One of the more positive outcomes of the Drezner debacle has been some more serious thought about the role of blogging in the academy, exemplified by this post from Michelle Dion and this contribution from Matthew Shugart. Herewith are a few thoughts from my little corner of the academic universe.

First and foremost, I think it’s fair to say that I wouldn’t have this job if I didn’t have a blog. No blog, no Public Choice panel in New Orleans on blogging in the academy with Dan Drezner and Mike Munger, no after-panel beers with Mike (and Dan and Leslie), and no Duke job for Chris. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t have any job (in the counterfactual universe, I don’t know who would have made me offers—I just know who I had to turn down for interviews when they called me)... but I doubt it would be quite as rewarding as this one has been thus far.

Second (and following from point one), it’s fair to say I wouldn’t have the academic network I have today without the blog. Dozens of political scientists know who I am solely because of Signifying Nothing, and I hope most of them have a positive impression. If academic blogging is going to be a “virtual conference,” a big part of that has to be the informal networking that conferences are at least supposed to encourage… indeed, blogging may do a better job of fostering networking than conferences, where the temptation is to go catch up with one’s grad school cohort rather than meeting new people.

Third, I don’t think the blog has demonstrably hurt my career. I think it’s reasonably common knowledge that I wouldn’t be at Duke (or, for that matter, anywhere else) if I’d been offered the tenure-track Americanist position at Millsaps. The person they hired instead had a blog too—and I am reasonably certain that the search committee was aware of it at the time.

Fourth, I think that the message (intentional or unintentional) that the U of C has sent to denying tenure to Dan is an unhealthy one. Our discipline is—rightly—often criticized for a failure to engage the real world and real political debates. It is very tempting for an academic to avoid those debates, and to either retreat to the world of models that have no bearing on reality or the comparably disengaged world of deconstructing the arcania of political philosophy. The best academic blogs have tried to bring the real and potentially useful knowledge that we have accumulated to bear on contemporary political debates. It is one thing to sit back and opine about politics from a partisan standpoint bereft of the benefits of any particular expertise (and certainly this is a popular tactic for many academic bloggers of all partisan stripes). Dan, to his credit, has rarely—if ever—taken that approach.

Finally, on the question of the academic study of blogging (versus the merits of academics being bloggers), I think there are noteworthy parallels to the beginnings of other research programs. Decades ago, the study of particular social and ethnic groups was considered fundamentally unserious—and certainly there are plenty of observers (mostly outside the academy, but also inside the academy as well) who still see these pursuits as unserious, or at the very least as backdoor mechanisms for hiring scholars who lack intellectual rigor in the “traditional” disciplines. The fact that the people who study blogging are, themselves, bloggers is something not lost on contemporary critics of this research program, and this is likely to be a difficult reputation for people who do want to study the role of weblogs in politics and society to overcome.

Of course, my contribution to this academic study thus far (beyond doing a few favors to colleagues doing research in this area) has been confined to some off-the-cuff comments at Public Choice and my upcoming paper on my use of blogs in my American politics class for SPSA—which manages to combine blogs with another topic “real” scholars refuse to take seriously, pedagogy. Maybe I should quit while I’m still ahead.

Hopefully the final post in this series: my ex-blogger boss pops up in comments at PoliBlog, Matthew Shugart (a political scientist at UCSD and the co-author of Presidents and Assemblies, one of my absolute favorite comparative politics books) points up the positive aspects of blogging in academe, and Jim Hu has more thoughts.

The good folks at ICPSR are trying to build up the endowment for the Warren Miller Scholars Fund, which provides a small stipend and free tuition for the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods for the Social Sciences to one or two promising grad students and junior faculty every year; thus far, there have been eight recipients of Miller scholarships, including myself in 2001. There’s more info starting on page 10 in the Fall 2005 ICPSR Bulletin; you’ll find a scintillating quote from yours truly plugging the fund.

