Reshaping Political Science 600: Scope and Methods of Political Science (adopted May 9, 1997)
In the Fall of 1997 we instituted a modular format for PolS 600. The consensus was that we approach the course as music appreciation, rather than piano lessons: the course will invite students into a variety of ways to frame questions about politics. Our goal is to introduce students to a variety of methods, broadly conceived, with their different languages, assumptions, and practices of inquiry. The course should help students to situate themselves within the field of political science, and within the methodological strategies practiced in this Department. The course should also encourage students to approach a variety of methods with respect and appreciation for their different possibilities as well as with an understanding of their limits.
Moving from a musical to a culinary analogy, the course is conceived as heavy pupus: participating faculty will articulate the basic parameters of different methodological approaches, as opposed to simply presenting their own research or to teaching the details of application. The faculty are encouraged to articulate and address some common general questions, such as: Why do I choose this method? What questions does it allow me to ask? What outcomes do I hope to see? What leads me to choose this method for this topic? Additionally, the faculty teaching the course in a given semester could select 2-3 substantive political issues, ranging from environmental policy to racial justice to same-sex marriage, and ask how different methods would go to work on those questions, constituting the intellectual terrain and shaping the inquiry. Faculty may use their own work to illustrate a particularly methodological strategy, but the focus is on introducing the general practice of inquiry. Students who want more information about the specifics of applying one or more of the methods will be directed to other appropriate seminars.
The modular frame for the course works as follows:
Four-six faculty members will each teach one module, made up of 2-4 sessions each. There will be one official instructor of record, to satisfy university bookkeeping requirements. For internal record-keeping, each faculty member teaching a full module (not those appearing for a single guest lecture) will receive .5 credit.
The first and last meeting of the semester will involve all the teaching faculty. The rest of the class meetings will be divided into the appropriate number and sequence of modules. Each faculty member will be responsible for the syllabus, reading material and assignments for his/her module. Faculty may coordinate reading assignments when desired. The faculty teaching the methods modules in any given semester are encouraged to share their topics and assignments with the rest of the Department, to foster a general sense of excitement concerning the practices of inquiry.
A potential menu of methods for this course include the following: global modeling, futures methods, quantitative methods (of various kinds), interviewing, survey research, feminist methods, interpretation, genealogy/semiotics/discourse analysis, anti-foundationalism, qualitative/ethnographic methods, historical analysis, participant-observation, and participatory action research. It is not crucial that every methodological approach be covered in every semester, but that an appropriate breadth and variety of methods be introduced, with useful information provided to the students about ways to further pursue different approaches.
This reorganization of PolS 600 took place within the Department because the existing catalog description of the course continues to be fully met. Other questions, such as whether to require the course and if so, of whom, would require further departmental discussion as well as official revision at the university curricular level.