International understanding critical for political science

As the national conventions are winding down and election rhetoric is heating up, the future of American politics has the nation’s attention. Yet within the political science community, a different kind of debate about American politics is brewing.

At its annual conference held last week, the American Political Science Association convened to discuss some of the issues facing the discipline. Among them was the future of the American approach to teaching the U.S. political system.

The advent of the information age and the emergence of new markets has led some to question age-old approaches to political science and especially the relative value of American-centered teaching. Critics claim that by focusing on the American political system, American universities imbue an inappropriate sense of American exceptionalism in their students.

Professors say that the preponderance of American-focused classes is the result of student demand. The IU Department of Political Science’s most heavily enrolled class remains Y103 Introduction to American Politics. Moreover roughly 40 to 50 percent of undergraduate political science majors at IU intend to pursue careers in law, and it is the American courses that best suit their needs, said political science professor Jeffrey Hart.

Hart notes that the K-12 focus on American history and government plays a role in students choosing to study American politics. “People come to political science with a predisposition to ask certain questions,” Hart said.

As for fostering exceptionalism, Hart said the challenge is separating fact from fiction. “What we hope to do is to delineate where America is different in actuality and not in mythology,” Hart said.

Beyond student demand, others argue for home-field advantage. In the same way that it is appropriate for France to study French politics, it seems appropriate for Americans to want to study American politics.

But the fact remains that the international political stage and its players are changing, and we think it is only appropriate that the discipline should change along with it. Professor Jeffrey Isaac, head of the political science department, agreed but said that substantial changes to IU’s curriculum in the near future are unlikely.

“The U.S. of the future will look different than the U.S. of today,” Isaac said. “I have no doubt that the politics and culture of the U.S. will be profoundly shaped by the many transnational forces ... currently testing and breaking down national boundaries. I think that these phenomena should be registered in the way American politics is studied and taught.”

The discussion of reorganizing or re-emphasizing subfields in political science speaks to the changing nature of the world and how the United States relates to it. The time of America as sole superpower is waning, and with this new world order comes a new set of demands for future world leaders. We think that political science departments have a responsibility to prepare their students for a new multicultural and multilateral world. By offering more classes that put the American political system in a larger context and by requiring a qualitative look at America, IU could better prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow.