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A pair of posts today from political scientists I admire prompts me to postpone my musings on the Hunger Games and to talk about how to get to graduate school in political science again instead. In an effort to convince you to read on, I’ll name the authors of the two posts: Dan Drezner and Chris Blattman.
Dan Drezner writes about how a post-graduate (non-Ph.D.) degree can help you to get into the doctoral program of your dreams. I’m surprised, by the way, that Dan doesn’t address the burning issue of whether it’s a good idea to go directly from undergrad to grad school. Ten years ago, when I first began thinking about turning pro, the standard advice from my professors was to wait a year or two. They argued that a year or two of work experience helped you mature after the unstructured bliss of college, and furthermore that it was pretty easy to give up money and security in principle but that giving up those things after having had them represented a deeper, truer commitment to the academic vocation.
But Dan’s post is useful nonetheless, because he addresses the fact that many of us in grad school didn’t decide we wanted to do this until we were well on our way out of our undergrad institutions. Some of his advice is obvious–do well on your GREs, write a good personal statement, and so on–but some of it is not, such as whether it’s a good idea to get a terminal master’s before going to a Ph.D. program.
Yet I think Dan neglects one important point, which stands out all the more clearly when this post is read in conjunction with part one of his series. As political science becomes more scientistic, undergrad training in techniques (game theory, math, and so on) is ever more critical. In other words, if you’re a junior applying to graduate programs next year, it’s time to load up on stats and math right now–and if you’ve been out a few years, you might actually find that your preparation in computer science and other symbol-manipulation fields has been insufficient to prepare you to do cutting-edge research. But the converse of this professionalization, as Blattman notes, is that vast chunks of political science are being dismissed–and professors may find that their grad students can write R code in their sleep but can’t tell Tocqueville from Trotstky.
In part one of his series, Drezner suggests that those considering political science Ph.D.s:
- Read actual political science
- Write a senior thesis
- Get comfortable with math (up to and including linear algebra)
- Learn a language and study overseas
- Apply for and win something like an NSF
Taken together, however, these add up to a course of study that a talented undergrad would have to begin no later than his sophomore year of college. Accomplishing #1 and #5, for instance, practically require you to have done #3 and #4 in at least some combination–but linear algebra is not the sort of thing you can pick up in a hurry. For instance, in my case, it would have required two semesters of very very difficult math past what I took–and that’s before we add in the at least two semesters of statistics Drezner recommends. If we add to that up to eight semesters of a language (e.g., two or three years of Spanish or French past high school, and up to four years of Chinese or Arabic to begin to achieve conversational competence), then we realize that our hypothetical undergrad should have made up her mind to go to grad school very early in her college career. (Assuming about 20 credits in language and about 10 credits in math and stats, Drezner’s recommendations amount to a full year or more of college coursework in preparation for the doctorate before taking a single political science course.)
At my undergraduate institution, at least, this was not how we trained undergrads. It is also not how we train majors in political science in my current institution. The emphasis in both is on substantive coursework, not preparatory training in methods or theory. That is why comparatively few graduate students (in my experience) really know what professional political science work looks like–if your reading lists are largely drawn from the Foreign Affairs version of International Security articles, then it’s no surprise that you’re shocked to find out that you’re expected to produce work that could place in Journal of Conflict Research
On the other hand, one benefit of this approach was that I learned a lot of substance and I was also forced to learn a lot of political theory along the way (especially in my European master’s programme). Thus, I never experienced the disconnect from political theory that Chris Blattman writes about:
Political philosophy never entered my undergrad education, and I never found the time to read it afterwards. When I made the switch from economics department to political science, it was hard to understand what the political theorists were writing about. What use was revisiting 2000-year-old tomes? Surely it was important stuff to teach, and surely one could squeeze a few original papers out of them. But an entire discipline of new research?
