What Should a Political Scientist Read? Part Two

In my last post, I suggested that you establish a series of routines for keeping up with both current events news and developments in your field of study on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis.  Today I'd like to talk a bit more about what you might read on a daily basis. 

You probably want to start with a newspaper or two.  Here the obvious choices would be to read a nationally regarded newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post on a daily basis.  However, I'd recommend mixing it up occasionally.  As you're probably aware by now, most newspapers have areas in which they are really strong (like the Washington Post's coverage of Capitol Hill) and others where perhaps they are weaker.  In addition, both conservative groups and more liberal groups have suggested that newspaper coverage can be biased ideologically -- with a newspaper choosing not to use certain sources or not to focus on certain stories.  The best way to make sure that these issues are not affecting you as a researcher is to vary the sources that your read occasionally.  (Here I'm speaking from experience.  I served overseas as a US foreign service officer, concluding my somewhat short career with a stint as Press Attache at the American Embassy in Bulgaria.  I spent several years reading eight or nine daily newspapers -- so I know what I'm talking about!) 

Some other national newspapers that I read occasionally include the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times.  It's my sense that (not surprisingly) the Boston Globe does a bang up job of covering education issues, including higher education.  The Los Angeles Times has particularly strong coverage of environmental issues.  (It's also interesting to note how coverage of presidential electoral politics can vary from the East to the West coast.)

I'd like to suggest that you occasionally include a non-American newspaper in your reading mix.  Ask questions as you read.  Perhaps you are reading about Iranian reactions to Arab Spring and you find yourself wondering:  How might an Arab newspaper analyze this issue?  It only makes sense to take a glance at Al-Jazeera, which is available in English. Another good source is World Press, which translates materials from all over the world.  Those who wish to see what the Christian perspective is on a particular issue might wish to take a look at World Magazine.

I'd also recommend taking a look at some of the blogs hosted by the national newspapers, and subscribing to those that interest you.  I'll write more about those blogs in my next post.

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.

Welcome to My Blog

I am developing this blog because I'm a political scientist who is interested in helping my students -- and others, I hope -- to make the leap from following politics in the newspaper or online to actually thinking like a political scientist.  I teach mostly in the national security field at Regent University -- and usually teach a course on terrorism, one on intelligence and sometimes a course on disaster assistance management.  But my other real love is the field of political methodology and I frequently teach the graduate seminar on research methods.  Many of my students come to Regent already quite immersed in the day to day chatter of politics (okay, usually it's conservative politics).  However, they often look surprised on the first day of our research methods seminar when I ask them the question:  Is political science really a science?  What makes it scientific?  These are the questions I hope to help my readers to explore in this blog.  I'll be posting a couple of times a week and will be presenting articles about current events and contemporary political problems -- but then I'll attempt to lead students to think through these events as a political scientist, drawing larger lessons and considering the ramifications of particular events within a larger framework.