The Monkey Cage

I nominate Jonathan Koppell’s book, “The Politics of Quasi-Government,” especially the chapter that discussed the pathologies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which was originally published in the PAR in 1999). The implosions of the two GSEs could have been prevented if they had been regulated better, per Prof. Koppell’s prescient warnings! (Disclosure: Koppell is a frequent collaborator of mine, both professionally and, um, domestically.)

I’d like to nominate the just-recently-NSF-funded study by Burt Monroe of Penn State, “Opposition, Rhetoric, and Democratic-Styled Institutions in the Middle East and North Africa.” (See the link here: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber#0924260) Burt’s research will help us to understand the particular mechanisms of how democracy works in the Middle East and North Africa. Since most U.S. politicians agree that the entire region needs more democracy, then it is worth knowing precisely how democracy does function in these places. Right, Senator Coburn?

John, I wish our Tar Heels were as defensive about football as you are about the field of political science…

Does the guy who, according to both conservatives and liberals, was among the most important people for shifting the US strategy in Iraq count? He’s got a doctorate in polisci - not from a US university, but that means we should invest even more, doesn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kilcullen

Chris Blattman’s work on re-socializing combatants in post-conflict situations comes to mind. I’d be surprised if not at least some of that is/was NSF.

So that we don’t always talk about conflict: How about Andrew Schrank and Michael Piore’s work on labor inspections? It’s very applied, has very direct, realistic policy implications, and clearly improves the quality of life of impoverished workers.

Does studying Congress improve Congress in some way? Does the Congressional Research Service employee people educated within poli sci? How do the other professions come about their knowledge of politics if it was not, in part, through reading the works of political scientists, or building on their works?

Maybe this article might improve Senator Coburn’s “condition”:

Ramirez, Mark D. 2009. “The Dynamics of Partisan Conflict on Congressional Approval.” American Journal of Political Science 53(3): 681-694.

“Partisan conflict shows a negative and statistically significant relationship with with congressional approval…”

“There is growing empirical evidence that congressional approval has electoral consequences. Low levels of approval have been shown to decrease the reelection rate of incumbents (Born 1990)… …Thus, members who desire reelection may want to moderate their partisan behavior as elections near…”

(Ok, I quote-mined. After “…(Born 1990)…” comes “…and members of the majority party (McDermott and Jones 2003; Patterson and Monson 1999).”)

Wow! You political scientists sure do think a lot of yourselves and what you do.

That must be why you are paid so much, LOL!

I don’t think we have a very good gauge of our value, or the progress we are making on the matters we study.

This probably means we will always face the Sen Coburns of the world.

Dan, Alben: I think political scientists are, as a general rule, pretty modest about their work. And we don’t demand an extraordinary amount of gov’t research funding, relative to most other disciplines. But when even that small sum is threatened, and not for well-conceived reasons, it’s only right to respond and to point out that some political science research meets Senator Coburn’s stated criterion.

John S., saying that we don’t get much and that we don’t promise much doesn’t justify the spending, and neither does saying, “look at that spending over there that is even worse.”

I’ve seen people post how research could help us understand something (e.g. Paul Kellstedt’s post). So what? NSF has been spending on political science for a long time. There should be something to show for it, not just the possibility.

I’d like to refute this in my own mind. Can anybody tell me something, anything that is concretely better because of political science research? Not “influenced by,” not something that could some day be useful.

Skip’s article doesn’t help either. He just points out how important it would be if political science could solve problems. He cites nothing that actually does solve a problem.

It seems to me that with the exception of ANES, political science should be cut out of NSF. I’d love to be proved wrong.

Anon. is right to be skeptical, but I’ll forge ahead and nominate a Cobie for Arend Lijphart, whose body of work has made a direct impact on the way leaders write constitutions in multiethnic societies. Whether these institutions work better than they did previously at unifying a diverse group of citizens is another, more difficult, matter for a future Cobie winner.

I’ll go ahead and nominate EVERYTHING.

Here’s my argument: many political scientists wouldn’t do this job if they couldn’t do research. I definitely bristle at the suggestion that I’m not improving the world by teaching; seniors graduate with much better critical reasoning skills than the freshmen, and it’s not just brain development or other courses. Less NSF funding -> less political scientists -> less well-prepared college graduates.

Political scientists investigate all types of questions that may not save lives, but this research serves as a checkup on the health of our democracy. These include questions about the quality of representation, the effect of election and campaign finance laws, barriers to participation, just to identify a few topics called out by Coburn. Democracy needs the same care and attention, and just as with medicine, rigorous application of scientific research is the only way to conduct these checkups properly. Why a doctor wouldn’t appreciate of this is beyond me.