Political Science Degrees Must End: Responses & Feedback

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About three months ago I wrote “Political Science Degrees Must End.” I used Harvard’s undergraduate government degree as a case study in how these degrees are broken structurally (à la carte plans of study) and substantively (they don’t teach governmental mechanics).¹

The response was robust, and generally fits into three buckets:

1. People agree wholeheartedly, especially if they have a political science degree. They would have liked a degree structured after my recommendations, not the one they got.

2. People disagree with my contention that “political science degrees don’t teach people how our/American government works,” or they say that’s not what the degrees are supposed to do.

3. People supply more details from their own degree programs, either undergraduate or graduate, and generally agree that proper instruction in governmental mechanics is the exception, not the rule. You can find it in disintegrated pieces across many programs.

All three kinds of responses have been immensely helpful as I continue to develop both Maximum New York and my overall reform platform for extant degree programs. If you’ve sent me comments via any channel, thank you!

This post is aimed at the second bucket—those who disagree with my central claims. I found myself fielding a similar set of objections over the course of many conversations, so I’m going to lay out my responses to them here. If my responses are sharp, that is because I want more potent volleys back than I’ve been getting.

What I am saying

Governmental mechanics is the study of the components of the American political system, and their interrelations; see the final section of this post for a more specific list. In addition to law, history, and civics, it also pulls conceptual tools from complexity and systems analysis.

“Understanding the American government/politics” is equal to “understanding governmental mechanics” in this post.

Here is a bulleted list of my contentions about political science degrees and governmental mechanics. They refer to undergrad degrees, unless noted otherwise:

• People with political science degrees do not understand how the American government works, or not very widely or well. If they do know, it’s probably not because of their degree.

• Polisci degrees do not teach governmental mechanics, except by accident or only incidentally. There are essentially none that teach a full program (major, minor, or certificate) of govmech.

• Undergrad degrees in government (whether polisci, govmech, or otherwise) should require 2-4 classes of a govmech core.

• The degrees above are much weaker, and students more poorly served, without this core.

• Most people graduate without knowing much about politics or its applied science.

• Undergraduate degrees in governmental mechanics should be more common than undergraduate degrees in political science, by far.

• Law degrees do not teach govmech, although you will find pieces of govmech in law school.

• Masters of Public Administration degrees (MPAs) are highly variable in quality. Most of them: (1) do not teach much govmech, (2) do not verify that their students have a foundational understanding of it, (3) put students into advanced topics without basic govmech context. There are exceptions, and I would like to hear about them!

• The two most common errors in political science degrees, and graduate cognates, are: (1) not laying a solid foundation, and (2) skipping directly to discrete, advanced topics. This produces weaker specialists.

Common objections to what I’m saying

Political science degrees aren’t about understanding American government, so your critique is misplaced

I 100% agree that they aren’t about understanding American government (even if they wanted to be)—you will not be taught that very well, if at all, if you go through a standard polisci degree.

I contend that, generally, they should have a govmech core. Students must understand at least one concrete political system, which they can use as a reference point, if they want to be political scientists. And if you’re in an American university, that should almost always be the American system.

Also: many students do think polisci degrees are about that, and they are surprised or dismayed when they don’t get it. I have heard from an avalanche of these people. Colleges are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Either they’re failing to teach students properly (because polisci degrees don’t contain govmech), or they’re not properly advising them about what’s actually in their degree program.

Political science degrees are about exploring diverse political subjects

They are nominally about exploring a wide range of political topics, with four common subfields: American politics, comparative government, political theory/philosophy, and international relations. Often there is a general emphasis on quantitative methods too.

But they do not teach any of the above well either. Why? First: students do not have a govmech foundation. They do not understand government in basic terms, and polisci degree programs ask them to “explore” many classes that implicitly or explicitly assume that prerequisite knowledge. This is fundamentally ridiculous.

Some students do still come away learning a lot, but their knowledge is fragmented, pointy (specialized but not broad), and/or an example of survivorship bias. Most students quickly forget most of what they hardly learned in the first place. They’re more likely to cobble together a false sense of understanding politics, which has devastating consequences personally and socially.

