What Should a Political Scientist Read? Part One

Many of my grad students come to my classes initially convinced that they know everything they need to know to become a public policy expert in a few years.  Indeed, many of them know a great many  facts and figures about politics, and many even read widely, consuming a lot of daily newspapers which concern themselves with political happenings.  But is paying attention to current events actually sufficient preparation for becoming a policy analyst?  I don’t think so!  Students who find themselves well-prepared to participate in policy discussions in class tend to share a couple of traits that I would like to highlight here.

First, they don’t read indiscriminately!  Those of us who were praised as children for being good readers probably did in fact develop a habit of reading fairly indiscriminately.  Were you one of those kids who always won the library’s summer reading contest?  Who won the trophy in the Reading Contest at school?  If so, then probably at some point, you decided it was more important to read for volume than for content.  While that might have been sufficient in high school, it’s not enough for grad school. 

So instead, I would suggest that you develop a disciplined routine of reading about politics.  Eventually, you will end up with a couple of routines:

First, you’ll probably have a daily routine of things like newspapers , blogs and e-mailed newsletters that you receive and look at.  Some of these will be things that you read in depth and perhaps even participate in, corresponding with colleagues.

In addition, you might have a routine of things you look at weekly or when you have free time.  (This might even include some guilty pleasures, things you don’t really need to know, but which you enjoy learning more about.  And if your guilty pleasures include People of Walmart and The Onion, I promise not to tell -- provided you don't force me to explain my strange obsession with gossip about Kate Gosselin.)

Finally, you will have a routine of scholarly journals and websites that you glance at regularly – perhaps a journal that you look at quarterly, or quarterly reports from a variety of sources like think tanks.

Tomorrow, I will share my daily, weekly and quarterly routines for reading about and keeping up with politics, and I will ask my readers to share some of their favorites as well.

In addition, I will explain why you should pay attention to the credibility and quality of the sources that you read.