Professing Political Science in Australia: The What, How and Why of a Disciplinary Education

Three premises inform this discussion. First, that the primary goal of a political science major is to instil in students the capacity to research, analyse, interpret and communicate political phenomena, and that other purposes, such as producing good and active citizens, are secondary considerations. Second, if the goal of a political science major is to teach students to understand and analyse politics, then we need to equip students with knowledge of the breadth and depth of the field and of the diverse methods of inquiry that can be used to investigate political phenomena. This is not to suggest that the purpose of an undergraduate major is to train political scientists; this is what we do (or think we do) at the postgraduate level. Rather, the argument is that our graduates should come away with a solid understanding of what the discipline has to offer as way of understanding the world and how it differs from political commentary and advocacy. To that end, we need to equip undergraduates with an understanding of the theories and concepts that inform our understanding of politics and an understanding of the different ways in which knowledge about political phenomena can be acquired. The third premise is that a discipline major should: