The relevance and impact of political scientists' professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should... Show moreThe relevance and impact of political scientists' professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society's grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the extent and type of policy advising activities political scientists engage in. This paper addresses this gap by adopting a classification that distinguishes four ideal types of policy advisors representing differing degrees of engagement. We test this classification by calculating a multi-level latent class model to estimate key factors explaining the prevalence of each type based on an original dataset obtained from a survey of political scientists across 39 European countries. Our results challenge the wisdom that political scientists are sitting in an "ivory tower": the vast majority (80%) of political scientists in Europe are active policy advisers, with most of them providing not only expert guidance but also normative assessments. Show less
The adoption of active learning pedagogy and, later, the institution of the employability agenda in Higher Education have resulted in a severe loss of agency for academics and students in the... Show moreThe adoption of active learning pedagogy and, later, the institution of the employability agenda in Higher Education have resulted in a severe loss of agency for academics and students in the Social Sciences. In this article, we reflect on our experiences of applying active learning methods. We argue that we have been part of a change that has occasioned a loss of key skills development, especially those associated with traditional learning and academic thinking. An overly headlong rush to implement the "new" over the "old" saw the discarding of certain skills central to the active learning agenda. Further, the emphasis on student satisfaction, professionalisation and quality assurance pushed the academic to the sidelines, to the detriment of Higher Education. We, therefore, first critique the skills debate and identify shortcomings in the active learning application that emerged from that debate. We focus on the skills emphasised in practice, how they are portrayed in opposition (instead of complementarity) to academic skills, and how they undermine the agency academics and students really require. Next, we propose a reconsideration of necessary but undervalued skills like reading, listening and note-taking. Show less
Oppermann, K.; Brummer, K.; Willigen, N.J.G. van 2016
This article explores processes of coalition governance in foreign policy. Specifically, it argues that such processes are shaped by two interrelated dimensions of coalition set-up: first, the... Show moreThis article explores processes of coalition governance in foreign policy. Specifically, it argues that such processes are shaped by two interrelated dimensions of coalition set-up: first, the allocation of the foreign ministry to the senior or a junior coalition partner and, second, the degree of policy discretion which is delegated to that ministry. Bringing these two dimensions together, the article distinguishes four types of coalition arrangement for the making of foreign policy, which are expected to have predictable implications for the process of foreign policy-making and, ultimately, for the foreign policy outputs of multi-party coalitions and their quality. Show less