I have since reconsidered. Take these courses for instance. They tackle the first and most fundamental questions in politics: What makes a state legitimate? What makes a good life? What is a responsible citizen to do? What are our obligations towards others? Every course of new book on development, whether it seeks “why people are poor” or “why nations fail”, and every public policy or Millennium Development Goal–all of these implicitly have an answer to these deeper questions.
Chris is an astonishing (and an astonishingly productive) scholar. And, of course, his Ph.D. is in Economics, not political science. But I would wager that privately a huge number of young political scientists, both grad students and assistant professors, have never made the switch from his former dismissive skepticism to his current enthusiasm for normative work.
Since college will not become a five-year program any time soon, and since grad programs are squeezed for what they can offer in their coursework, the shift of resources toward advanced methodology will ultimately displace theory. This will make for a vastly more sophisticated but incredibly more naive discipline.
The purpose of undergraduate education is not to prepare students to enter graduate school as embryonic teched-up political scientists. If a student wants to take that path, that’s fine. But most won’t want to, I think.
“lfc08” is LFC. I hate disqus.
Of course the undergrad program in my institution is forcing students to take a stats course in order to be able to major in the discipline. So I wonder how much this distinction will hold in the near future?
That’s pretty much the point …
Can I ask you to elaborate PM?
One could ask if my institution is doing the undergrads many favors (or the opposite I guess) since undergraduate and graduate education are different beasts. Why gear undergraduate education towards grad school, something so few of them will attempt? Not challenging you or anything just wondering exactly what you are getting at.
Should have said “That’s pretty much the point of the post.”
As a stylized fact, science courses in undergrad are run for two audiences: (1) Pre-med and (2) Pre-Ph.D.s (or M.A.s.) They’re highly technical, largely standardized, and distinctly non exploratory–there’s a corpus of material for you to learn, and you have to learn it in this way.
As a stylized fact, political science courses in undergrad are run for, um, pre-law students? And maybe a few others. But the increasing professionalization of polisci graduate courses means that undergrads who are lucky enough to be at the handful of departments who *do* train their students in the “science” manner–lots of emphasis on methods and on research–are going to be massively advantaged in trying to get into Ph.D. programs.
The distinction that you point out is exactly what worries me. I broadly think that Drezner’s point is instrumentally correct, and it’s exactly what I tell undergrads at my institution: math, more math, and maybe some math disguised as computer science. But nobody told *me* that 10 years ago. And so I kind of blithely went on my way. I would have been better off if people had forced me to put my nose to the grindstone and finish multivariate calculus (linear algebra would have been a cognitive reach) and not to blow off statistics.
So who do we design majors for? And how up-front should we be that as a discipline we increasingly expect you to have taken a standardized core of courses to be *considered* for Ph.D. programs? If the latter is true, then it strongly suggests that we need to have two majors–one for the guy who thinks he should learn about government and stuff because he’s going to be a senator, and one for the guy who needs to learn research methodology.
Thanks for the reply.
One question I keep wondering is if undergraduate majors SHOULD be geared towards specific careers (this is a different one than you are asking of course). Coming from a liberal arts school, we were always taught that what you major in doesn’t matter that much (except for some obvious things, want to go to med school? Science is probably your best bet…), it is the skills you learn in the process of learning the material. Students may forget the different aspects of the Democracy Peace or Deterrence theory but they should be able to keep critical thinking skills.
So while the conversation has turned into something that you post is not, i.e. undergraduate education, I question whether majors should be further tailored to specific career paths. Especially if that career path is ‘PhD in Political Science’.
wow, that is ‘democratic’ peace…
As with LFC’s point above, I think this deserves broader reflection. As a practical matter, I do think that the appeal of the liberal arts curriculum is pretty narrow. I wouldn’t trade mine for anything, although I would trade an elective for fluency in Perl or Python.
…one major for the guy/gal who’s going to be a Senator and one for the guy/gal who needs research methods etc to get into a top-tier PhD program.