As Steven Taylor notes, the Drezner story has made it to the New York Sun; for your own amusement, try to parse this non-denial denial from the department chair:

While refusing to go into specifics about Mr. Drezner’s tenure case, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Chicago, Dali Yang, dismissed the notion that his department considered Mr. Drezner’s blog in making its decision. “I can assure you it’s not specifically about the blog,” he said.

(There is no paragraph here. You may pass.)

I now have two phone interviews scheduled for next Monday for tenure-track jobs. That, for those keeping score at home, is two more phone interviews than I got last year.

That said, I despise phone interviews with a passion.

The University of Chicago’s decision to deny tenure to Dan Drezner has predictably led to quite a bit of discussion; the highlights (as far as I’ve seen):

• Steven Taylor expresses confidence that Dan will land on his feet and considers the question, “do we blame the blog?”
• Leopold Stotch emphatically says yes. Juan Non-Volokh is not so sure. Both (who are not tenured) will remain pseudonymous for now.
• Ann Althouse points out that ”[t]ime spent on a blog is visible in a way that time spent watching movies or talking with friends or reading mystery novels or engaging in physical exercise or playing with your kids or daydreaming is not.” (þ: PoliBlog)
• Matt Stinson reminds the gallery that Dan’s denial probably had nothing to do with his politics, as the U of C has historically been relatively friendly to conservatives and libertarians.
• Tom Smith extrapolates to the wider question of the value of tenure in the modern academy, and finds the case for tenure today to be wanting.

Stotch also raises an interesting point that is worth discussing at greater length:

Drezner made another huge mistake in trying to conflate blogging and scholarship, and I can only assume that his colleagues deemed this type of work unserious—a perspective with which I largely agree. Looking at his CV, however impressive, might have led his colleagues to believe that once granted tenure, his focus might shift away from his serious work toward more articles, books, conference papers, etc. about blogging—which I assume is hardly what they were looking for when they hired him.

I don’t necessarily believe that Dan’s primary area of expertise (international political economy) is any more “serious” than studying the role of weblogs in domestic political discourse, but it is quite definitely different, and to the extent that institutions hire people to “fill holes” (rather than based on their innate abilities or general competence) I think that could be an issue. Quite clearly, Dan was not hired by the U of C to be a political communications person. On the other hand, there’s no evidence that Dan has neglected scholarship in his primary field.

And I probably need not point out that plenty of tenured faculty take advantage of the security of tenure to spend more time with their families, stagnate scholastically, dodge professional responsibilities, and/or bed undergraduate and graduate students. Somehow the idea of Dan potentially doing research on blogs post-tenure seems like a de minimis concern compared to the other possibilities.

Dan Drezner was denied tenure on Friday. I have to say in my mind (at least, with the essential caveat that I am no expert on IR) that said decision reflects rather more poorly on the University of Chicago than it does on Dan, who I am certain will land on his feet elsewhere; my impression of the U of C is unlikely to recover so quickly.

Daniel Nexon has some interesting thoughts and advice on the whole job-seeking process, all of which would be well-taken by the novice job-seeker. I would particularly reiterate his point about not “build[ing] an imaginary life for yourself,” something that is admittedly hard to avoid when trying to tailor the cover letter to the particular institution you are applying to. Bear in mind, though, that cover letters—unlike notes on Christmas cards given to family members—are not going to be shared around among the recipients, so you don’t need to make them that original.

Dan Drezner, from whom I got the link, fairly cogently summarizes the state of the job market thusly:

The academic job market, as I’ve witnessed it, is a globally rational but locally capricious system. Some people will undoubtedly slip through the cracks—but on the whole, talent is recognized and rewarded.

Mind you, that equilibrium state takes a long while to arrive for many, and it’s one punctuated by frequent instances of blind panic as you attempt to get your various files in order.

October 1 has come and gone, which means the application deadlines for about half a dozen jobs I’ve applied for have now passed, with quite a few more coming in the next month. There isn’t too much to report thus far. It’s been strongly intimated in the past week that I will have an on-campus interview at an institution in the Midwest, not too terribly far from Messrs. Noggle and Fox. We shall see if this pans out, and whether others will take a similar shining to me.

