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Should Political Science Be More Relevant? An Empirical and Critical Analysis of the Discipline
John E. Trent
; Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa, Canada
Abstract
This paper arises from the empirical evidence about trends, issues and perspectives in political science to be found in the International Political Science Association’s (IPSA) Research Committee 33 book series entitled: The World of Political Science: Development of the Discipline and the papers presented at the 2008 Montreal Conference of the IPSA on New Theoretical and Regional Perspectives on International Political Science. One of the issues raised by this analysis of the discipline’s strengths and weaknesses is the question of whether political science is relevant to the outside world and if not, why not? It is evident to the naked eye that in comparison with, say, economists (President Obama has three advisory councils), political science is of relatively little interest to policy-makers, the media and the public. We have to ask if political science is out of step with the world and, if so, what might be done about it?
Keywords
development of political science; IPSA; sub-fields in political science; specialization within political science; perspectives of political science
Hrčak ID:
63668
URI
Publication date:
31.1.2011.
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