectuals are constitutionally incapable of offering. Politicians prize realism, but they see intellectuals as infatuated with words that have become disconnected from the world. Politicians think that the quest for, and use of, power is the most serious thing in the world, and they have what amounts to contempt for intellectuals whom they see as shielded from the harsh realities of power. (This metaphysics of power ramifies through campaign organizations, whose “political” wings typically display a thinly veiled contempt for the “issues” shops.)

Many political scientists wonder why so few people in our discipline play key roles in presidential campaigns. After all, we have much to offer. In graduate school, we learn about statistics, policy analysis, voting behavior, and other topics with practical applications. During my own political experience—with the New York Legislature, the U.S. Congress, the Bush campaigns and other political organizations—I have often used my formal training in political science.

The problem is that graduate school supplies only part of what political activists need. And in some ways, it can actually be a handicap.

It's one thing to actually work in Congress or in an administration. That's “policy work,” and we political scientists are reasonably comfortable with the ways in which our particular substantive expertises can lead us to take on policy positions. But to get involved in “politics” itself, and in a presidential campaign no less?

There is no question that it takes some adjusting. Memos by 5:00, rather than a manuscript by next year. Speeches with lots of tag lines, and not a single footnote. In-depth analyses, but in a page, please. Journalists and politicos as peer reviewers. Debate prep, not lecture notes. Meetings with interest groups, not seminars with interested students.

It's definitely a different experience. But it can be a very valuable one.

It's not basic research. But it is involvement.

It's an altogether crazy way to lead one's life. But it's exciting, and it actually can be fun.

As a political scientist who has managed issues in presidential campaigns, I have noticed the tensions between theory and practice. This tension was most evident in the Democratic party's decision to devalue its platform in the 1988 presidential elections. The decision revealed a serious misunderstanding of the political function of a platform, and contributed to Dukakis' poor showing in the general elections.