scholarly journals Political Science in Central European Democracies Under Pressure

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-151
Author(s):  
Aneta Világi ◽  
Darina Malová ◽  
Dobrinka Kostova
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Structural Reforms ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Central European ◽  
Common Trend ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Recognition ◽  
The Stability

AbstractThe chapter examines the challenges that six Central European Democracies (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) have faced in the development of political science during the last three decades. We argue that political science as a new social science has gone through many structural reforms: it has acquired a relatively well-institutionalised position, gained autonomy and managed to form its identity. Nevertheless, its position is endangered by the erosion of its legitimacy.In this chapter, we show that political science as a new social science in the Central and Eastern Europe region has acquired a relatively stable position. The discipline has gained autonomy and managed to form its own identity, and has shown a capacity to cope with several challenges that have arisen. However, some of the structural reforms, including the commodification of higher education and the proliferation of political science at universities and other teaching institutions, have recently undermined the stability it had previously gained, as it progressively suffers from a loss of public recognition. We argue that the oversimplified, technocratic approaches of governments in recent years have impaired the legitimacy of the social sciences, and of political science in particular. This common trend is observable in all of the selected countries, albeit with certain variations from one country to another.

Introduction: The Anthropocene as Context and Concept for the Study of Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
RYAN EVELY GILDERSLEEVE ◽  
KATIE KLEINHESSELINK
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Analytic Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Geologic Condition

The Anthropocene has emerged in philosophy and social science as a geologic condition with radical consequence for humankind, and thus, for the social institutions that support it, such as higher education. This essay introduces the special issue by outlining some of the possibilities made available for social/philosophical research about higher education when the Anthropocene is taken seriously as an analytic tool. We provide a patchwork of discussions that attempt to sketch out different ways to consider the Anthropocene as both context and concept for the study of higher education. We conclude the essay with brief introductory remarks about the articles collected for this special issue dedicated to “The Anthropocene and Higher Education.”

scholarly journals Teach a Student to Fish? International Relations Scholars in the Classroom

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (01) ◽  
pp. 214-220
Author(s):  
Nina Srinivasan Rathbun ◽  
Brian C. Rathbun
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Practical Skills ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
The Social

ABSTRACT American higher-education institutions are under increasing pressure to prepare their students with practical skills for the workplace, and the social sciences—including political science—are not immune. Political figures have suggested—sometimes seconded by academics themselves—that research distracts academics from imparting practical skills to undergraduate students. Using a survey of international relations (IR) scholars, this article shows that this is not the case. Those who spend more time on research actually devote more time to policy-relevant research in their courses than more abstract and theoretical work, and they incorporate more contemporary issues. Research seems to encourage academics to teach their students to fish.

The Emergence of Political Science in Communist Countries

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 572-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Powell ◽  
Paul Shoup
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
The West ◽  
East European ◽  
Free Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Independent Inquiry

The scientific study of politics requires an environment which accepts free inquiry and discussion. Scholars must be permitted to ask questions of their own choosing, gather data without hindrance, and communicate freely with one another about their findings. To be sure, freedom to investigate sensitive policy matters is limited by all governments. Moreover, political scientists themselves inevitably introduce some measure of their own values or ideological predispositions into their works. But it is obvious that without the guarantee of certain minimum freedoms, political science as we know it in the West could never exist.Communist regimes traditionally have made independent inquiry or objective discussion of political phenomena impossible. In the Stalinist period, scholarly analyses of politics—or, for that matter, of aesthetic, literary, moral or economic questions—amounted to little more than doctrinal exegesis or the elaboration of practical measures to implement the Party's demands. An autonomous social science in Stalin's Russia or Eastern Europe was simply unthinkable.Since the dictator's death, however, Communist governments have modified their hostility toward the social sciences in general, and toward political science in particular. A decade of de-Stalinization has been accompanied by steps to encourage the scientific study of politics. In several East European countries, political science now enjoys recognition as a discipline in its own right.This does not mean that political science in Communist countries has freed itself of political controls, or that what is presented as political science is always of scholarly merit.

scholarly journals Canadian Studies in the Czech Republic and Central Europe

Ad Americam ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Don Sparling
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Central European ◽  
Higher Education Systems ◽  
Steady Growth ◽  
Canadian Studies ◽  
International Projects

This article surveys the development of Canadian Studies in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic from 1985 (the year the first such course was offered at a Czech university) down to the present. It also deals with the wider context of the development of Canadian Studies in Central Europe under the aegis of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies, established in 2003 with its Secretariat located at Masaryk University, Brno. In both the Czech Republic and the wider region, the late 1990s saw a steady growth in Canadian Studies, fostered by financial support from the Canadian government and outreach activities by Western European Canadian Studies associations. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw an explosion of activities - many new courses and degree programmes, conferences and specialized seminars, international projects, publications, the launching of the Central European Journal for Canadian Studies. The century’s second decade, however, has witnessed retrenchment, the result of systemic changes in higher education systems and the Canadian government’s cancellation of all support for Canadian Studies activities in 2012. Nevertheless, in both the Czech Republic and Central Europe, Canadian Studies continues to enjoy a significant and respected presence in the higher education sphere.

From the Editors

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Penny Welch ◽  
Susan Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Strong Continuity ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
International Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Teaching In Higher Education

We are delighted to introduce the first volume of Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences. As founding and now-former editors of Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences (LATISS), our new journal reflects a strong continuity in the editorial aims that inspired ourfirst journal. We remain committed to using social science perspectives to analyse learning and teaching in higher education. In particular we invite contributors and readers to reflect critically on how students’ and academics’ practices are shaped by, or themselves influence, wider changes in university strategies and national and international policies for higher education. Viewing changes in course design and curriculum, in students’ writing, in group work, seminars or tutorials as taking place within a network (or lattice) of institutional, political and policy contexts is the focusof this journal.

Guatemalan Ladinization and History

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Political Science ◽  
North American ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science Vocabulary ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

Recent years have seen a significant increase in the use of history by social scientists. It is less and less common that studies in anthropology, sociology, and political science evaluate variables without attention to their antecedents. There still survive, however, concepts and theories built originally on synchronic assumptions. One of these theories, ladinization, has been the subject of considerable contention.“Ladinization” derives from “Ladino,” a term used in Guatemala and adjacent areas of Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras to refer to the non-Indian natives of those countries. I am not sure when “ladinization” entered the social science vocabulary, but it may have been with the work of North American anthropologists in the 1930s and 1940s. It described what observers thought of as a process whereby Indians were becoming Ladinos or more Ladino-like. The term was not favored by Guatemalan Ladinos, who generally spoke of “civilizing” the Indians, by which they meant that Indian customs should be discarded in favor of Ladino. In espousing this theme, Guatemalan indigenistas of the “generation of the 20s” often blurred the relation of race to culture; some argued that Indians were capable of being “civilized,” others that such changes could only be secured by introducing Europeans to interbreeding.

Harry Eckstein as Political Theorist

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-504
Author(s):  
GABRIEL A. ALMOND
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Science ◽  
Democratic Stability

Few political scientists can claim to have made significant substantive as well as methodological contributions as has Harry Eckstein. His theory of political stability has won a lasting place in the systematic literature on the properties and conditions of democratic stability. His case study typology is one of the most original and significant contributions to the methodology of political science and is an impressive contribution to the metamethodology of political science of this or any generation. His theory of social science as cultural science is an impressive contribution to the metamethodology of the social sciences.

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