What is happening at the School of Politics and International Relations?

Dear editors of Woroni

I wanted to offer a short comment (perhaps reply) to Jason Andrews’ piece from last issue: ‘SPIR rout continues: World-Leading scholar and team head to the University of Canberra’. There are certainly some big changes going on at SPIR and it is good that someone is writing about them for Woroni, but Andrew’s articles are decidedly one sided and insinuate that something insidious is going on at SPIR when this structural adjustment may be quite natural, coincidental and even welcome.

First off, without direct comments from the departing academics, the insinuation that they are leaving because the school is a shambles, or because of back-room politicking against left leaning academics, is irresponsible. For example, Dryzek and co were offered a mint to move to UC, he said as much himself. Ryan Walter is from Queensland—is it not possible he merely went home at the first opportunity having cut his teeth at the ANU? I’d point out that Ryan is quite capable when it comes to quantitative methods. I’d suspect that he was more put off by the (worrying) absence of liberal theorists at SPIR than by anything else. A comment from a unionist speculating about workloads is hardly evidence—all academics at all universities work absurd hours; SPIR is no exception.

Second, bringing more quantitative researchers on staff merely brings ANU into line with other political science schools in the Anglosphere, and corrects an existing imbalance in the school towards political theory rather than political science. Andrews is well within his rights to oppose such a change in a comment article, but he opposes it eo ipso. Public choice, rational choice, institutions theory and statistical methods are de jour in political science for good reason. They provide powerful insights into a range of issues that have long been difficult for political science to really get its head around, such as voting patterns. To turn away from these is not only to invite a fall in rankings, something that is perhaps more important to students than an education in Marxism, but also to offer students a limited education in politics. For those students (like myself) who want a deeper education in critical theory and postmodernism, sociology and philosophy—the disciplines that gave birth to both—still offer a bunch of relevant courses to augment those SPIR will continue to deliver.

Third, Quantitative (statistical) methods are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in policy debates and constitute 50 per cent of research methods. They are also assumed knowledge for many top flight American and English political science graduate programs. As such, not offering courses in them at Australia’s premier university is quite a disservice to students. 

There’s plenty to talk about with the restructuring of SPIR, but a blanket opposition to change or a bias against quantitative methods isn’t going to help start a conversation, it’s going to help start an argument.  

P.S. (Blog only): I think a big part of what's fueling the outrage is that political science schools attract people who want to bring about political change and discuss normative issues, so they think schools should predominantly teach to those aims. That's all fine, and it is precisely why I started in political science. But that is only half the discipline. There is a whole bunch of research going on looking for patterns and mechanisms in politics that is uninterested in political change or normative arguments. This is positive political science, and it is a valid, interesting and popular area of research, not an attempt by the man to de-radicalise faculties. There is reason to believe that the current administration at SPIR has the opposite opinion - that only positive science is worthwhile - but we need some evidence for that, and that it is doing damage, before we go getting outraged.