flyers29

This might come off as selfish on your part....but I think the best option would honestly be to have her put off the FSO thing till you finish your Ph.D. I do realize that the application process is difficult etc, but otherwise you're probably not going to see each other much over that ~5 years till you're done. Even during dissertation writing, you're not going to want to go live somewhere unstable (both for technological reasons and the fact that you're not covered if something bad goes down as you're not married). Just something to consider.

I wouldn't say it's that stringent. However, you do have to pass a language exam that will make you come to hate DU's language department if you're taking it in Arabic or an Asian language.

Exactly.

I think it depends on what you want to do after the degree. If you want to enter the policy world and potentially dabble in academia, then I think you should be good to go. If you want to be a full-time professor, however, it's pretty difficult to crack with a public policy PhD. Not only are there not a lot of public policy schools out there (relatively speaking), but you're correct in that a lot of professors in those schools come from a poli sci or econ background.

I never said anything about dumbing down. The original post copies an email from APSA that wants to craft a response to Sen. Coburn. The discussion here about the "science" aspect is certainly legitimate in its own right, but isn't really the best approach to responding to this amendment imho. I don't really think that arguing the "science" aspect is a winning argument to a policymaker given constraints of time (even if those of us with a background in the subject see the scientific aspect). Therefore, my whole point is that those trying to kill the NSF funding do so utilizing real-world examples, as such they need to be met with a counter-argument using that line of thought. It's kind of hard to try and impose the "science" argument when a policy maker doesn't have the background to see it through that lens.

No wonder political science is on the chopping block, this senator puts forth an utterly ridiculous argument ("Who needs political science when you have John King and his cool touch-screen electoral maps on CNN?") and you all respond by getting into philosophical arguments on how much of a "science" political science is. You need to speak the language of the policymaker to be effective, and this isn't it.

Hi all, I'm currently getting a master's in international relations focusing on Europe/Russia and military analysis. However, I developed an interest in political geography after taking a course in it during my last semester of undergrad and am interested in going onto a PhD in geography. Research interests are critical geopolitics and the geography of conflict, particularly in the Balkans and former USSR (I noticed that this matches up almost perfectly with O'Loughlin at CU-Boulder, though the rest of the political geographers at that department seem to be China-focused). Also interested in the field of military geography, though I know that this is a pretty small subfield. Here are my basic stats: BA, international affairs, 3.3 GPA MA, international studies, 3.7 (finishing this spring) GRE: 590V/630Q/6.0A (I imagine this is a bit low and I'd have to re-take to be admitted to the PhD level) I noticed that George Mason offers grad courses in these fields, though can't tell if that translates over to faculty research (i.e. looks like those might be taught by adjuncts). Any insight on that as well? Thanks.

I appreciate the input. Like I said, I do realize that this is political SCIENCE and hence quantitative methods do play a role, I just got a bad taste in my mouth from aforementioned department that seemed to rely on it solely. I'm more in favor of a balanced approach between different methodologies. Would appreciate if anyone had anything else to add.

So I'm currently considering getting a PhD down the road (IR/security, area focus on Russia and Europe), but my biggest concern is how quantitative methods are employed and made to be necessary in research. In a nutshell, my undergrad poli sci department was very heavy on quantitative methodology in their research to the point that I found it to be erroneous at times (as in not connecting all these crazy statistical measurements to why they're important). I do believe that quantitative methods have their place and value, it's just not something I would employ unless I find it valuable to what I'm arguing. Not trying to get into a philosophical debate here, but would it be frowned upon if I approached a problem from a more cultural/historical perspective?

I can't speak to why it's a seemingly popular subject, but how much have you read in the field, exactly? Firstly, the classic "where are your troops and may I count them" question you posed can be answered in a few minutes with Google. The number of airplanes/tanks/ships we have and specific characteristics about them isn't some state secret, and the government puts out plenty of its own academic research (via war colleges, officials working in and out of think tanks, etc) to provide this information to academia. So to answer your question, such data is readily available to those who seek it. Even so, you're only describing a small part of the field. It's not like security scholars sit around a table "Dr. Strangelove"-style and fantasize about how to start another war; in fact, there's a lot of dry theory involved in how states act within the international system to meet their own national interests, or even a lot of crossover with how economics, cultural aspects, etc affect the security realm. Much like other fields of IR, you can really fit security into almost anything.

They have the MS in poli sci, though you can tailor it toward security studies.