A friend of mine posted on his Facebook page this interesting article on the field of Political Science:
Is Political Science really useful/relevant? And how it can assure its future funding if policy-makers do not consider it useful?
I think it is a very interesting issue that should be addressed clearly at some point. Following Robert Putnam's and Theda Skocpol's convictions, Political Science should answer the big questions. From my point of view, I would not go so far as saying that Political Science should "answer" the big questions. I would merely expect that Political Science "addresses" clearly the big questions. I think that the big complex of Political Science is to prove itself being as "Science" as the hard sciences. In this sense, preoccupations on methodology have the priority over the presentation of the problems as "political". Political Science should become more "political" and for that it is necessary to come closer to the people's beliefs and needs.
Prof. Stephen Walt has worked on the relationship between academia and policy-makers. However, he did not mention one important reason why policy-makers find academia sometimes incomprehensible and/or "far from the practical realities". And the reason might be the fact that amidst the competition of the various schools of political thought or the competition of the "university presses", the real issue of addressing the basic question of social sciences (to which Political Science belongs) - the structure vs./and agency problem - has not yet been pursued with the appropriate fervor.
In his contribution in the edited volume Democratization, Christian Welzel holds that mass beliefs can constitute a factor that brings structure and agency together. I hope the discussion on the usefulness of Political Science continues, because through such a process of introspection and self-criticism this discipline of thought in social sciences could progress itself and contribute to the progress of the human being as a reflective and social animal.
Political Science should sell its power of non-conformity. Its ability to transcend the frontiers of established structural arrangements and dependencies, in order to propose alternative paths for the improvement of people's lives. That's why political science is still useful and relevant. And something else: a discipline that is also defined by the force of human's intuition (except for the evidence of physical observation), is a discipline worth of fighting for; it is a shame to evaluate it on the basis of national public or corporate private budgets!!!
Political science, in the end, is useful/relevant for the "useful" policy-makers. Apparently, Senator Tom Coburn does not seem to belong to this category.
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