Top Research Papers on Political Science

During the 2008 presidential election, a grassroots coalition of scientists, engineers, institutions, policymakers, and science advocates came together under the name Science Debate 2008 to call for a televised debate on science and policy. The group petitioned the candidates—then-Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain, as well as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee—to participate. The campaigns had hardly discussed science. Of the 2,975 questions journalists had asked the candidates by Jan. 25, 2008, only six referred to global warming or climate change; three questions involved ...

The MPA program is designed to prepare students for a career of public service. Students will be exposed to the essential components of public service professionalism—excellence in technique, ethics and leadership—to help meet the challenges in the years ahead. Our award-winning, studentoriented faculty is dedicated to helping you achieve this “professional edge” in small, stimulating seminars, convenient evening courses, super-modern facilities and we have an excellent record in placing graduates.

In this literature review, we aim to answer the question, is political science a science? through revisiting the work of Gabriel Almond and Stephen Genco, titled Clouds, clocks, and the study of politics (1977). We will show the paradigm shift in understanding the subject matter of social sciences in terms of epistemology, ontology, and methodology, from the positivist clock-like model to the plastic model of the post- behavioralist schools, relying on the three-stage metamorphosis of Popper’s metaphor of clouds and clocks. Then, we will show how our definition of science has transformed from ...

The Political Science curriculum allows students to explore political theory and issues in the United States and around the world. This happens through courses ranging from the U.S. Congress or Presidency to courses on Russia or Terrorism to politics of developing nations, human rights or the global environment. Students can explore issues in international relations, foreign policy, constitutional law or the role of religion in politics.

Late seventeenth-century natural philosophers inherited the conjunction of politics and science at the core of Francis Bacon’s experimental project. Thomas Sprat’s The History of the Royal Society, Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels use the conventions of literary knowledge to express their scientific-political visions, insisting that natural philosophy cannot be understood apart from the political institutions enabling and enabled by its practice and promulgation. These writers use the experimental imagination to envisage, in turn, civil government...

When you study political science at Butler, you learn how political principles affect the authors' cities, states and countries.

This essay describes the creation of Web-based multipurpose multimedia databases concerned with the Supreme Court and other historically and politically significant institutions, events, and actors. These databases enrich instruction and may encourage learning. These materials are rich in emotive content that text-only transcriptions never capture. Scholars have only begun to tap multimedia resources. Their scholarship becomes verifiable when such media are open to all. Web access is one step toward this objective. Serious multimedia content providers may discover that hybrid compact disk (CD)...

When I was three years old, in 1973, all I cared about was collecting plastic dinosaurs and toy soldiers. Little did I know that I, similar to all gay people at the time, was considered mentally ill by the world’s most respected psychiatric organizations. All that changed, however, in this year, in part to the openmindedness of one researcher, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer. Similar to many psychiatrists of this time period, Spitzer never questioned why lesbian and gay people were considered mentally ill. He simply assumed that homosexuality automatically disqualified a person from basic sanity and men...

Department Website: http://political-science.uchicago.edu Program of Study Political science is the study of governments, public policies, political processes, political behavior, and ideas about government and politics. Political scientists use both humanistic and scientific perspectives and a variety of methodological approaches to examine the political dynamics of all countries and regions of the world, both ancient and modern. Political science contributes to a liberal education by introducing students to concepts, methods, and knowledge that help them understand and judge politics within ...

This article describes and evaluates the current state of affairs in on-line publishing for political science. The advantages of on-line publication for political science are noted. Existing projects to put book reviews, newsletters, journals, and working papers on-line are described with comments on some of the lessons that can be learned from them. A working paper index and archive project, Political Science Manuscripts, is described in detail. A conference paper archive is proposed for political science. Lastly, the argument is made that on-line publication will strengthen, rather than unde...

