History vs. Political Science

[aspiringhistorian]

I'm a History major and a rising senior at a liberal arts college outside Philadelphia. My speciality in History is in Nationalism (mostly in Europe, but I'm flexible) which tends to be an interdisciplinary subject and a lot of the faculty in that field are rooted originally in Political Science. Given my heavy background in History, would I have a shot of getting into a Political Science Ph.D. program or would it ultimately work against me?

[Learn619]

I think the answer to that question is largely reliant on which field of Political Science you wish to study.

An undergrad course history that shows a fundamental knowledge of quantitative capabalities will put you in good standing for many Poly-Sci programs.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Learn619

[wtncffts]

Well, we'd have to know a lot more about your profile to say anything about your chances of acceptance. I'd say, in general, that History is great background for doing political science, though, as the answer above said, you will have to show some familiarity or exposure to quantitative methods or abilities. Getting a good score on the GRE quantitative would help in that regard. To expand on the above, If I can: studying 'nationalism' can mean, I think, at least a couple things. If you're more interested in empirically analyzing nationalisms in different states, that would usually fall under comparative. If it's more the conceptual, philosophical aspects (What is nationalism? What kinds of nationalism are there? etc.), you'd be doing political theory. If you can couch your research interests in terms of the latter, it will probably lower the bar in terms of quantitative requirements, since that's not a big part of theory.

By the way, what's a 'rising senior'? I've never heard the term before.

[aspiringhistorian]

Well, we'd have to know a lot more about your profile to say anything about your chances of acceptance. I'd say, in general, that History is great background for doing political science, though, as the answer above said, you will have to show some familiarity or exposure to quantitative methods or abilities. Getting a good score on the GRE quantitative would help in that regard. To expand on the above, If I can: studying 'nationalism' can mean, I think, at least a couple things. If you're more interested in empirically analyzing nationalisms in different states, that would usually fall under comparative. If it's more the conceptual, philosophical aspects (What is nationalism? What kinds of nationalism are there? etc.), you'd be doing political theory. If you can couch your research interests in terms of the latter, it will probably lower the bar in terms of quantitative requirements, since that's not a big part of theory.

By the way, what's a 'rising senior'? I've never heard the term before.

'Rising senior' means that I am becoming a senior this coming academic year. (It's a term, I think, that's often used during the summer as a clarification for those who might be confused about whether or not I just finished my senior year or am going into my senior year.)

Profile-wise, I have about a 3.7 as both a cumulative GPA and a major GPA from well-respected liberal arts colleges (I have a minor at one school and a major at another, but I'll get my diploma from one that covers both). I am fluent in both French and Italian and have done ten years of Latin and four years of Ancient Greek. I'm also taking German in the fall because I've always been a Europeanist in terms of interests and I would have to do it in graduate school anyways. I'm taking the GRE in a month so I'm waiting on that score. I studied abroad at the University College London where I got top marks in my classes (two in History, one in Political Thought) and also did independent research with a professor in both the History department and the Political Science department (he was more a political theorist) and now I have a grant for the summer for further research that I expect might contribute in spirit to my senior thesis.

If I were to go into Political Science, it would certainly be more on the theoretical side and, throughout my experience with my speciality, I've never encountered quantitative elements... although I'm sure that would be expected of me in order to get the degree. I'm not concerned about that as much as I'm concerned about interdisciplinary nature of my interest and how that could affect my chances in either department.

[Zahar Berkut]

As someone with similar regional and thematic interests, here are my two cents.

Studying nationalism as a political scientist will likely require you to couch your studies in empirical models (not necessarily quantitative, but it doesn't hurt). Political science, even when more historically oriented, couches everything in theory and hypotheses derived from theory. There tend to be incentives to study contemporary topics, and refer to history only for background information (which some political scientists tend to do way too little of). History will offer you much more freedom, and if you're interested in the history of ideas, you'll probably have better job prospects as an historian than as a political theorist (though not necessarily more than a comparativist or IR scholar).

Marc Trachtenberg wrote a good book called The Craft of International History. You might find it useful for comparing how political scientists and historians might deal with similar topics (there's a great discussion on the philosophy of history too). Trachtenberg is one of the few people who has held positions in both history and polisci departments, so I trust his experience.