political science job rumors

Things may get weird. Trying to fix the problems.

1. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   So when can we expect the Congress-jocks to give us an analysis of the voting on HR 1? Maybe in the Summer 2013 AJPS? Maybe never? It was only the largest supplemental approps bill in history and the first major test of a new President...nothing to see here, more W-nominate scores to plug into Stata...

   Sorry boys, CQ nailed it the next day. Political science has moved from "slow journalism" to totally irrelevent in my lifetime. Sad really.

   Every once in a while I think about coming back to "the academy." It brings me to sites like this to see if the game has changed for the better, it hasn't.

   So I will stick with my COLA, and my generous travel per diem (faculty actually share rooms at conferences?) and my 40 hour week (with comp time or overtime if I go over) and the sense that the work I do actually makes a small difference in people's lives.

   Posted 4 years ago #

2. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   Bite me. Congress jocks is not hyphenated. Now get back to your cubicle.

   Posted 4 years ago #

3. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   ...Oh, and blow your COLA out your nose. Your sense of efficacy is greatly overblown relative to reality, and don't act like coming back to the academy is a choice for you to make.

   Posted 4 years ago #

4. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   Are you serious? Straight party line vote in the Senate except for three moderate Republicans and nearly that in the House except for a handful of moderate to conservative Democrats? If OP thinks that outcome requires a multivariate analysis, then he/she belongs in that dead-end job with the easy hours and the mind-numbing work assignments. Reserve academia for smart people.

   Posted 4 years ago #

5. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   OP, I'm not sure you have the right expectations for "the academy." CQ publishes its prose daily and weekly with a completely different review process. We are not in a race to "beat" the media with the first story of the day's events...the lag required to specify a theoretical prediction, gather and analyze data, write up results, and endure the peer-review process guarantees that any academic trying to outrace the media will be disappointed.

   Instead, the goal is identify theories and patterns that have lasting significance. While you are correct that no one (to my knowledge) has conducted a sophisticated analysis of the voting on HR 1, there has been ample research on Presidential agenda-setting, voting patterns, and legislating in Congress which is easily applicable. A President with a mandate asks for legislation in his first month and gets it. The President's party is eager to cooperate to enhance the reputation of their party label. The House acts first because a) it's a spending bill and b) the majority party tightly controls the House agenda (but not, ahem, the Appropriations Committee). Voting is largely structured by party, with a few defections in the House (predictable for a majority party which has seats to spare, so MCs with marginal districts can cast a "safe" vote) and some hard bargaining in the Senate to bring the cloture "pivot" into the majority coalition. And which senators defect from the GOP? Northeastern moderates from blue states. So, no, I haven't seen a paper on this bill, but I don't need to...it's all pretty textbook if you know the literature. The X factor, IMHO, is the decision of the GOP to resist this bill despite the state of the nation and Obama's high poll ratings & efforts at bipartisanship.

   Posted 4 years ago #

6. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   well put.

   Posted 4 years ago #

7. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   ditto

   Posted 4 years ago #

8. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   ^^Agreed. Plus, I'll take my flexible hours and all that go with it, including easy doctor appointment scheduling, being able to watch EVERY ONE of my daughter's school plays, and not going to the office on days I don't teach. Oh, and wearing shorts & flip flops to work during the summer doesn't suck either. That beats your COLA every day of the week.

   Posted 4 years ago #

9. Anonymous
   Unregistered

   COLA? You mean that 2% pay raise that Saint Barack will so generously grant his loyal bureaucrats for FY2010?

   On the other hand, there is no risk of you ever getting in that new $250k tax bracket, so there's that at least!

   Posted 4 years ago #

10. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    Um, what's COLA?

    Oh, and to OP, sorry that you didn't get tenure.

    Posted 4 years ago #

11. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    Didn't get tenure?

    Sorry you flamed out at your quals, is more like it.

    Posted 4 years ago #

12. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    Many times on this blog people have asked about what people can do with a political science degree besides go into academia. If you wouldn't mind, OP, could you give us an idea of what you do and opportunities you see for people with political science PhDs. Be as vague as you want to (since you seem to have generated some haters), but I would like to know what the other options are.

    Thanks.

    Posted 4 years ago #

13. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    Leaving aside the OPs swipes at the discipline...

    There is something to be said about the reliance on voting data in some Congressional analysis. As we all know, for many (really most) issues, the complex political and policy decisiosn are made far from the floor and far from public view. This, of course, presents a real problem for political scientists. How do you even know what happens in a private closed-door session between the Chief of Staff of the Speaker's office and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee? How can you possible factor into you model the "unofficial" cost estimate sent via email (and thus off the record) from the CBO that killed a major component of a bill?

    CQ and the like have one major advantage over us, they are there, literally, and can work sources to get this kind of information, with limited exceptions, we can't do that. I have seen some surveys of Congressional staff and members, but given the intense political nature of the world they live in, I fear that those may not be all that reliable.

    I don't know the answer to any of this, of course, but do think it is worth remembering that just because data is readily available (ie roll call votes), doesn't mean that it is in any way an accurate representation of the event we are studying.

    I remember a Presidency class I took in grad school in which the professor (who will go unnamed) told us that the greatest modern political scientist studying the Presidency today was...Bob Woodward.

    Some food for thought.

    Posted 4 years ago #

14. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    more like material for regurgitation. seriously, we've heard it before. similarly, too bad physicists can't shrink themselves and actually meet an electron.

    Posted 4 years ago #

15. Mr. Slippery
    .edu verified member

    "more like material for regurgitation. seriously, we've heard it before. similarly, too bad physicists can't shrink themselves and actually meet an electron."

    I suspect most physicists would jump at the chance to meet an electron, if they could. Not that the electron would have anything to say to them, what with not being sentient and all. On the other hand, scholars of congress only need to learn how to use a communication device (of which we now are blessed with many different kinds) and how to cultivate other people.

    Posted 4 years ago #

16. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    What's HR 1?

    Posted 4 years ago #

17. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    What's Google?

    Posted 4 years ago #

18. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    Hi folks,

    When congress scholars study roll call votes, it's not because they think roll call votes are the only important source of policy decisions. Rather, it's because they contain information about preferences that is useful for analyzing what happens at other stages as well. You may disagree with that proposition but that is the idea in much of the Congress literature. For instance, studying the representativeness of committees or party agenda setting often utilizes roll call-based preference scores. Yet these areas do not focus on final passage votes.

    Sorry for the confusion about this.

    Posted 4 years ago #

19. Anonymous
    Unregistered

    >> On the other hand, scholars of congress only need to learn how to use a communication device (of which we now are blessed with many different kinds) and how to cultivate other people.

    Great point Mr. Slip. I for one am keenly honing my people-cultivation skills. I now have a garden full of them and I think it will be a bumper crop.

    Soylent brown, anyone?

    Posted 4 years ago #

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