The political science department offers undergraduate work leading to the B.A. degree in political science, B.A. degree in international relations, B.S. degree in public policy and administration, and, in cooperation with the College of Education, the B.A. in political science with teacher certification and the B.S. in education with an emphasis in social studies. (See College of Education section in this Bulletin for details.) Minors in political science are available to students who are majoring in another discipline and who have a special interest in law, government, politics, nonprofit, in...

This article examines virtual conferencing as an alternative to the traditional academic conference. After defining terms and reviewing the purposes of academic conferences, the article looks at virtual conferencing in three ways. The first is the differences between virtual conferencing and traditional conferencing. The second is the primary trade-offs to be considered in planning a virtual conference. The third is a case study of the Teaching Politics Virtual Conference.

The textbook was created by a team of authors of the Department of political science of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and is designed to study the main topics in the field of "political Science". The textbook reflects not only the previously established provisions of political science, but also new approaches to the basic topics of political science. Meets the requirements of the Federal state educational standard of higher education of the last generation. For University students studying in the areas of higher education (bachelor) and studying Huma...

L32 Pol Sci 101B American Politics In a polarized era of American politics, it is critical to have a working knowledge of the American political process and the analytical skills with which to interpret contemporary events. This course is designed to accomplish these dual objectives. In the first few weeks of the semester, we will explore both the key principles of social scientific thinking and trace the evolution of the fundamental characteristics of American government. We will use this foundation throughout the remainder of the semester to assess the contemporary challenges to American ins...

There are, it seems to me, three major functions of feminist scholarship within any discipline: the expansion of empirical knowledge, the critique of existing theory, and the reconceptualization of core concepts. The purpose of this essay is to look at the way each of those functions is presently being performed within political science and to discuss what needs to be done in the future. I have not tried for comprehensive coverage of recently published literature on the politics of male-female relations, but have instead focused on materials that illustrate the three scholarly functions I want...

If the functions of feminist scholarship are to expand empirical knowledge, critique existing theory, and reconceptualize core concepts, as Kay Boals argued in the previous political science review essay for this journal,' then recent feminist scholarship in the field is alive and functioning, if not very well integrated among the three areas. There is interesting empirical work being done in the area of attitudes and participation, but little of it is concerned with the problem Boals raises: how theory must make us aware of the "political [i.e., the "contingent rather than inevitable"] nature...

In 1576 Louis Le Roy published a new and expanded edition of his translation of Aristotle’s Politics. In the late-sixteenth century, the starting point for academic political reflection remained the Politics, a text which underlined the importance of participation in the constitution. Although Bodin’s alternative concept of sovereignty was widely admired, many readers were troubled by Bodin’s political and religious ideas and wanted to preserve a role for the Aristotelian idea of political justice and for the Church. The effect was a revitalization of politics as an academic disciple or scienc...

merican political scientists make relatively infrequent Aattempts to conununicate directly with nonacademic political actors. Given what is believed to be our primary goal-a systematic construction of political reality-the discipline’s utility for political actors directly serves that end. Although utility is no prerequisite for good scholarship, in part its value may lie in its usefulness as a test of validity for what the political science community accepts as &dquo;knowledge.&dquo; Successful application increases our belief that we have at least begun the process of grounding our theories ...

This address advances three ideas. First, political science as a discipline has a mandate to help human beings govern themselves. Second, within this mandate we should be focusing, more than we do now, on creating legitimate coercion. In a world of increasing interdependence we now face an almost infinite number of collective action problems created when something we need or want involves a “free-access good.” We need coercion to solve these collective action problems. The best coercion is normatively legitimate coercion. Democratic theory, however, has focused more on preventing tyranny than ...

All teachers face the classic struggle of convincing students that material learned in class is important and relevant. Often, students seem to believe the only reason to understand a topic is to pass the next test. Science teachers are fortunate because much of the material we teach comes up in everyday life. For example, the science involved in political issues is covered by daily newspapers, internet news sites, and the nightly news. Using the science in politics--particularly during a presidential election year--is a powerful method to engage students in science and demonstrate that the ma...