Congress just cut funding for political science because they don’t understand the good it does. Here are four excellent examples.
Social Science in the National interest, U.S. Congress cuts Social Science out of NSF Funding, and more in this Weekly Overview of Social Science News
As a political scientist, I find it curious that my discipline has been singled out as being particularly wasteful of federal research dollars. How did we join welfare queens and spotted owls as convenient punching bags, things that must not be aided by taxpayer money during lean times?
We study social science because social phenomena affect people’s lives in profound ways. If you want to start with Cantor’s focus—physical illness and death—then social phenomena are tremendously important.
As Hilary Clinton arrives in Israel to attempt to negotiate a cease fire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hammas, it is worth noting that there is a sub-field of political science that focuses on the determinants and effectiveness of these kinds of mediation effects.
50 years on, the Cuban Missile Crisis may still prove to be one of the most important events in understanding modern International diplomacy.
Faith in the wisdom of the affluent to guide public policy has been sorely tested by the enormous costs in money and human suffering resulting from the Great Recession. My data cast further doubt on the notion that representational inequality arises from the greater knowledge or better judgment of those with higher incomes.
In my previous post I discussed the lack of government responsiveness to the middle-class and the poor, when their policy preferences diverge […]
In recent years there has been an increased focus on how research papers and supplemental data can be preserved openly. Andy Tattersall, Liz Such, Joe Langley and Fiona Marshall argue equal attention should also be paid to curating communication outputs aimed at engaging non-academic audiences.
Michael Burawoy, whose embrace of public sociology and the public at work lead him to describe his influential academic niche as “industrial […]
To address research credibility issues, we must reform the role of metrics, rankings, and incentives in universities.
In recent years there has been an increased focus on how research papers and supplemental data can be preserved openly. Andy Tattersall, Liz Such, Joe Langley and Fiona Marshall argue equal attention should also be paid to curating communication outputs aimed at engaging non-academic audiences.
A new people has emerged in the digital age, that of ‘internet famous’ celebrities. And that new people has a class of […]
Xenotransplantation is a fascinating subject – for obvious reasons, as it involves transplanting organs or other body parts across species boundaries (in […]
