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The relationship between political science and the 'real world' of public policy and politics has long been a complicated one. Current calls for more relevance in political science research echo back to the discipline's early days. This essay traces the intertwined history of practice and ivory tower, with specific attention to the rise of economics as a policy-engaged social science. A mini-case study of political scientists' involvement in contemporary health policymaking provides a concrete focus. Adapted from the source document.

Political science has traditions in Finland and Sweden, but is a new academic discipline in Denmark, Iceland and Norway where it was introduced only after World War II. The differences in development, however, have not produced differences in style and outlook. Nordic political science has been and still is strongly dependent on basic influences from the US, and descriptions of problem areas and research approaches in the Nordic countries may well be carried out in terms of similarities rather than dissimilarities. Recent discussions about the state of the art have expressed concern about tendencies towards scientific disintegration, manifest in the institutionalization of political-science subfields and in the growth of so-called sector research based on short-term political priorities.

▪ Abstract  We review the use of macroeconomics in political science over the past 40 years. The field has been dominated by new classical theory, which leaves little room for economic policy and focuses attention on what democratic governments can do wrong in the short term. The resulting literatures on political business cycles and central bank independence are large and sophisticated, but they fail, we argue, to account for most of the observed variance in economic policies and outcomes. In the past decade, mainstream macroeconomics has moved away from new classical approaches toward New Keynesian theories with greater scope for macroeconomic policy. These new approaches, with little impact so far in political science, are reviewed and their implications drawn out. Instead of explaining short-sighted government behavior in an economy with little scope for economic policy, the key question for political science may be why governments often pursue longer-run objectives in an economy with considerable scope for economic policy.

We review the use of macroeconomics in political science over the past 40 years. The field has been dominated by new classical theory, which leaves little room for economic policy & focuses attention on what democratic governments can do wrong in the short term. The resulting literatures on political business cycles & central bank independence are large & sophisticated, but they fail, we argue, to account for most of the observed variance in economic policies & outcomes. In the past decade, mainstream macroeconomics has moved away from new classical approaches toward New Keynesian theories with greater scope for macroeconomic policy. These new approaches, with little impact so far in political science, are reviewed & their implications drawn out. Instead of explaining short-sighted government behavior in an economy with little scope for economic policy, the key question for political science may be why governments often pursue longer-run objectives in an economy with considerable scope for economic policy. References. Adapted from the source document.

Background. Epigenetics, which is just beginning to attract public attention and policy discussion, challenges conventional understanding of gene-environment interaction and intergenerational inheritance and perhaps much more besides.Question. Does epigenetics challenge modern political ideologies?Methods.I analyzed the narratives of obesity and epigenetics recently published in the more liberalNew York Timesand the more conservativeWall Street Journal. For the years 2010 through 2014, 50 articles on obesity and 29 articles on epigenetics were identified, and elements in their causal narratives were quantitatively analyzed using a well described narrative policy framework.Findings.The narratives on obesity aligned with the two newspapers' reputed ideologies. However, the narratives on epigenetics aligned with neither ideology but freely mixed liberal and conservative elements.Discussion.This small study may serve as a starting point for broader studies of epigenetics as it comes to affect political ideologies and, in turn, public policies. The narrative mix reported here could yet prove vulnerable to ideological capture, or, more optimistically, could portend the emergence of a "third-way" narrative using epigenetics to question atomistic individualism and allowing for less divisiveness in public-health domains such as obesity.

Includes indexes. ; First ed. published in 1910 by the Classification Division. ; "Additions and changes to April 1900": 137 p. at end. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This book demonstrates the increasing convergence of interest of some social scientists in the theories, research and findings of the life sciences in building a more interdisciplinary approach to the study of politics.