Abstract
The article presents an overview of the presence of political science in Italian universities. After a brief historical introduction, detailed figures are given regarding the number and distribution of political scientists in Italy's universities, and the courses currently offered in the field of political science are described and discussed. In the second part of the paper, the authors give their views on the current state of Italian political science, which they consider to be not dissimilar to that of other countries, and they subsequently invite the reader to reflect on the need for an increase in its social status.
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Notes
An initial draft of this paper was presented at the Special Meeting of the Italian Political Science Association on ‘The teaching of political science in Italy’, Bologna, 8 May 2004. We are deeply grateful to Luca Verzichelli who worked with us in collecting the data.
See Capano (1998) or, in English, Capano (1999, 2003).
In 1999 about thirty-five per cent of students were enrolled as fuori-corso, meaning that they had not completed their studies in the scheduled period. According to OECD figures, sixty-one per cent of Italian students abandoned university without getting a degree in 1999, while this only happened to forty-five per cent of French, twenty-eight per cent of German and nineteen per cent of British students. See Capano (2000).
For a detailed presentation of the curriculum reform and implementation, see Capano (2002).
This table and the following ones refer only to first-level degrees. Advanced-level degree courses have just started in many universities and are expected to start next year in others. Data about them are still too fragmented to be presented here in any detail.
Florence has been for many years the ‘capital’ of Italian political science: under the guidance of Giovanni Sartori, most of today’s leading professors of political science were educated there. Florence was also the site of the first PhD programme in political science, set up in 1983.
It should be pointed out, however, that there is only one political scientist in the University of Eastern Piedmont. This means that almost all the courses in political science are taught by colleagues from other academic fields (sociology, economics, history of political thought).
This may seem strange, but it is in fact the current situation. If a faculty wishes to teach some courses in political science (or in any other subject), but there are no political scientists with tenure, then there are two possible solutions: either the course is taught by a member of the faculty from another subject area, or temporary teachers are employed (who may not necessarily have a background in political science). Why is a political scientist not employed? The answer is very simple: because resources are scarce, and investing them in political science would mean taking power away from the leading subject within the faculty. This is an empirical example of the deep constraint upon political science.
Cleary (1993) shows that the percentage of political science graduates employed by the American public administration is very low. Likewise, those in the US holding a bachelor's or master's degrees in political science may find jobs in universities, research institutes or within public administration, whereas only very few decide to seek jobs in non-profit organisations or in the private sector (US Department of Labor, 2004).
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Capano, G., Tronconi, F. political science in italian universities: peaceful survival?. Eur Polit Sci 4, 151–163 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210019
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210019