My first real publication (broadly defined) in political science is now officially “forthcoming”; while it’s only a short piece in The Political Methodologist, the biannual newsletter of the Society for Political Methodology, I figure you have to start somewhere. It’s a brief overview of Quantian, a “Live Linux” DVD that’s geared toward use by social, behavioral, and natural scientists.

My co-author and Quantian’s developer, Dirk Eddelbuettel, has the current version of the piece up at his website, for the morbidly curious. The article probably will appear in the Fall 2005 issue, whenever that emerges.

I have to say, this is pretty funny, although the logic of establishing a rivalry with a school that isn’t even in the same time zone is lost on me. Rivalries generally thrive on casual interaction; a rivalry that involves setting out on a cross-country trek doesn’t seem likely to succeed in the long run.

In other words, maybe Emory should have gone for something easier… like battling Furman.

þ: Jeff Harrell, who has more.

For those following the SPSA saga who are not on the association’s mailing list: an update has been posted, indicating that the conference will meet in January in Atlanta at the Hotel Intercontinental in Buckhead.

I now have the smiling faces of all 68 of my students (34 in each class) in my grubby little hands. At this rate, I might be able to put names with the faces by the end of the semester…

I had seven groups in class today do the following: come up with a way to test whether peoples’ blaming of the government for an inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina was affected by media coverage.

I think I had about ten answers. Which is as it should be, letting many flowers bloom and all that, and which goes to show that a seemingly simple question can be answered by social science in lots of different ways—sometimes with different answers. One strongly suspects the group that would have exposed different experimental groups to Shep and Anderson Cooper would have found a bit different results than the group that measured self-reported media attentiveness in a sample survey.

Your SPSA non-update update of the day. Quoth the SPSA website, as of this posting:

On Monday, we expect to announce the signing of a contract with the new host of our January 2006 conference.

Perhaps SPSA is using a different value of “Monday” than the rest of us. I thought it was over nearly 17 hours ago, myself…

New to “Chris’s blogroll” (distinguished from the “Active blogroll” on a basis I’m not entirely sure of, and probably a vestige of SN’s brief life as a group blog): Charles Franklin’s Political Arithmetik and the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science’s blog, both of which I first became aware of via Paul Brewer.

Can a blogospheric Perestroika movement be far behind?

Incidentally, I’ve had the distinction of having been taught by Prof. Franklin (albeit for only four days, during the Advanced Maximum Likelihood Estimation course at ICPSR in 2001), at a time when he was sporting a beard and looked like the spitting image of my father.

The meat of the latest update from the Southern Political Science Association website:

Intercontinental North America has excused us from the 2006 commitment without penalty. They have also asked their other properties in the South to try to step up and host our 2006 meeting under the same contract terms that we would have enjoyed in New Orleans. Detailed discussions are underway today (Friday, September 9th) with three beautiful Intercontinental properties. On Monday, we expect to announce the signing of a contract with the new host of our January 2006 conference. You can help in this process by honoring your commitments as we honor those that the association has made. Those of you who have attended The Southern since Savannah 2002 know that attendees will have a fabulous time and an excellent conference. You risk nothing by standing by the association while we stand by our corporate colleagues.

The candidate properties would appear to be three of the following four: Buckhead (Atlanta), Dallas, Houston, and Miami.

Given the givens (geography, air and road access, and the location of the association offices), Atlanta seems to be the most likely prospect, and perhaps the allure of Buckhead to potential attendees will be higher than that of the relatively uninteresting neighborhood surrounding the Sheraton that has been the site for several past SPSA meetings. With reports of attendees already bailing, SPSA had better have the situation resolved soon.

Paul Brewer asks Are Political Scientists Boring? Duh. Anyone who’s been to ICPSR knows that sociologists have all the fun.

I made my intro class do a group discussion exercise today; I had intended it as a debate over Beard’s “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution” thesis, but I guess my questions were general enough to become a debate over non-economic self-interest too. The kids seemed to enjoy it—for the first time, they seemed as engaged as the methods kids—and it saved me from having to lecture as much.

