If disciplines can be likened to living things, then perhaps political science is best characterized not by familiar symbols—e.g., the elephant, the donkey, or the eagle—but by a small sea creature: the hermit crab. Rather than generating its own protective cover, the hermit crab adopts the foreign shells that it comes across; it makes a home for itself by utilizing the previous works of other crustaceans. For many years, the discipline of political science—like other areas within the social and behavioral sciences—built its own frameworks using the analytical tools found in outside disciplines. Borrowing heavily from econometrics, psychometrics, and biometrics, political scientists examined empirical data as they tested theories about individual behavior, organizational dynamics, and governmental processes. The substantive ends were of primary interest, and therefore less attention was paid to the means of inquiry.
This has changed dramatically over the last 20 or so years, and even more rapidly in the recent past. While the questions still drive the enterprise, the methods used to answer those questions now receive an ever-increasing amount of scrutiny. New statistical techniques and software packages emerge continuously; they have kept pace with evolving computer capabilities. In turn, advanced approaches to estimation and measurement have enabled researchers to ask and answer questions that previously were either avoided or could only be addressed indirectly. Innovations in statistical modeling have made political scientists better able to tackle questions involving space and time (both simultaneously and separately), and the progress has also spurred improvements in data collection. Today, learning and adaptation from other fields of study continues—political science can certainly be characterized as a “welcoming discipline” (Beck 2002). However, where there was once essentially a one-way flow of methodological innovation into political science, there is now an exchange with other disciplines. Political science has generated advancements in areas such as ecological inference and estimation generalization, and the discipline is clearly ahead of many of the social and behavioral sciences in terms of its general mathematical sophistication, application of Bayesian approaches, integration of formal and empirical work, insights into model specification, and, more recently, self-critical epistemological reflection. In short, political science has become both a consumer and a producer of methods.
Surely there are multiple explanations for this paradigmatic shift. One might view it as the natural outcome for a discipline that courts the large-n survey, that has access to increasingly rich, complex, and varied types of data, and that has had well-funded teaching and research resources for methods for some time, notably the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan (since 1962). The recent National Science Foundation initiative spearheaded by James Granato and Frank Scioli, called Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM), adds to this trend. EITM is intended to improve theoretical work so that it yields more testable hypotheses, while improving methodological work so that the testing of theory is more effective and informative (Aldrich 2002). Whether or not one is a proponent of a methods-infused political science, it is hard to dispute that the discipline has developed a distinct “quantitative core” over the years (Schwartz-Shea 2003): in 2003–2004, over half of the submissions to the American Political Science Review (APSR), the discipline's top journal, used an approach that was classified as either quantitative (51%) or formal and quantitative (8%) (Sigelman 2005).
Much responsibility for this change, however, rests with a species that is on the rise within the discipline: the political methodologist. Political methodologists specialize in the ways in which political inquiry is carried out; they are experts in the analytical tools used by their fellow academicians, and are themselves increasingly either the sole or collaborative creators of such tools. From teaching research methods to graduate students and fellow Ph.D.s, to writing new statistical software programs, to publishing methods-related articles, these researchers have helped make methods part of the discipline's message. And one thing is certain: today methodologists' messages are resonating. At the start of the 1970s, essentially only one place in political science—the discipline's flagship journal, the APSR—published methods-focused articles, and even then it did not publish many. Today, multiple prestigious journals within the discipline regularly publish such works, not to mention other outlets including instructional books and series (as well as journals outside of political science) (Lewis-Beck 2006). In 2003–2004, a full 15% of the articles accepted into the APSR were primarily methods-oriented (Sigelman 2005).
One gains further insight into these political science trends by examining the curriculum of doctoral programs. In a survey of 57 departments conducted in 2000–2001, Schwartz-Shea (2003) found that every school included in the study offered at least one quantitative methods course, that nearly three-fourths of those departments questioned offered at least three such courses, and that 70% offered at least one specialty methods course. And increases in the usage of methods and methods offerings have led to greater demands for instruction and expertise. Between 2002 and 2004, 150 academic position advertisements included a specific request for some type of quantitative methods. As one might expect, nearly two-thirds of these postings came from Ph.D.-granting institutions, though over one-fourth came from institutions without graduate students (Brintnall 2005)—a sign that methods are also increasingly finding their way into undergraduate programs of study.
Of course, methods-related job opportunities have not always abounded. In the not-so-distant past, there were few primarily methods-focused scholars in political science, and rarely more than one in any particular department. It was difficult to go on the market as a methodologist, and nearly impossible to gain tenure with a primarily methods-based record; indeed, rare was the methodologist who did not first publish in a substantive field (whether American politics, Comparative politics, or International Relations). In a given year, one typically saw no more than a handful of methods-related positions advertised. And, while such skills were often welcomed by hiring committees, less frequently were they explicitly requested in job bulletins.
However, while the shared experience of often being the lone “witch doctor” at an institution did not exactly help to tear down professional hurdles, it did force methodologists to confer and keep in touch—the result of which has been a solid formal (and informal) political methodology network that has continued to grow over the years.1
Philip Schrodt first described the role of a political methodologist as that of a “witch doctor” in an article in the Political Methodologist (1991, 19): “Everybody fears them; most people hate them. They are central to the rites of passage into the tribe. Nobody has the slightest idea what they do but witch doctors are thought to disrupt work from great distances—particularly cooking—so you keep them around for protection. And everybody agrees you only want one in the village.” Perhaps political methodologists are no longer the witch doctors, but more akin to members of a wise tribal council.
