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Trends in American Political Science: Some Analytical Notes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Albert Somit  and
Joseph Tanenhaus
Albert Somit
Affiliation:
New York University
Joseph Tanenhaus
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

The following notes deal with three aspects of American political science in which the trends, we believe, will be of particular interest to members of the profession. The findings presented here have been taken from a much broader study of the discipline currently in process. Given the present spatial exigencies, we have made some arbitrary decisions in selecting the topics to be dealt with here. It may be desirable, therefore, to indicate the scope of the larger investigation and the relationship of this paper to the parent study.

We had originally planned to base our analysis of trends in American political science primarily upon the biographical and professional data contained in the 1948, 1953 and 1961 editions of the Directory of the American Political Science Association. While the data in these volumes were both useful and suggestive, we soon realized that this information alone was not sufficient for our purposes. We became increasingly convinced that any meaningful discussion of the state of the discipline required a reliable knowledge of the attitudes and views of the profession on a number of current issues and problems. Lacking this type of information, the authors of recent studies of American political science have been forced to treat their personal beliefs as reasonably representative of the membership at large; to speculate, however shrewdly, as to divisions of opinions in the discipline; or simply to ignore the topic altogether.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , December 1963 , pp. 933 - 947
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1963

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Footnotes

*

A paper delivered at the. 1963 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York City, September 1963. The larger study from which it is drawn will be published by the Atherton Press as American Political Science: The Anatomy of a Discipline.

To the hundreds of our colleagues whose cooperation has made our study possible, we wish to express our thanks. We are particularly indebted to the several dozen political scientists whose comments on our pre-test questionnaire were most helpful in developing the final instrument.

References

1 Defined in terms of characteristics, activities and opinions of the membership of the American Political Science Association. While this definition may be overly exclusive, it is the least objectionable and most manageable of the alternatives considered.

2 For a discussion of the sampling and statistical techniques employed, see Appendix B.

3 Figures for the periods 1936–42, 1943–49, and 1950–56 are taken from Doctorate Production in United States Universities 1936–56, compiled by the Office of Scientific Personnel, Publication 582, National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (Washington, D. C, 1958), p. 7. The totals for 1936–1942 have been corrected by the inclusion of data giving doctoral output for Columbia University during these years omitted from the original compilation. Mr. Charles P. Hurd, Registrar, Columbia University, very helpfully provided us with the missing information. Data for 1956–57 are from Earned Degrees Conferred by Higher Educational Institutions 1956–1957, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education (Washington, D. C. 1958), pp. 172, 173–75, 180. The 1960–61 statistics are from Summary Report on Bachelor's and Higher Degrees Conferred During the Year 1960–61, compiled by Wayne E. Tolliver of the Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February, 1963, p. 7. We are indebted to Dr. Tolliver for making available to us data on doctoral output for 1960–61 and 1961–62. The figures for 1961–62 are incomplete but they indicate that the production of political science Ph.D.s is still on the rise. The totals for 1956 and subsequent years represent the combined output in political science, international relations, and public administration, since these are treated as separate categories in the Office of Education compilations.

4 1959–60 was the latest year for which data on individual school doctoral output were available.

5 In 1953, 32.6 per cent of the profession had taken their degrees at Harvard, Yale or Chicago; by 1961, only 27.2 per cent. This rapid decline is all the more remarkable when we consider the cumulative decades of output represented in the Association's membership.

6 Berelson, Bernard, Graduate Education in the United Stales (New York, 1960), p. 96Google Scholar.

7 There was actually a fourth, conducted for the American Council on Education in 1934, where eight “most distinguished” departments were named in alphabetical order. The eight were Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and the Universities of California (Berkeley), Chicago, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Hughes, Raymond M., “Report of the Committee on Graduate Instruction,” The Educational Record, Vol. 15, No. 2 (04, 1934), pp. 220–221Google Scholar.

8 Hughes, Raymond M., The Graduate Schools of America, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1925, pp. 22–23Google Scholar.

9 Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), p. 142Google Scholar.

10 Op cit., p. 119.

11 The Academic Marketplace (New York, Science Editors, Inc., 1961), p. 225Google Scholar.

12 Op cit., p. 110.

13 The comparable figure for the 1953 Directory was 56 per cent.

14 The precise percentage would depend upon how one chose to define “faculty.” Should we, for example, include persons with emeritus status, teaching assistants, or visiting professors? The data are so one-sided that it made little difference what definition was employed.

15 Preliminary investigation indicates that the more highly regarded undergraduate institutions, and particularly those in the East, heavily favor the prestige schools in their faculty appointments.

16 Pennsylvania was one of the top schools in the 1925 ranking.

17 This is a fairly involved problem but our decision about the lack of comparability was primarily based on three factors. First, there were considerable differences in the “forced-choice” system of field identification used in each of these editions. Second, and related to this, the field classifications presented in the appendices of these directories, which might have otherwise been used for this purpose, varied considerably in nature. Third, the 1948 Directory permitted respondents to identify five fields of specialization, the later two issues only three. We are greatly indebted to Dr. Franklin Burdette, editor of the 1948 and 1961 editions, and Dr. George Bush, editor of the 1953 edition, for their help in clarifying these and other matters relating to the directories.

18 A number of rather curious items emerged in the course of preparing this table. In 1953, more than half the persons classified under “comparative government” used the term “area studies” to describe their specialization; only a handful did so eight years later. “Political power,” not uncommon in 1953, disappeared as a field classification by 1961. The 1961 check-list did not provide for either of these choices and this may have some bearing on their apparent decline in popularity. On the other hand, a very small minority continued to designate “defense policy,” another lately fashionable term, as a field of specialization, although this too required a special written entry.

19 Approximately one-sixth of those classified in international relations.

20 About seven per cent of those in comparative government used the term “area studies.”

21 A ratio of 1.00 would indicate that there was one “most significant” for each “least significant” response. The higher the index number, the greater the ratio of favorable to unfavorable assessments.

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