{"id":35878,"date":"2026-07-15T14:15:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=35878"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:15:40","slug":"civically-engaged-research-in-political-science-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=35878","title":{"rendered":"civically engaged research in political science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am at the eighth Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER)<\/a>, a program of the American Political Science Association. Each summer, we gather about 20 political scientists (advanced PhD students, professors, and PhDs working outside academia) for four days of discussions about engaged research, which generally means research conducted in partnership with people or entities that are outside of academia. As we did last year, we are meeting at UCLA in Los Angeles, thanks to the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation and UCLA’s Ralph Bunche Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been thinking about the standing of this kind of research and how it is viewed by powerful institutions. You could think of the following as a draft of a “power map” for civically engaged research in political science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start, we might think that colleges and universities are powerful institutions. On the other hand, many organizations and communities or social groups lack power. A junior scholar who wants to remedy that gap should collaborate with a disadvantaged group in ways that empower it. This requires humility by the scholar. In turn, the university and relevant discipline will probably dislike this style of research because it tends to shift power away. Therefore, the scholar will have to struggle against the university. Finally, the government may support engaged research when progressive are in charge, but when the government is right-wing, it will attack engaged research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This model is not false, but I would like to complicate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All communities have power. Some geographical communities that are poor nevertheless wield considerable power though their elected governments. On the other hand, colleges and universities face significant constraints, economic and otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior faculty in departments that chase prestige may not appreciate engaged research because it may seem methodologically unsophisticated and may not yield generalizable conclusions. On the other hand, the discipline of political science has conferred its highest honors on some scholars whose research depended on partnerships, people like Elinor Ostrom and Jenny Mansbridge (or Ralph Bunche, back in the day). Thanks to the original leadership of Rogers Smith while he was APSA president–sustained by his successors–the Association offers ICER to boost this kind of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, senior administrators in prestigious universities sometimes prefer engaged research because it is interdisciplinary, it engages students, it attracts philanthropy, and it can improve local relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment, federal funding for political science is endangered, and one would expect the Trump Administration to target civically engaged research. Yet political scientists are involved today in federally funded interdisciplinary engaged research projects, and private philanthropic support may be expanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, I think the power map is quite complex. My ideal end-state would not be a world in which every political scientist does engaged research. I admire other kinds of research as well. But I would like to see more and better civically engaged research, and moving toward that goal requires navigating a context of both opportunities and risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

See also: the landscape for civically engaged research<\/a> (2025; rather similar to these remarks); Civically Engaged Research in Political Science<\/a> (2023); bootstrapping value commitments<\/a> (2022)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am at the eighth Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), a program of the American Political Science Association. Each summer, we gather about 20 political scientists (advanced PhD students, professors, and PhDs working outside academia) for four days of discussions about engaged research, which generally means research conducted in partnership with people or entities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35878"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35886,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35878\/revisions\/35886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}