Political science degrees fail, even on their own terms, because they embrace the à la carte degree structure:

Most colleges put the label “political science” on a mongrel degree program that lexically promises social science, and culturally promises technical government fluency, but delivers neither in the end. Students come to the political science degree expecting many things, and almost every single one of them comes away empty-handed. —Political Science Degrees Must End

We have graduate programs that teach governmental mechanics, so that base is covered. It is OK that undergrad polisci doesn’t teach it.

Even if we had a system of perfect graduate programs that taught governmental mechanics—which we don’t—this arrangement would be a profound failure.

In a self-governing society, many people should have a grip on govmech. Relegating it to graduate study is not only bad for society, it’s pedagogically backward. Imagine getting to graduate school, having completed a “political science” degree, and only then learning the robust foundations of government. What kind of science were you supposedly doing up until that point?

Keeping govmech at the graduate level is kind of like keeping law school at the graduate level, especially in its nigh universal three-year format. It’s an insult to, and a misalignment of: student ability, the demands of the legal field, the realities of learning on the job, personal finance, and the measured sense of practitioners.

There is no good reason, and every bad one, to make sure most people could only access govmech after completing a four year degree, and then taking out loans and burning opportunity cost for another degree. It’s something you’d do if you wanted to deliberately harm America.

Governmental mechanics is for vocational training, not liberal arts degrees.

This is one step away from saying liberal artists don’t need to understand math, although I can understand why people say it. Modern liberal arts degrees generally don’t produce very numerate people,² and they erroneously sever too much connection with “practical reality” in the name of cultivating character and wisdom.

The best study of politics requires interacting with real political systems, in the same way that good liberal arts programs for art history require going to museums and private collections (if not picking up a paint brush oneself).

But it is very hard to understand and interpret real political systems without a govmech core. I’m not asking politically inclined liberal artists to dedicate themselves to govmech—I’m asking them to do their field’s version of learning to read.

Unless they really do just want a degree that’s like studying woodworking only via books and computers, and never actually crafting anything by hand or going into a wood shop. (If a student knowingly does this, and can pay for it, that isn’t the worst way to spend time!³)

Requiring a govmech core in polisci degrees limits students’ ability to explore, and is too restrictive.

Requiring 2-4 classes of govmech for government majors is not “constraining their freedom to explore.” Just the opposite. It gives them a compass and a map, while the current system shoves them tool-less into the wilds.

I call this objection the “universities shouldn’t do their job” objection. They are supposed to know more than students, and guide them in their pursuit of an integrated body of knowledge that doesn’t dissipate upon graduation.

Asking students to take 2-4 specific classes about the foundation of their area of study is empowering. It’s the provision of vital antecedent knowledge.

You are wrong, there are plenty of political science (and other) degrees that produce very knowledgeable people who understand govmech.

Please send me their degree plans of study (should be mostly public), and the tests that are used to measure that plan of study.⁴ I mean that sincerely, because it would be a valuable update!

Most people who wind up knowing a lot about govmech learn it due to individual effort, not as a direct result of their degree programs.

As far as I know, this objection is mostly made up. People want it to be true, and there are certainly exceptions (I don’t deny that!), but they are exceptions. We have an educational system that fundamentally avoids govmech.

And to such an extent as someone “knows someone who understands govmech”…

Often these people don’t understand as much as their friends think. That is my current assessment based on talking to many different people about this, teaching over 100 about it, and drawing on my own knowledge of degree programs and assessments.

Getting a Harvard (or wherever) degree isn’t about learning concrete details about government—it’s about making connections and extra-curriculars that set you up to succeed.

I sympathize with this point; it’s half right. The point of college, and especially Harvard, is to introduce you to future peers. It’s to get you a coveted internship on the Hill, during or after your degree program. Of course.

But some people I’ve heard from—some of them current and recently graduated students!—think it’s OK that they didn’t learn how the government worked, even if they’ve gone to DC after graduation. In those same conversations they will admit feeling woefully underwater, behind, etc.

