Why Political Science?

People tend to have a laundry list of questions ready to ask whenever meeting new people. I don't blame them for asking these questions--I do it too--though it often leaves an unmemorable, rote conversation as a first impression.

Frequently, one of the initial questions asked of me is "What are you studying?" or "What did you study at BYU?" I always hesitate to answer this question because I believe (mistakenly or otherwise) that there is a stigma attached to poli sci majors. By saying that I study(ied) political science I feel that people develop an image of me as 'political science guy'--a flamboyant, obnoxiously opinionated, loud, and sometimes holier-than-thou follower of politics.

The conversation would then shift to deeper questions, like "Where are you from?" or "If you could be any head of a three headed squirrel, which would it be?" I would always let it progress to the next question on the list without quenching my desire to say, "Yes, I study political science but I'm not 'political science guy'."

One of the reasons I studied political science was because of the "low hanging fruits" it offers. There are so many research questions that nobody has ever spent time exploring. Almost every topic has avenues that have yet to be studied.

I offer one example to illustrate the point. There has been tons of research done (with various conclusions) on the impact of partisan pressures on congressional behavior. Some scholars maintain that the partisan influence on legislators is negligible because party is merely an element of the preferences of members of Congress upon entering office. That is, legislators are driven primarily by personal and constituent opinions--members of Congress of opposing parties tend to act differently not because of partisan pressures but because these opinions are different. A competing group of scholars assert that partisan pressures are real and significant in shaping the behavior of legislators. The "low hanging fruit" in this example is to analyze the partisan influence on members of Congress in differing stages of their political careers. It's not necessarily 'do parties matter' but rather 'for whom do parties matter.' Do higher office seekers need the support of their party more than other congressmen and are, therefore, more influenced by partisan pressures? Have retiring members of Congress completely dissolved the partisan link? What about newly-elected legislators? etc.

These questions aren't necessarily hard to come up with either. Jason's Mechanized Creativity entry can be applied to creating a research question (items on the list being democracy level, corruption, gdp, etc.). I find the resultant questions very interesting. The amount of research yet to be undertaken is one of the reasons I studied political science.

I don't know why this has been on my mind nor do I know why I posted it. To those who have read this whole post: I apologize if your eyes are glazed over out of boredom. I think that's why I never took the conversation described above in this direction. I mean, who really wants to hear about political science research questions? Instead, I would stick to the meaningful get-to-know you conversation: "I would definitely want to be the middle head of the squirrel and let me tell you why..."