(Basic) textbooks a pol sci student should have in his shelf

[Tufnel]

While I dislike Rand as much as the next guy, I'll only say this... If I received a suggested summer reading list from a potential school that included Rand, I would matriculate elsewhere. I'm all for breadth in thought and study but there are at least 200 books that I believe are far more helpful for understanding "political philosophy (American)."

Tocqueville, Dahl, and Hayek are all important reads (though I take major issue with the latter). But one can make a legitimate argument that some of Rand's philosophical works do not even warrant academic inquiry. The bar for service as a foundational piece of literature is much higher.

[bugbear]

If you want a more conservative perspective, you'd do much better with Burke, Schmitt, or Oakeshott than Rand. If defense of capitalism or libertarianism is your bag, go for Nozick or Hayek (or if you want to get real crazy, check out left-libertarianism ala Van Parijs). There's no need to ever read Rand except in American cultural studies, in order to understand how she became a phenomenon. EDIT: obviously, it could very well be relevant to political science to study objectivism from this latter perspective as well.

Edited February 18, 2011 by bugbear

[wtncffts]

Maybe I come at this from a non-theory perspective. I certainly understand that as an intellectual representation of conservatism or libertarianism, Rand doesn't stand up. But perhaps you're underestimating the quite direct influence of Rand's ideas on modern conservative/libertarian movements such as the Tea Party; if one were studying this phenomenon, I think reading Rand would be insightful even if it is poor philosophy.

Edit: I started my reply before I saw that last edit on the above post, which is pretty much my point.

Edited February 18, 2011 by wtncffts

[history?]

I'm in roughly the same boat -- I did do a one year Master's last year in Political Theory in order to make the transition more smoothly, but I still feel like I'm catching up to a lot of my cohort who majored as undergrads. I have found it very useful to search the net for department comp exam lists. I believe Yale, Princeton, and...(crap, one other...Michigan?) have theirs online. It allowed me to build my own little mini-canonincal list. There's a fair bit of overlap between them, but also differences (Yale and Princeton clearly ripped one another's lists, for instance, even down to the formatting, but they've also included their own works under each section to make them unique). If you're already in, you could ask the department you're planning on entering whether they have the comp lists from previous years.

[firefly28]

Well, let's not jump on and start a flame war. I think firefly28 was merely reiterating the point about Rand's significance, for good or for ill, in American political thought. Saying that one is giving "a bit more credit" when the baseline is "among the poorest written ever to reach a wide audience" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. The comparison to Marx, it seems to me, was only that the significant flaws in argument don't detract from the political/cultural significance of the work, not that Rand and Marx are equal as social or political theorists. Firefly can correct me if this is a misinterpretation.

Yes, that was my point. I don't care that Rand is considered to be poor philosophy--I think that the SDS had a horrible, awfully constructed political philosophy as laid out in the Port Huron Statement and elsewhere. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be studied.

Also, Rand isn't really in keeping with the tradition of American conservatism--she's been more influential in libertarian circles. American conservatives condemned her when her material first arose--check the original review in the National Review, for example. Burke is the biggest influence on what we can identify as American conservatism, and among more contemporary writers, Schumpeter and Hayek, along with Friedman are probably the most influential and significant writers.

[GopherGrad]

I second this suggestion. I never used textbooks in college or graduate school (and wasn't a polisci major either) but find these handbooks immensely helpful in quickly bringing you up to date on the debates in various subfields. They're also useful because they're addressed at a higher level of competence than your average intended-for-undergrads-or-high-schoolers textbook, and they're compilations of legitimate articles with actual footnotes for follow-up on the areas you're most interested in.

On this advice I got the Oxford general polisci book. So far it's been a great purchase.

Anyone who is entering political science through a side door (like law) can quickly learn the vocabulary and state of discipline of on a variety of questions. The citation sections provide a portal for further reading, but they also serve a decent starting primer on who studies what. Seeing the names presented in a network of subjects provides a lot more insight into scholars' substantive interests that parsing program faculty websites.

I've been happy to see that my SoP was substantively fairly insightful, but I failed utterly to convey my interest in terms that political scientists use or with reference to the studies they (rather than lawyers) find most influential on the topic. I would also change up my program wish-list quite a bit on the next round.

[GopherGrad]

Not to stoke the Rand thing, but:

I think everyone in America should be forced to read Atlas Shrugged.

I say this for the same or similar reasons I think everyone should have to work as a bartender or waitress.

[hupr]

Charles Tilly - Coercion, Capital, and European States

Jeffrey Herbst - States and Power in Africa

[firefly28]

Charles Tilly - Coercion, Capital, and European States

Jeffrey Herbst - States and Power in Africa

Herbst is good, though I'd recommend having another book for a different outlook. I don't have one off by hand but if I come across one I'll add it.

