Relevance: The Standard Lines of Defence

Description

Relevance is a sensitive topic for political science. Politics, as a subject, includes a great deal of knowledge, so it is relevant in the discussion of relevance. In order to further develop these ideas, it can be helpful to recognize that relevance is not fixed. It varies based on the moment, circumstance, and even the observer's point of view. Something that may appear to be irrelevant may become critical following a political situation or turn of circumstances. Consider your colleagues working away on some obscure section of a constitution or a country that isn't often the focus of attention, and then something happens that makes that effort suddenly relevant. It's difficult to understand how any academic could object to the concept of relevance or dispute that they might be relevant if relevance is defined as the creation of accurate and distinct knowledge. Academics should also stand firm in their views and be more confident in their intellectual projects. They can assert that, the system is systematic. In comparison to other knowledge professions methods, the study of politics adds value. Academics who are fascinated with the practitioner world are too comparable to other knowledge providers to claim comparative advantages. Academics will have less influence in this sense since politicians and policymakers can access that kind of expertise.

Academics who concentrate on producing knowledge instead of making policy will eventually be approached by policymakers rather than the other way around. Political science produces solid knowledge that is delivered in such a way that it may be absorbed by those who take the time to do so. Indeed, according to John, academics are effective at propagating their work across networks, creating their reputations, and ensuring that difficult ideas and conclusions are accepted, and that the new world of social media makes this lateral kind of influence even simpler. The second line of defence is that there is a lot of political science that has demonstrated a willingness to interact and collaborate. That argument may be refined further by claiming that political science has exchanged its earlier, slightly more widespread contacts with policy for a stronger concentration on formality and technique, implying that the number of directly relevant work has decreased but the quality has increased. However, by the early 1960s, prescription had almost completely vanished from the review, reflecting not only changes in the profession but also the difficulties in reaching policymakers. In the case of international relations the idea of relevance was at the very heart of its foundation to grapple with issues of sustaining peace between nations-but a substantial and growing gap has been identified as charactering the relationship between theory and practice for several decades. Complex factors are at work once again, which could explain the rising specialization and separation. Although the concept of relevance has fallen down the industry's list, it has not been without significant examples. In the hands of some of its advocates, the third line of defence reads more like an attack. Political science is unjustly accused as being irrelevant by the arguments that are agreeable and cover their trails. To the claim that political science fails the relevance test, here is a very strong response. There is too much policy significance in contemporary political science, not too little. Politicians simply do not like the policies that scholarly research supports and try to hide or ignore evidence-based research that supports such policies. When these same politicians apparently claim that political science provides no policy-relevant research, what they really mean is that, it does not provide any research that supports their own biases. None of these responses directly deny the importance of attempting to acquire relevance. They claim that the importance of attempting to achieve relevance is more important. Rather, they believe that determining the relevance of evidence is challenging. What actually counts is the precision with which knowledge is created. Political scientists are increasingly employing the tools given by social media and other sources to communicate their research. The difficulties are not with them, but with powerful policymakers who find proof that matches their preferences rather than using facts to guide their decisions.