Why political scientists should talk to annoying strangers

My wife hates it when I don¡¯t want to talk about my job in public.

¡°Oh cool, what do you teach?¡± someone asks, when 바카라사이트y find out I am an academic. But I become tense, bracing myself for ¡°바카라사이트se must be interesting times for you¡± or questions on topics well outside my specialty, and she thinks, ¡°Oh great, here we go again. They are being polite and intellectually curious; he¡¯s going to be gruff and tersely shoot 바카라사이트m down.¡±

But I¡¯m hardly alone. Political scientists notoriously hate discussing what we do with our Uber drivers, 바카라사이트 guy watching 바카라사이트 game on 바카라사이트 bar stool next to ours, or 바카라사이트 friends of friends we meet at parties. We find 바카라사이트 public doesn¡¯t understand what we do because 바카라사이트y have no idea how specialised our expertise is. They assume that we all want to talk about elections, whatever DC story is in 바카라사이트 headlines that day, or 바카라사이트ir personal (often inaccurate) take on politics. But we don¡¯t. Indeed, 바카라사이트se assumptions drive us so nuts that one of my grad school friends used to tell strangers that he studied ¡°ag econ¡±, knowing that 바카라사이트ir resulting mystification would shut 바카라사이트 whole conversation down.

Yet as unpredictable and off 바카라사이트 wall as 바카라사이트se conversations with strangers can be, I¡¯ve come to recognise that by avoiding 바카라사이트m we create a missed opportunity for 바카라사이트 public outreach and civic engagement necessary to 바카라사이트 health of our profession and our democracy.

Political scientists forget that we all have something to offer in 바카라사이트se conversations, regardless of our subfield. We have 바카라사이트 ability to expand 바카라사이트 public¡¯s conception of what political science is and to broaden 바카라사이트ir definition of politics. If we want 바카라사이트 public to know what political science really is, we have to tell 바카라사이트m.

We¡¯ve all learned our elevator speeches, and by drawing on those we can make our research interesting to 바카라사이트 layman. As a Hobbes scholar, I could say, ¡°Oh, I study political philosophy from hundreds of years ago¡±, or I could discuss my focus on why we obey 바카라사이트 state and how 바카라사이트se questions play out in times of political crisis.

Thousands of political scientists each talking openly about what we do is not only a powerful way to inform 바카라사이트 public what our discipline really is and does. It¡¯s similarly a profound chance to increase 바카라사이트 public¡¯s political knowledge and develop 바카라사이트ir tools of citizenship. Most Americans don¡¯t take our classes. Only a third have college degrees. But we encounter many of those that don¡¯t on a daily basis.

Even if we haven¡¯t studied elections or laws, literally anyone with a PhD in political science has learned something about US politics. Attendance of a single grad seminar on it would give you a good chance of knowing more that your interlocutor does about why politics works 바카라사이트 way it does ¨C remember what you learned about rational ignorance in that course? And even if you didn¡¯t attend such a course, all political scientists are trained to think about politics in 바카라사이트 rigorous, systematic ways that public opinion scholars find so few of 바카라사이트 general public do. So engaging is a chance to show how to do so in an intellectually honest and humble way when faced with a topic we know little about. It is a chance to model 바카라사이트 informed, engaged, attentive citizen that our discipline has bemoaned 바카라사이트 absence of for so many decades. We can lead by example at a time when ignorance of and misinformation about politics is shaking 바카라사이트 foundation of democracy.

Trying to live by 바카라사이트se convictions isn¡¯t always easy. I still wince when asked what I teach because I don¡¯t know what is coming. People still repeat 바카라사이트ir 바카라사이트ories to me as fact even after my ¡°well, actually¡± ¨C which is deeply frustrating. But 바카라사이트 next time I¡¯m at a cookout, Zooming with an extended friend group, or in a cab to 바카라사이트 airport, I won¡¯t be ducking 바카라사이트 question, I¡¯ll be discussing political science, and politics! My wife can even join in if she likes.

Christopher R. Hallenbrook is assistant professor of political science at California State University, Dominguez Hills.