And where does that leave the student who wants a liberal education, ostensibly the overriding purpose of many US 4-yr colleges and universities? You have either just thrown the purpose of undergrad education into the trash or divorced the ‘discipline’ of political science from that purpose. Neither is a good outcome, IMHO.
Yeah, this is a deeper problem.
As an empirical matter, I’m curious about how many political scientists see their undergrad teaching as an exercise in liberal arts and how many as part of social science–and what the relationship between the two would be.
But I’m fairly cynical about the breadth of the appeal of the liberal arts education. And I say this as someone who profoundly benefitted from having one.
It is the Journal of Conflict Resolution. Also I disagree that you need to have good math and/or language training to win the NSFGRF. That requires a good idea and a well written proposal.
D’oh. Leaving it up there as testament to the necessity of editing.
Good math and/or language training (my guess is good math … ) will definitely maximize your chances of coming up with a good idea, writing a solid proposal, and being taken seriously.
Here are the questions that motivated Werner Herzog’s successful NSF grant which led to the film “Encounters at the End of the World”: Why does the Lone Ranger wear a mask? Why do humans torture other humans? Why do ants enslave woodlice? Why haven’t chimps learned to ride goats? Yes it was a peculiar NSF grant for artists, but the point is that asking good and interesting questions is not necessarily a function of mathematical or language training. The most serious person in the room is rarely the most interesting…
But the point of paradigmatic research is precisely that it is paradigmatic … and that means that “interesting” is defined more narrowly.
I think it is questionable whether political science is or should be a unitary enterprise. Wasn’t this the point of the perestroika movement?
I’m not dealing in “should” but in “is” …
PM,
As a new PhD student in Canada studying IR I was quite interested to see what you thought constitutes a strong grounding upon which to pursue a PhD. I think a caveat is in order however, in that sounds like you are looking at preparation in terms of training for the United States. As past TRIP survey results indicate, the kind of positivist view of Political Science you employ, which I infer from your heavy emphasis on mathematics, is not as dominant outside of the United States.
Furthermore, when you look at the top ranked scholars of the field, again according to TRIP Survey results, the value of a mathematics background is not immediately apparent. The work of top ranked scholars like Finnemore, Wendt, Nye, and Mearsheimer does not strike me as particularly reliant on advanced mathematics. The same may not be as true for people like Fearon. The point is, much of what is seen as top scholarship by the field itself is not necessarily reliant on any advanced form of mathematics, in fact it is often largely premised on substantive theoretical contributions. This is not to diminish the value things like statistical methods to the discipline. It is simply to look at what is see as ‘top scholarship’ by the academic community and to try adjust graduate training accordingly.
Cheers,
“Furthermore, when you look at the top ranked scholars of the field, again according to TRIP Survey results, the value of a mathematics background is not immediately apparent. The work of top ranked scholars like Finnemore, Wendt, Nye, and Mearsheimer does not strike me as particularly reliant on advanced mathematics.”
Not to be overly blunt, but a new graduate student is not going to be those guys :) The vast consensus of recommendations is to get a solid grounding in math and stats for a reason. And your definition of “the field” is pretty narrow — TRIPS shouldn’t be confused with “political science.”
Graduate training now is overwhelmingly more mathematical and empirical than it was back in “the day.” And although it’s true that my writing (as with the Duck, Blattman, and Drezner) is aimed at a U.S. audience, it’s also true that most top-ranked institutions are in the USA, so ….
It sounds like you think these people emerge ‘ex nihilo’ as scholars at the top of the field. At one point and time they were ‘new graduate’ students too, and were very much made the way they are by virtue of their training. I don’t think Wendt would have produced the scholarship he did without the non-mathematical influence of Raymond Duvall. Is it not worthwhile to look at the training of top scholars to see how we should shape current students?
