On January 7, the American Political Science Association released a “Statement on the Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” that many of its members considered mealy mouthed and insufficiently condemnatory of the Republican Party. (What particularly rankled was APSA’s insistence that “both sides” need “to do better.”) Four days later, APSA released an “expanded” statement apologizing for the lack of fire in their original, and dutifully supplying the litany of evils they’d failed to mention the first time: “xenophobia, white supremacy, white nationalism, right-wing extremism, and racism.” As our Tom Bartlett notes, “there seemed to be general agreement that the second statement was, if not perfect or comprehensive, at least better.”
This might all seem like a tempest in an academic teapot, where supercharged symbolic politics attach themselves to such basically trivial things as the bland, official statements of professional organizations. But, as the Smith College political scientist Erin Pineda explains in her new Review essay, “A Reckoning for Political Science,” the field has from its origins suffered from uncertainty about the relationship between its descriptive and normative aspects — and from poisoned disciplinary roots in racist and nationalist political projects. “How can political scientists,” Pineda writes, “conduct their work — researching and writing about politics — while remaining somehow above the fray of politics? Is that even a realistic goal? Is it a desirable one?”
Read the whole essay here. And then check out two books discussed by Pineda: Jessica Blatt’s Race and the Making of American Political Science and John G. Gunnell’s Imagining the American Polity.
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January 19, 2021 at 04:34PM
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The Review: The Politics of Political Science - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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