Today, the Society for Political Methodology (the official name of the methods section of the American Political Science Association) is impressive—in some respects it is political science's counter to an organization like the American Medical Association: active, well-attended, well-funded, and well-respected. The first annual meeting of the Society was held in 1984—with just 17 individuals in attendance—and was supported by the University of Michigan and the National Election Studies. By 1986, the summer conference was being co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (which still continues today), and participation has increased steadily over the years—148 people attended in 2005. Smaller regional conferences have now begun as well, such as the Northeast Methods Meeting and the Bay Area Methods Meeting.
Currently the Society boasts the second highest membership of all APSA organized sections at 930 members (it trails only to the catchall of “comparative politics”), despite having one of the highest yearly membership dues rates. Membership fees include a subscription to the Society's formerly annual—now quarterly—journal, Political Analysis, as well as a subscription to the section's newsletter, the Political Methodologist (APSA 2006). Political Analysis is a showcase for some of the top empirical work in political science, and despite its relative infancy, is currently ranked among the top 20 political science journals; it is now referenced in multiple and diverse research databases, including CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Statistical Theory and Method Abstracts, and the Social Science Citation Index.2
Though it began in 1989 as an annual volume edited by James Stimson, Political Analysis became a quarterly journal in 2000 under the editorship of Nathaniel Beck. Prior to that time, Political Methodology existed as a journal for methodological work in the discipline—it was started in the mid-1970s by John Sullivan and George Marcus, as noted by its former editor, Christopher Achen (1985).
While it is clear that the methods community has succeeded in promoting intra- and inter-disciplinary ties, the success of the organized section and its journal has been particularly important for another reason: combined with the sheer volume of work coming out of the emerging field, it has managed to turn the heads of more than just political scientists. In its 2005 graduate program rankings, U.S. News and World Report moved to include political methodology as a separate subfield for the first time. (Previously, only American politics, Comparative politics, International Relations, and Political Theory had been ranked specialties.) And this external, “mainstream” recognition of political methodology as a distinct subfield within political science is sure to have both immediate and long-term consequences. It goes without saying that the rankings will impact the application and enrollment decisions of future scholars, just as they will shift or solidify the reputations of programs across the country. Importantly, however, they will also influence hiring decisions as certain schools attempt to enhance their departments. And this impact has already been felt within the discipline, where in 2005 the new rankings had the effect of pouring fuel on an already hot methods labor market. Between July 2004 and December 2005, 61 academic position advertisements on the APSA website called for individuals whose primary focus was methodology, and of these over half (36) were for tenure-track jobs. In the same period, an additional 66 advertisements specifically requested methodology as a subfield (APSA online job listings 2004–2005).3
The coding scheme used to classify the APSA online job listings is available upon request.
Traditionally, getting hired as a political methodologist involved displaying expertise in a substantive field first, and then in methodology. However, hiring requirements and priorities have also begun to change in the last few years, as reflected in the recent number of primarily methods job listings. Today an increasing number of scholars find themselves with the opportunity to go on the market as strict (or at least primarily) political methodologists—a shift that is readily discernable from position descriptions that explicitly include methods consultation duties. For example, in 2004 the department of political science at the University of Notre Dame advertised a methods position carrying a one/one teaching load, noting that the reduced course responsibilities would be in exchange for time spent assisting other faculty and graduate students with questions. And the rise in methods-focused positions has also been matched by expanding opportunities at many institutions for technically advanced graduate students. For example, the Program in Statistics and Methodology (PRISM) at Ohio State University funds two graduate student fellows annually whose primary duties include methods consultation and the organization of instructional workshops. More generally, the culture of the political methodology field, while intense, is known for taking care of its more junior scholars—examples of this include the attention given to graduate work at the Annual Political Methodology meeting and the Interactive Video Teaching (ITV) Program in Methodology.4
The home page for the ITV program is: http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jbox/ITV/ITVHome.html. The success of the Political Science ITV program—which celebrated its 10th year in 2006—is highlighted in a recent report by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) (see Marks, Partlow, and Player 2006).
With opportunities for publication expanding, demand for expertise growing, and established institutional pipelines producing top-notch scholars, it is a good time to be a political methodologist. By joining in conversations with other fields of inquiry, these scholars have blurred disciplinary boundaries. In doing so, however, they have not only changed the face of political science, but have helped to underscore what connects the subfields within the discipline. Today these researchers can get tenure with a methods-focused vita, can get published in top political science journals, and most fundamentally, can get jobs. Indeed, the methodologist has found a voice and made a home within political science.
Author Bios
Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier is the Vernal Riffe Professor of Political Science and director of the Program in Statistics and Methodology at Ohio State University. She is the coauthor of Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists and coauthor of the forthcoming book Time Series Analysis for Social Scientists.
Anand E. Sokhey is a Ph.D. candidate and the senior fellow in the Program in Statistics and Methodology (PRISM) at Ohio State University. His research interests include voting behavior, public opinion, religion and politics, and methodology. He is particularly interested in the relationship between social networks and organizational contexts, and in the role that interpersonal communication plays in acquiring political knowledge, fostering political participation, and influencing candidate evaluations.