There may be a vast consensus – I’m not sure if there is – that specific forms of training are indispensable to graduate students, but this consensus may be wrong. It sounds like your recommendations are more about reproducing the orthodoxies of the field to make oneself a marketable candidate than they are to intended to produce thoughtful, innovative scholarship. In the short term this may give you an edge in entering the field, but it may also make for lackluster career advancement. With the exception of certain ‘citation cartels’, thinking like everyone else is not a great way to get published.
Lastly, I don’t think my definition of the field is ‘pretty narrow’ – recall I am the one calling for a more holistic approach to graduate training. The TRIPS Survey was a good proxy for critiquing your article, because let’s face it your article was more about IR scholarship than anything else (you posted it on an IR blog and your two examples are IR academics). Additionally, TRIPS is representative of scholarship beyond the U.S., which I think is a de facto point for a more expansive view of IR. Political science and IR may not be the same thing, but your post certainly draws that line.
On a minor point, I don’t know for sure but I think Chris would object to being called an IR scholar–I’ve always thought of him as a comparativist. And so my advice *is* geared to people who are trying to be accepted into political science programs, and that includes comparativists and Americanists as well. (Besides, speaking of biomass, do we expect IR to be *less* quantitative over the coming 15 years? Remember that Dan Drezner is not exactly a quantoid and that this post is a response to *his* recommendations.)
Of course the consensus may be wrong! I don’t mean to be defensive, but re-read the post and tell me where I suggest that the consensus is good, or correct, or infallible. But recognizing the flaws of the consensus approach *for the discipline as a whole* is not much help to a 19-year-old who wants to go to a good institution (in order to maximize her chances of getting a job afterward)–the consensus is what it is.
“It sounds like your recommendations are more about reproducing the orthodoxies of the field to make oneself a marketable candidate than they are to intended to produce thoughtful, innovative scholarship. ”
Yes, of course. *AS IS ALL ADVICE ABOUT GRADUATE SCHOOL.* The challenge is to produce thoughtful, innovative scholarship while also doing everything else. That’s why I spent a couple of paragraphs excerpting Chris on *exactly that point.*
As an American who went to grad school outside the US, I can agree that political science is often vastly different abroad (including Canada). -And frankly, often looked down upon by Americans.
To the point of undergrad courses, I would also mention that science courses can be very important- not just math and formal methods. Personally, training in natural sciences gave me an important perspective on methods, particularly as social scientists often caricature what disciplines like physics and biology do. My “theory” is really imported from systems ecology.
Admittedly it may do nothing to help grad school applications, though.
If we actually care about producing thoughtful political scientists, then the old advice your professors gave you is still the best. Take a couple years off, go and experience the world. Discover a substantive question that is worth answering. Don’t worry about math or methods before graduate school, first find a question or a cause that will be worth studying for years to come. Keep reading books that contain wisdom and can stand the test of time (notably this is not considered “actual” political science). Learn a language and go live overseas (if you can) not as point on a resume but because that allows you to engage and talk to people about their real political problems, perspectives, and concerns.
If a graduate program in political science can’t see the merits of an applicant who has little methods training but has spent a couple years actually learning about and engaging with a complex society or a significant political problem compared to a student who has technical proficiency in abstract methods but no knowledge about the world, then that program and the profession more broadly are in serious trouble.
To extend Evanr’s point a bit more, one of the things we need to consider is the way that other disciplines shape IR, CP, PT, PA, AP and POS generally through the application of ideas outside of the field. Would it be better to be trained as something else as an undergrad — anthropology, economics, sociology, philosophy — and then be trained in POS graduate school to be a cutting edge political scientist? To me, most of the largest theoretical contributions in political science are metaphorical; POS folks take a concept from another discipline (game theory, satisficing, structuration, symbolic interactionism, philosophical constructivism, scientific realism, quantum physics, the mind-body problem, etc.) and apply it to some POS problem, in the sense of a conceptual metaphor that projects elements of meaning from the first context into the second. On the other hand, looking at someone who does innovate theory in our field, Michael Shapiro, who got an undergraduate degree in economics and developed some of the early poststructural theory in IR, I am not sure how the economics degree helped him do this — though maybe it gave him an aversion to quantifying everything. In short, I guess non-POS degree might be useful or useless in the development of POS scholars.
