"Political Science and Beyond!"

My post this week is from the Department of Unexcusable Self-Pity. Because (a) my tummy hurts and (b) all my political science friends are at APSA this weekend and I’m stuck here in stupid ol’ India.

For the uninitiated, APSA is the American Political Science Association and when I say “at” APSA, it isn’t that everyone is on a tour of some august institution where the Association has, for example, a museum of famous political scientists through the ages. (Which is not to say such a thing shouldn’t exist, complete with gift shop. Imagine a Sam Huntington plush doll! It could even make inflammatory racial claims, totally uninformed by empirical investigation, when you pressed its belly!) No, what I mean to say is that all my political science friends are at the Annual Meeting of APSA, being held this year in Chicago.

Surely you can see the delights this affords? The aggregated awkwardness of hundreds of people who, out of all the options afforded by their greater than average intelligence, thought long and hard about where they would be most likely to succeed and chose the one career path upon which social skills have no bearing whatsoever.

The Meeting is also titled—and I wish I were making this up—“Political Science and Beyond.” Now, setting aside that the cultural reference this brings most strongly to mind is the catchphrase from a children’s film about talking action figurines, exactly what does “beyond” refer to? I mean, political science is not the most readily-applied degree. What beyond political science are we qualified to do? Is APSA going to expand into selling face cream? From now on, will they publish Perspectives on Politics and 1001 Gardening tips for faculty housing?

Examining the meeting statement, however, I see that “beyond” refers to the conveners’ aim “to embrace the extraordinary potential of linking political scientists with researchers, teachers, and scholars from other disciplines.” If they have specific examples in mind they are not letting on. The meeting statement refers only to the “cognate disciplines” which—seeing as how we are a “social science”—must mean anything informing us about “societies” or “science.” Which is, hmmm, let’s see, everything. That IS extraordinary potential!

One hypothesis is that the meeting theme has no significance whatsoever - the theme has to cover everything in political science, so it always ends up being vague. A second hypothesis is that the theme might be code for “Sure, what you do doesn’t really look like what I think political science is, but I'm still totally interested in [insert academic discipline].” Because, in the past, there was a lot of ink and maybe even a little blood spilled over what disciplines political science should emulate.

The back story, briefly: Fifteen or so years ago [correction: about 7 years ago. NB - correction strengthens plausibility of hypothesis] , a group of political scientists dubbed themselves the “Perestroikans” and attempted to split/take-over APSA in order to resist what was then a trend toward a style of political science more closely aligned with economics and psychology than with anthropology and cultural studies. A cause which, obviously, was of a moral and historical significance such that it could only be compared to the dismantling of the most extensive police state humanity has ever known.

Perestroikans—for reasons that mostly have to do with the kind of tenure battles that form the background of such happy tales as To the Lighthouse and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—largely lost. But this was no Tienanmen Square-style repression of such brutal force as to banish the movement from view. Rather, this was the tenuous and blundering occupation of Tibet, plagued with continued guerrilla violence. Thus, APSA, like a well-meaning and perhaps naive team of Norwegian peacemakers, watches uneasily over its oft-quarrelsome flock, appealing to mutual tolerance.

And to think that, budding conflict scholar which I claim to be, I am not there to gather data!

Further notes of correction: Perestroika began with an anonymous email circulated in 2000 (By the way, the phrase "FAILED Africanist" is a reference to my advisor) & its history is described here & here.
Perestroikans also self-style their movement "Glasnost," again revealing an admirable ability to give a detached assessment of the scope and import of the issue at hand, and have a sister movement with the even more tasteless name "Post-Autistic Economics."

Truly, hell hath no fury like an academic scorned by the more visible journals in his discipline.

Note on the Admittedly Less Exotic Local Fauna: Rakhi, the Indian festival of brothers and sisters, was August 28^th. The gist is that a sister ties a red piece of thread around her brother’s wrist, and then he gives her a present. Perhaps, for example, the gift of happiness, the gift of an i-Pod. (See picture)

The odd role of rakhi is that young women will “tie rakhi” on young men they think of as brothers in addition to their biological male siblings—the obvious candidates for this being cousins. But once a girl has tied rakhi on a guy, the incest taboo is sort of extended to that relationship. So, it can be a way to discourage a suitor – make him a brother and suddenly he has to defend your honor instead of continuing his attempts to sully it. There is even a TV show about it. It’s called something like Rakhi Sahib and the main character is the sort of typical “nice guy” who always ends up being the shoulder his female friends cry on instead of the one they date. Except, in this case, his crushes always tie the Rakhi on him.

Note on Life Imitating Art: Major R.A.M. Major was the last Political Officer to His Majesty’s Government in India to serve in Khasi State. But, obviously, his true accomplishment was to have the startlingly silly name “Major Major,” a la Catch-22.