The idea that 2-4 core classes is too much to ask is so ludicrous to me -- engineers only get to take a handful of elective classes because there's such a robust slate of fundamentals that they're expected to know, and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard! I preferred pursuing a Public Policy Studies degree to a Political Science one specifically because it was so much more structured, but in retrospect, an even more fleshed-out curriculum on governmental mechanics would have been preferable. ("Politics of Public Policy" and 2 "Economics of the Public Sector" courses were part of the PPS core requirements and those included a fair bit of govmech. We also took an introductory class that taught techniques like Cost-Benefit Analysis, as well as an Ethics course, and afaik our PoliSci majors had 0 such requirements. Most of my elective courses were cross-listed with PoliSci; I cringe at how much more lost I'd have been trying to make sense of politics or government at large without the core classes teaching me how things actually work rather than just lobbing disconnected highfalutin theories at me with no organizing framework or technical details.)
This fits with the picture I'm getting: public policy degrees have the most govmech (although still not a ton), followed by law school, and various other programs sort of tie law school or get third place.
"and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard!" yesss. Ideally some people even get full-blown govmech degrees and know government as well as engineers know their field.
I'm currently busy and just came across this post searching for something unrelated, but it seems you are confusing politics with government, they aren't synonyms. If you want a PhD in Political Science that heavily focuses on the *mechanics* of governments, you can easily get this (that's more-or-less what the entire subfield of American Politics consists of). What follows is intended to be a rebuttal of your response to the first objection you mention. I'm not making a normative claim about the value/non-value of poli sci degrees, govmech knowledge, or what undergrads think poli sci degrees are about. This response is probably only applies to PhD programs in poli sci, rather than undergrad degrees that generally don't allow any sort of specialization in subfields.
The TL:DR is that it appears you are making an assumption that all political science research involves governments or political institutions, but this isn't true.
I skimmed your other article and your definition of political science highlights this misunderstanding. In the other article, you state "Political science is a social science that applies methods more traditionally found in the hard sciences to the analysis of political institutions." While this is better than the more general understanding that you are disputing in the paragraph prior to this quote, it still prioritizes political institutions as the focus of political science - once again, this is more reflective of specific subfields within political science rather than the field as a whole.
Studying political institutions is a specific type of research conducted in various subfields, all focused on different types of institutions depending on the subfield. It is possible to study political science without really addressing political institutions at all. For example, in IR there's entire theories that basically ignore political institutions because they are thought to be non-factors and largely irrelevant to predicting or explaining whatever they are studying (while institutionalists argue the opposite).
With this being said, it is highly unlikely that any PhD student in a decent poli sci program would not be exposed to basic government and political institution research. However, if it isn't their focus, it is pointless for them to be forced to take years of courses teaching them things they do not need to know.
I disagree with your characterization of my essay, as you might imagine, but here's what I'll ask concretely: send me a university department's degree requirements that teach what you say they do here: "If you want a PhD in Political Science that heavily focuses on the *mechanics* of governments, you can easily get this (that's more-or-less what the entire subfield of American Politics consists of)"
Your claim is that what I say I want to exist, already exists. I just need a link to evidence of that claim. (I wouldn't be surprised to find some departments that do this, I just think most don't.)
What I'm looking for:
- Does the degree program operate in an a la carte fashion, or not?
The idea that 2-4 core classes is too much to ask is so ludicrous to me -- engineers only get to take a handful of elective classes because there's such a robust slate of fundamentals that they're expected to know, and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard! I preferred pursuing a Public Policy Studies degree to a Political Science one specifically because it was so much more structured, but in retrospect, an even more fleshed-out curriculum on governmental mechanics would have been preferable. ("Politics of Public Policy" and 2 "Economics of the Public Sector" courses were part of the PPS core requirements and those included a fair bit of govmech. We also took an introductory class that taught techniques like Cost-Benefit Analysis, as well as an Ethics course, and afaik our PoliSci majors had 0 such requirements. Most of my elective courses were cross-listed with PoliSci; I cringe at how much more lost I'd have been trying to make sense of politics or government at large without the core classes teaching me how things actually work rather than just lobbing disconnected highfalutin theories at me with no organizing framework or technical details.)
This fits with the picture I'm getting: public policy degrees have the most govmech (although still not a ton), followed by law school, and various other programs sort of tie law school or get third place.
"and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard!" yesss. Ideally some people even get full-blown govmech degrees and know government as well as engineers know their field.
Did you get a PPS undergrad, or masters?
I'm currently busy and just came across this post searching for something unrelated, but it seems you are confusing politics with government, they aren't synonyms. If you want a PhD in Political Science that heavily focuses on the *mechanics* of governments, you can easily get this (that's more-or-less what the entire subfield of American Politics consists of). What follows is intended to be a rebuttal of your response to the first objection you mention. I'm not making a normative claim about the value/non-value of poli sci degrees, govmech knowledge, or what undergrads think poli sci degrees are about. This response is probably only applies to PhD programs in poli sci, rather than undergrad degrees that generally don't allow any sort of specialization in subfields.
The TL:DR is that it appears you are making an assumption that all political science research involves governments or political institutions, but this isn't true.
I skimmed your other article and your definition of political science highlights this misunderstanding. In the other article, you state "Political science is a social science that applies methods more traditionally found in the hard sciences to the analysis of political institutions." While this is better than the more general understanding that you are disputing in the paragraph prior to this quote, it still prioritizes political institutions as the focus of political science - once again, this is more reflective of specific subfields within political science rather than the field as a whole.
Studying political institutions is a specific type of research conducted in various subfields, all focused on different types of institutions depending on the subfield. It is possible to study political science without really addressing political institutions at all. For example, in IR there's entire theories that basically ignore political institutions because they are thought to be non-factors and largely irrelevant to predicting or explaining whatever they are studying (while institutionalists argue the opposite).
With this being said, it is highly unlikely that any PhD student in a decent poli sci program would not be exposed to basic government and political institution research. However, if it isn't their focus, it is pointless for them to be forced to take years of courses teaching them things they do not need to know.
I disagree with your characterization of my essay, as you might imagine, but here's what I'll ask concretely: send me a university department's degree requirements that teach what you say they do here: "If you want a PhD in Political Science that heavily focuses on the *mechanics* of governments, you can easily get this (that's more-or-less what the entire subfield of American Politics consists of)"
Your claim is that what I say I want to exist, already exists. I just need a link to evidence of that claim. (I wouldn't be surprised to find some departments that do this, I just think most don't.)
What I'm looking for:
- Does the degree program operate in an a la carte fashion, or not?
- Does the degree cover the things I mention in the main essay, to which this is a follow-on (https://www.maximumnewyork.com/i/136498154/what-would-a-governmental-mechanics-program-contain)
Truly, I just want the evidence for the claim.