Presenting Political Science as a Holistic Discipline: Challenges, Changes, and Opportunities

• In Event: Reimagining Political Science Education: Innovations in Curriculum and Pedagogy

Abstract

Political science is a big tent under which numerous diverse, but related sub-disciplines reside. These internal divisions, however, often result in parallel, or siloed experiences among graduate students, who may need to attain a broadened, holistic sense of the discipline in its diverse substantive and methodological approaches. How do we, as a discipline, present this holistic view of political science to graduate students? The internal divisions within the discipline cause issues with ensuring that graduate students, regardless of the department they graduate from, have a holistic view of what the political science discipline is and does in its totality. The primary drivers of this obstacle are the issues of disciplinary divides, claims of irrelevance, integration of marginalized groups and voices, and lack of intra-discipline communication. To overcome these problems, I argue that we must teach graduate students to value scientific exploration and holisticism as equally important as evaluation and a more self-critical stance on the discipline’s stances, and attitudes. Through these two approaches, we can present political science as a holistic discipline and produce a generation of more scientifically productive scholars.

Author

• Thomas Campbell, University of Nevada - Reno