[GopherGrad]

Charles Tilly - Coercion, Capital, and European States

This is the book that inspired me to study political science.

[mellamobradley]

It depends on your subfield, and each subfield has sub-subfields that have their classics. Look up qualifying exam reading lists at different schools to get a sense of what you'll be looking at.

[by the way]

Five must-read for a political scientist:

- The Prince (Machiavelli)

- A Preface to Democratic Theory (Dahl)

- The Logic of Collective Action (Olson)

- Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx)

- Politics (Aristotle)

Of course, this list is not field-specific. These five books are, in my opinion, some of the most important ones about politics, in a general sense.

[ElanMorin]

Not to stoke the Rand thing, but:

I think everyone in America should be forced to read Atlas Shrugged.

I say this for the same or similar reasons I think everyone should have to work as a bartender or waitress.

Someone mentioned the National Review review of Atlas Shrugged. It was actually written by none other than Whitaker Chambers during his brief time writing for NR. Best quote:

Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked.

I've heard that Ayn Rand was so upset by the review that for the rest of her life, if William F. Buckley ever walked into a room she was in, she immediately left the room.

That being said, I do agree its an important book to read, if only to be able to refute its faux intellectualism to anyone who ever tells you that they're a big Ayn Rand fan. I definitely skimmed the 100 page speech towards the end of the book though.

[Oroborus]

Post 1960 works I rate "must reads" . . .

Kuhn/Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Foucault/Discipline and Punish; Lyotard/Post-Modern Condition; MacIntyre/After Virtue; Gunnell/Alienation of Political Theory.

[twenty-twelve]

On this advice I got the Oxford general polisci book. So far it's been a great purchase.

Anyone who is entering political science through a side door (like law) can quickly learn the vocabulary and state of discipline of on a variety of questions. The citation sections provide a portal for further reading, but they also serve a decent starting primer on who studies what. Seeing the names presented in a network of subjects provides a lot more insight into scholars' substantive interests that parsing program faculty websites.

I'm aware that this post is old, but the Oxford handbooks have their shortcomings. If you can get over typos and the occasional odd entry, then they'll do the job. Anyone have experience with other pol sci handbooks? There are a couple of competing ones available. Overall, reading the major works from course reading lists is the best approach.

[Charlie2010]

The original poster is coming from an econ background. In that field, everyone might agree that it's handy to have Krugman/Obstfeld on trade, Varian's undergrad micro text, and a few others, as palatable references for the basic concepts you should have down cold. There really is nothing like that in political science, because of the field's more diverse views on how to do social science and what it even is.

Also, many people will come from non-PS backgrounds, or will come from a school that teaches a very different flavor of PS than you will be learning where you go. (e.g. they read a lot of Aristotle and Hobbes and can blow you away with that stuff, but now they are going to have to start from zero with a lot of empirical methods that will be easier for you). So don't worry too much about prepping before fall unless the program you are entering offers you specific guidance.

[RWBG]

The original poster is coming from an econ background. In that field, everyone might agree that it's handy to have Krugman/Obstfeld on trade, Varian's undergrad micro text, and a few others, as palatable references for the basic concepts you should have down cold. There really is nothing like that in political science, because of the field's more diverse views on how to do social science and what it even is.

Also, many people will come from non-PS backgrounds, or will come from a school that teaches a very different flavor of PS than you will be learning where you go. (e.g. they read a lot of Aristotle and Hobbes and can blow you away with that stuff, but now they are going to have to start from zero with a lot of empirical methods that will be easier for you). So don't worry too much about prepping before fall unless the program you are entering offers you specific guidance.

This is very true. Once you pick a particular approach/subfield, this thread becomes a lot more tractable; until then, there's really no way to answer the OP's question.

[Secret Squirrel]

What are essential readings for theory? Articles are also good.

Edit: I should say that I mean what are essential readings beyond the typical Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Rawls, Nozick. What about, say, Sandel? Is Sandel essential reading?

Edited January 4, 2012 by Secret Squirrel

[balderdash]

For development people, The Anti-Politics Machine, James Ferguson, and Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing, Chris Cramer.

For Africanists, I don't think Herbst is the way to go... one would be better off with work from Clapham, Bayart, Sklar, Lonsdale, Beinart, Crawford Young, and Lemarchand. Of course there are many, many others, and each region has its own group of experts, but that would be a good start.

[Managed Democracy]

KKV

[blackcoffee64]

I'd vote "After Hegemony" by Keohane...maybe some "Retreat of State" by Susan Strange.

Don't read all of After Hegemony, maybe chapters 4 - 7 , all of Retreat of State is an entertaining argument though..

Hmm...Axelrod's stuff would be good too

[RWBG]

I'd agree with Axelrod. I kind of feel that the Evolution of Cooperation should be read by everyone, irrespective of discipline.

[blackcoffee64]

^