As researchers with a focus on the domestic politics of countries in the Global South, we “collect” the insights, opinions, and behaviors of those we study for scholarly publication and teaching outputs. Our audiences, however, are often limited to other scholars or students at universities in the Global North rather than the communities we study. Linda Tuhiwai Smith shines a critical light on researchers who extract knowledge from the Global South and subsequently enshrine it in the Global North without delivering it in digestible format to those from whom the knowledge was extracted (Smith Reference Smith2012, 10). In particular, she asks: “Whose research is it? Who owns it? Whose interests does it serve? Who will benefit from it? Who has designed its questions and framed its scope? Who will carry it out? Who will write it up? How will its results be disseminated?”
This symposium consists of comparative politics scholars who respond to this sentiment by discussing whether, how, and why they involve or impact the communities they study in the Global South through their research. Furthermore, they discuss how professional incentives in academia largely lack to engage these communities—but not always. This symposium aims, not to settle all debates, but rather to bring important perspectives for both political scientists and PhD students to contemplate for our discipline in moving forward.
The role that political scientists might play in communities we study, of course, has been an ongoing, multifaceted controversy. First, a historical debate centers on the extent to which political scientists should remain in squarely academic territory or involve themselves with politics and policy in the communities that we study.Footnote 1 The former camp holds that political science scholarship should focus on addressing knowledge gaps in academia and revising received wisdom through a dialogue with the extant literature. The latter camp holds that political scientists should engage the “real world” by, for example, deriving research questions from ongoing policy problems, designing and evaluating policy programming, and providing actionable policy recommendations. Using the example of policy makers in Southeast Asia, who are attentive to the academic (and non-academic) writings of those who study them in the Global North, Pepinsky questions whether our research can remain divorced from communities that we study. Approaching this question from the perspective of policy makers, Abbarno and Bonoff ask who in society should be involved in shaping politics and policy if not trained political scientists.
However, the larger debate exists in the space in which researchers question to what extent we should actively engage the communities we study over the course of a research project, from the design of research questions to the dissemination of results.Footnote 2 As many symposium contributors point out, political scientists mostly face professional demands to stay firmly in academic territory, conducting research that will reach the broadest possible academic audiences and leveraging rigorous scientific methodologies that might demand that the researched communities remain uninformed about the task at hand. Yet, there are both career-instrumental and moral reasons why political scientists should engage the communities that we study throughout the project duration.
Thachil and Vaishnav; Bracic; and Bleck, Dendere, and Sangaré discuss career-instrumental incentives to involving local communities in research. Namely, such engagement can improve the quality of research. They argue for more collaboration in designing research with local communities, which improves the construct and ecological validity of studies as well as the interpretation of results. Bracic underscores how community discussions regarding the interpretation of results may influence inferences and conclusions that might be drawn from findings. Writing about the large degree of mediation necessary to conduct research in the South Asian context, Thachil and Vaishnav also point out that engaging local community members improves networks, access to important actors and data sources, and establishes local credibility that may aid future research endeavors.
However, many contributors believe that there is a strong moral imperative to involve the communities that they study in their research despite the lack of professional incentives. Namely, not doing so often risks treating communities involved in the research as mere objects of study for the fancies of Northern inquiries, perhaps even claiming to put forth “new knowledge” already known by the community under question. For Bracic, who studies small, marginalized Roma communities in Eastern Europe, this reason is sufficient to justify the involvement of local communities in research. Thachil and Vaishnav join in underscoring that the research question and other aspects of the design should face local scrutiny for local thematic relevance. They further point out that researchers demand substantial time and effort from local actors to undertake the research, often under the explicit or implicit assumption by these local actors that the research will benefit the community. Thus, researchers have the moral obligation to reciprocate by taking time and effort to inform the local actors of their research results.
Another option, which may be especially attractive to Global North scholars who do not originate in the country/ies they study, is the method advocated by Bleck, Dendere, and Sangaré to engage in North–South coauthor collaborations. These authors argue that North–South coauthor collaborations have been an excellent way to “decolonize” the production of knowledge in sub-Saharan Africa, especially with regard to research conducted in active conflict or post-conflict zones. Such collaborations increase the agency of local actors to influence all areas of the research design.
