The Specter That Haunts Political Science: The Neglect and Misreading of Marx in International Relations and Comparative Politics

Making Interpretivism Visible: Reflections after a Decade of the Methods Café

“…Furthermore, of course the discipline has yet to achieve methodological pluralism, and various pernicious forms of intellectual gatekeeping remain. A similar marginalization also occurs vis-à-vis non-"mainstream" theoretical traditions (Sclofsky and Funk 2018). Yet, this exchange nevertheless highlights the ways in which the Methods Cafés seek to create intellectual space within political science for non-positivist ways of thinking.…”

What is critical political science?

“…Moreover, despite the profession's concerted efforts over the last decade to demonstrate its "relevance" to solving social and political problems, and to being more methodologically and demographically diverse, those efforts merely advertise its long-standing ties to corporate capitalism and the state (APSA 2014;Lupia and Aldrich 2015). Indeed, in contemplating the question of political science in the twenty-first century, a recent APSA taskforce report (2011,13,4) acknowledges that political scientists still treat race, ethnicity, and gender "as marginal aspects of the political system," while textbooks are not "representative of issues related to ethnic, racial, gender, class, and other dimensions of diversity and inclusion" (e.g., Sclofsky and Funk 2018;Funk and Sclofsky 2021). The report (2011,1) observes that this is perhaps not surprising insofar as the political science profession, as represented in most university departments "does not currently include scholars with backgrounds from the full range of positionalities including race, class, gender, and sexual orientation that are often the most marginalized in societies.…”

The Liberal Ideology: On Intellectual Pluralism and the Marginalization of Marxism in US Political Science

“…According to our recent analysis of graduate syllabi for introductory seminars in international relations (IR) and comparative politics (CP) at the top-10 political science programs in the United States (as determined by US News & World Report rankings), Marx and Marxism are highly endangered species (Sclofsky and Funk 2018). 2 Only one of the 22 analyzed syllabi featured Marx as "required" reading; only one other syllabus "recommended" one of Marx's texts.…”