I think these students are trying to rationalize the inadequacy of their degree program.

A government degree of any kind should not leave you vulnerable to this feeling. It should help you get into government, and should give you the wherewithal to understand the world you’ve been dropped into. These goals aren’t mutually exclusive, but can be mutually reinforcing.

Note: feeling unprepared after getting a government degree at Harvard, wondering whether you should go into finance/consulting/law, and wondering what you have the skills to do, is not new. From The Harvard Crimson (January 1921) (emphasis added):

With the advent of the mid-years we begin to realize that 1920-21 is already half over. For the lower classes, the outlook after June is merely another vacation or mayhap temporary summer employment, but for the all important Senior life assumes a different aspect. Exposed to a college education for four years, and properly equipped with an unintelligible Latin diploma from his Alma Mater, he bids adieu to Cambridge and leaves for what?

Barring those who have post-graduate plans for the Law, Engineering, or Medical Schools, it is astonishing how few members of 1921 know what they are going to do. Many intend to drift through the summer months, perhaps in idle recuperation from the winter's activities, perhaps in travel abroad,--guided by the hope that "something will turn up." Others have vague ideas about starting "on the street," usually for lack of a better notion as to what they are qualified to undertake.

Governmental Mechanics:

Here is a summary list of what a program in govmech would cover, slightly revised from here. A shorter govmech core (or minor) would pull from this list:

• City and local government (example)

• State government (example)

• Federal government (like this and this)

• Note: the local and state government would ideally be within the university’s state and locality, so students could observe and participate in those systems directly.

• Comparative federalism: an analysis of how state and local law, and interactions with the federal government, vary across the country.

• A class on legislative drafting and legislative history.

• Parliamentary procedure.

• A class on budgets, to the extent that that material is not already covered in classes above.

• Contracts, procurement, non-profits, and public-private partnerships.

• A survey of the law, and legal subject areas, to the extent that that material is not already covered in the classes above.

• Elections, political parties, and party governance.

• Lobbying, legislative subsidy, and the practical business of government.

• Companies, corporations, public authorities, and private governance.

Some key ideas of a good governmental mechanics program:

• Real-world action: students should participate in the political process as part of their degree program, with strong preference for participation in actual lawmaking or law administration (as opposed to elections). They should attend legislative hearings regularly, and hear from professionals in the field about how to concretely implement law. To get an honors degree, they should have to demonstrate that they materially impacted the shape of a law.

• Basic knowledge: students must be familiar with at least two local-state systems, as well as their relationship to the federal government. It is hard to construct good theories of government without this knowledge, let alone execute on them. This knowledge base will equip students to continue learning beyond their degree program.

• Integrated content on political history and philosophy that contributes to contemporary ability to function in government.

• A common set of exams that all students must pass to verify basic, but rigorous, understanding.

1. The degrees are structured similarly everywhere—Harvard’s resembles most other schools. Sometimes higher education hyperfixates on the Ivy League, but that’s not what’s going on here. Harvard is my alma mater, so I can combine data and research with personal experience.

2. They were not always like this, certainly in spirit (but we’ve been having this same fight for centuries). Harvard, the nation’s first college, and the American standard bearer for the liberal arts, originally “…included the medieval trivium and quadrivium, adding, as did its European counterparts, humane letters from the Renaissance and Biblical study from the Reformation.” The Founding of Harvard College (p. vii)

3. As I say in “Political Science Degrees Must End”:

Many people enjoy consuming political science degrees in their current form, for reasons that are not all bad! They have flexible standards, permit exploration, provide a socially beneficial signal when complete, and more. If you can afford one (both in money and opportunity cost), it can be a wonderfully enjoyable time, although not one where you learn how the government works.

4. Govmech doesn’t have anything like the MCAT or LSAT (I know these tests have issues, but at least they exist). The closest thing we have is the U.S. citizenship test. The lack of such a standard assessment or test (outside of something like AP Gov or an SAT II subject test, which I don’t really count) is some evidence against the coherence of the current political science paradigm.