Bracic, however, cautions that there can be an important tension between professional incentives to follow rigorous research methodology and involvement of the local community. Namely, suppose a community is involved in research-design aspects such as developing the research question, adding insights to theory, and helping to develop key measurement strategies or interventions. This involvement can affect empirical results in that community members may subsequently have the incentive to behave in certain ways to obtain certain desired outcomes. To avoid such “contamination,” researchers may be able to gain these insights through research with similar but different communities (e.g., Bleck and Michelitch Reference Bleck and Michelitch2017). However, in some cases such strategies add financial and time costs to the research, and it may nonetheless end up being difficult to extrapolate across seemingly similar communities. Researchers may have to consider carefully at what point in the research the participating community is involved.
A second major discussion, mostly among those political scientists committed to involving themselves with politics and policy in the communities that they study, centers on how we might improve beneficence of our research to such communities.
A second major discussion, mostly among those political scientists committed to involving themselves with politics and policy in the communities that they study, centers on how we might improve beneficence of our research to such communities.Footnote 3 The authors in this symposium offer various ways to do so. First, Abbarno and Bonoff—drawing from their expertise as political science PhDs working at Democracy International and the USAID Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Learning Unit—discuss the value of collaboration between academics and policy makers to evaluate policy programming for joint learning.Footnote 4 However, as they emphasize, academics must meet policy makers “halfway” in these collaborations. Whereas policy makers must adapt to a host of methodological rigors demanded by political scientists, political scientists also must adapt, for instance, by being flexible to changing policy circumstances, working within the confines of bureaucratic parameters, and cultivating productive relationships through diplomatic communication.
Second, multiple contributors highlight how we might better disseminate our findings to local communities. Thachil and Vaishnav emphasize how fruitful dissemination of research outputs can be to locally valued sources in South Asia (e.g., local journals, news sources, and academic conferences). Lupu and Zechmeister, in their capacity as associate director and director, respectively, of the AmericasBarometer (i.e., a set of Americas-wide public-opinion surveys), describe how the active dissemination of survey results to policy makers in Latin American countries has resulted in increased attention given to citizen public opinion on policy priorities. Abbarno and Bonoff highlight how busy policy makers can access our findings through the creation and circulation of simple two-page policy memos via various outlets.
Third, multiple contributors—that is, Lupu and Zeichmeister and Bleck, Dendere, and Sangaré—emphasize how one’s view of research beneficiaries can be expanded to include not only those who participate in the research as human subjects (e.g., survey respondents) but also many other individuals. Specifically, both sets of authors discuss the capacity building of local research assistants and enumerators in research methodology, which can lead to an increase in their skill sets and future employment opportunities.
Yet, research may not always be beneficial. One open question is, of course, what constitutes “positive” involvement and outcomes. Even if research is conducted “on behalf” of a community’s interest or with good intentions by a researcher, it risks having negative impacts and unintended consequences. Often, policy-relevant research is called “unethical” only when it results in a so-called undesirable outcome, whereby what constitutes an undesirable outcome is typically defined by Global North ideals. Furthermore, Pepinsky concludes that despite good intensions, researchers in the Global North are insulated from these consequences. He questions whether there are “limits to which comparativists’ research should affect the countries they study.” Bleck, Dendere, and Sangaré similarly emphasize how researchers from the Global South ultimately bear disproportionate risks in North–South collaborations, especially in active conflict or post-conflict zones.
Finally, the objective of this symposium in our discipline’s journal is to engender even more discussion regarding whether, how, and why political scientists should involve or impact the communities that we study and whether such engagement should be professionally incentivized to a greater degree. There is far from a disciplinary consensus concerning these questions, and inclusive discussions are necessary in considering standards of practice. Moving forward, however, we should consider whether engaging communities that we study should be purely a “public good”—as Abbarno and Bonoff call it in its current state—or whether we can incentivize such engagement, for example, through tenure and promotion review; “best practices” cultivated among graduate students and colleagues; or in generating section awards, as Thachil and Vaishnav argue.
