Editor’s note: Jakob Hollenbeck was previously an opinion columnist at the Daily Emerald.
Editor’s note: This piece reflects the views of the authors and not those of Emerald Media Group. It has been edited by the Emerald for grammar and style. Send your columns or submissions about our content or campus issues to [email protected].
As we transitioned back to in-person classes last term, many students celebrated the end of virtual learning. Journalism students could conduct in-person interviews, language students could practice speaking in class and chemistry students no longer had to get creative with at-home labs. As political science students, however, we were just as isolated from politics as we were on Zoom.
Remote or in-person, political science classes ask us to theorize about democracy. They don’t ask us to participate in it.
Tufts University Professor Eitan Hersh calls this phenomenon political hobbyism: the consumption of political information to satisfy emotional needs. Rather than engaging in political activism, many Americans treat politics like a football game: They check scores on Twitter, cheer when they win and give up when they lose. These hobbyists gleefully engage in online debates and pride themselves on being informed. They obsess over national news from afar but fail to exercise power in their own communities.
We will earn our political science degrees doing the same. Our Introduction to Political Science syllabus read like a hobbyist manifesto; it emphasized “respectful debate” and “comparing political phenomena,” but made no mention of community organizing or engaging with local officials. This is the norm for the major. Classes rarely teach us how to engage with politics ourselves.
Frustratingly, the department also confines political science to the classroom. It offers a mere two credits for internships, which do not fulfill a graduation requirement. One of the authors of this letter was recently offered an internship at a law firm that litigates civil rights suits on behalf of marginalized Oregonians. Due to the high workload, that author asked if he could receive four internship credits.
“The credits we give are not for the internship per se but for the PS-specific work involved: that is, the weekly journal entries and the final paper. There are no exceptions,” the department responded. “Hope this helps.”
The message epitomizes the department’s shortcomings. To the department, political science is weekly journaling. It is writing a paper for a professor to read. It is study without practice. The idea that serving marginalized communities does not constitute “PS-specific work” speaks to the department’s fixation with hobbyism.
At the end of the day, this approach means that fewer students will engage with politics. More students will leave the university with only a vague idea of how to apply their degree. How can a political scientist effect real change without being able to knock on doors, speak to members of their community and support grassroots movements?
To be sure, analyzing political phenomena is important. Studying political science has improved our writing, thinking and knowledge of the American political system. The department itself, though, claims to do more. Under “Why major or minor in political science?” on the department website, it maintains that it teaches“how collective decisions are made — and how you can have a role in them.” After four years, it is still unclear how the department has helped us find that role.
By severing academia from action, the department pacifies some of the university’s most politically active students. We live in the city with the highest per-capita unhoused population in the U.S., yet our professors insist we read Locke’s social contract theory for the third time rather than combat Eugene’s housing crisis. When professors present problems without connecting us to solutions, cynicism replaces hope. Twitter quips replace mutual aid. Aloof academics replace community organizers.
The UO Political Science Department has the opportunity to lead a nationwide movement in changing its curricula. 2018 college admissions datashow that graduating high school seniors are increasingly invested in political activism.Birthplace of CAHOOTS and cradle of the Earth First!, Eugene has a rich history of community-based research and activism. The university is in a unique position to connect students to their neighbors. It must make community involvement a graduation requirement. It must offer credit for internships that engage with local politics. It must get students out of the classroom, into the streets and ready to fight for the causes they care about.
Under the hobbyist model of education, the platitude “knowledge is power” unravels. Knowledge without action is powerless. Abstract study will not feed the hungry nor protect the undocumented. Study is valuable, but it is meaningless without the relationships that sustain American political life.