I think there’s an essential distinction here. What’s best for the field is not necessarily good for the individual graduate student. And if admissions committees want to see something (math, stats, post-crit theory, hogcalling) on your CV, then you’d better have that on your CV …
Vikash’s comment (about experience of the world etc.) makes sense, imo.
Another thought: if someone doesn’t want to go through the ordeal that much grad education in pol sci, to judge from PM’s posts, has become, consider a different field that would let one address some of the same issues: e.g. sociology (or perhaps anthropology or history). Probably not an accident that some of the most important work in recent decades for many political scientists came from people who were trained as sociologists. (I’ll be glad to give names if someone thinks I’m making this up.)
While we are starting to get on a different issue, my experience has been that Political Science (And especially IR, the subfield I am most familiar with) tend to leave few contributions that are used outside of the discipline. Think about it. Stats articles tend to be recapping what economists were doing 10-15 years ago with maybe a slight twist to answer a set of political problems. On the other end of the spectrum, practice theory is generally taking something developed by sociologists and philosophers 15-20 years ago and applying it to IR. What are the contributions? Are we just a field tied to a specific empirical content?
The only contribution I can think of is, and I am willing to be wrong here, realism and especially Waltzian neo-realism. Obviously political realism dates back much further than IR, but it seems to be our only contribution to the wider world of social science and the humanities.
I don’t know if this is a problem, it may not be, but I wonder what it says about out field. Maybe it is one reason why I seem to read much less political science and more sociology and history as I pursue my PhD.
The separate social science disciplines are historical constructions, obviously, and the disciplinary lines may be getting more and more artificial and unhelpful. See e.g. Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences. I haven’t read A. Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines, but prob. relevant here too. (Just to mention a couple of items.)
What about those of us who want to get a Ph.D. but don’t want to spend the rest of our lives in academia? I, for example, am an undergraduate Political Science student, and I would like to go into a Ph.D. program (in PoliSci or International Relations) to deepen my knowledge of the field and so I can continue studying languages. But I ultimately want to work for the government, not at a university.
This is a much deeper question and deserves its own post.
One would be very much appreciated.
What ever the program math and statistics are essential.If they change majors it is a skill that will still be necessary.Give the wide use and (often unintended) misuse of statistics, it is a necessary to understand many issues.And should things academic not work out, in the worst case, they can get a well paid job doing some else’s arithmetic for them Hank’s Eclectic Meanderings
I entered a PhD program after getting a terminal MA in area studies. Do people still do that anymore? I still think (perhaps foolishly, according to some of you) that it’s useful to know a great deal about a particular part of the world, and to actually read and speak the languages of that part of that world. Personally, if it were up to me, I’d accept the person who had spent time in the Middle East and actually spoke Arabic over the guy who took a lot of math in undergrad. But then again, I’d probably also take the guy (or woman) who fought in the war in Iraq, because I think it’s nice if people who write about security studies actually know something about how the military works. But that’s just my opinion . .
Sure if you want to do area studies or policy, but not for academic political science.
Good final paragraph; this quantitative emphasis has apparently been true for decades now. Back in my day (GEEZER ALERT!) i.e., the mid- to late 60s, it was all narrative history. I have since learned to appreciate statistics & quantitative analysis, but as one of my old professors used to say, you still need to know “who came to what river in what year.”
Here in Europe, it would be much more fruitful to study literature and theology than statistics and math when aiming at a PhD in IR… It’s all about sky-high illusions, you see.
Hmm…
i heart math
sqrt(-1) <3mean*prob(type1)*2pi*sqrt[(partial_regression_coefficient)^2]
Computer
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