The class also picked up one of our 50-or-so refugees from New Orleans today, a student from Tulane. I had planned to get the class to discuss the Katrina situation next week—we’re covering federalism and state/local government, so it seemed pretty apropos—but maybe that would be a bit insensitive. Thoughts?

Following up on yesterday’s post, David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy reports:

The head of the New Orleans convention bureau told NPR today that he is canceling all conventions scheduled to be held in New Orleans through March 2006.

The CVB site claims that this cancellation only applies to large conventions or those using the convention center space, but realistically if the Crescent City won’t be in good enough condition to host a large convention in April it probably won’t in good enough condition for any convention in January.

Via PoliBlog: the Southern Political Science Association thinks it will hold its annual convention in three months in New Orleans. Steven Taylor is unconvinced:

I certainly would not want the association to make a move that would take money out of the city, if, in fact, the meetings can take palce in January. However, I really don’t see that happening. The hotel, given its location and pictures I have seen is probably largely fine. However, what about the electrical grid, the phones, the water system, the roads, the police, the general support struture for tourists (restaurants, other hotels, etc.)? I just don’t see the city being able to host any events by the first week or so of January.

Considering that all that’s likely to be close to functional in New Orleans in three months (and, more than likely, for the forseeable future; the SPSA can only be delayed so long before it becomes moot) are the higher parts of the Jefferson Parish suburbs and some of the downtown area—bear in mind the Hotel Intercontinental, while on high ground, is only a few blocks from areas that are still flooded around the Superdome—I am forced to echo Steven’s skepticism.

A conference the size of SPSA should have no trouble finding suitable convention space elsewhere in the southeast, but these decisions need to be made sooner rather than later.

I wish I were doing something more productive this morning than waiting for the cable company to show up to (a) install two more outlets in the apartment and (b) replace my digital cable box, which has this interesting habit of switching itself off at random intervals.

Meanwhile, one more for the “where art thou, Mungowitz?” file: a Duke Chronicle opinion piece that seems ripe for the Mungowitz treatment, combining a fair helping of scorn with a fair dollop of “the author has a point,” an art form I have sadly yet failed to master.

Well, I’m here, physically if not mentally. If you are too, drop me an email if you want to engage in the traditional (i.e. alcohol-soaked) conference activities.

Hot on the heels of recent discussions of academic bias, Jeff Goldstein lays the smackdown on a guy who teaches English at Northwestern who should know better. You’d almost think he wants Horowitz’s merry band of nitwits poking around campus.

Matt Stinson has a lengthy post on how conservatives and libertarians should attack bias in the academy. He starts out, however, with a point lost on many outside academe:

The notion that conservatives are inherently opposed to the scientific method seems targeted at ID proponents, but in my discipline, political science, the loudest “anti-scientific” voices come from the left. The “perestroika” movement, a group that rejects the behavioralist turn in the social sciences, is primarily the vehicle of postmodern leftists who deny the existence of objective truth and a scientifically verifiable reality. They have some conservatives on their side, mostly classicists who prefer historical analysis to number-crunching, but it is more generally an outgrowth of the rebellion against “reality” that has been a preoccupation of far left academics since the end of World War II. While the postmodernists are a grumpy minority at research schools, they utterly dominate and thus render “un-scientific” the entire discipline of liberal arts at the top colleges and universities in the United States. Would the Pitt professors similarly scorn left-wing academics for un-scientific views?

For further evidence of Matt’s point, see Jeff Goldstein. Or that Edward Said disciple Rashid Khalidi has a plenary speaking spot on the APSA program—the only plenary awarded to an organized section of the association (the Not New Political Science section).

That’s just a small snippet of Matt’s post; go forth and RTWT. And, while you’re at it, see Jim Lindgren and Stephen Bainbridge; note that a similar sort of the “file-flagging” Bainbridge refers to goes on in other academic fields as well, not just law.