Ranking Political Science Programs: A View from the Lower Half

Abstract

In an age of diminished resources for higher education, the ranking of programs takes on special significance, particularly for programs that rate poorly in the eyes of their peers. Before cost-conscious administrators use the apparent precision of the National Research Council's 1995 ratings to justify rewarding highly rated programs, and penalizing those that fared less well, an analysis of the factors that contribute to ratings success—particularly department size—draws attention to the importance of factors that lie outside the range of departmental control.Our motivation is only partly ‘academic’. As members of a faculty that rated poorly in this exercise (UB political science ranked 72nd out of the 98 programs surveyed on faculty quality and tied for 48th on “effectiveness”), we have a special interest in reminding our colleagues, and especially our administrators, that our less-than-stellar performance reflects a variety of considerations, only some of which are our “fault.”Rating academic departments as the NRC has done by relying on peer perceptions (nearly 8,000 graduate-faculty members participated in the ratings survey) involves tapping into a complex set of social processes that are not easily measured. However, we contend that the outcome of this process can be modeled successfully and parsimoniously with a six-variable model of the “determinants of ratings success.” We estimate the parameters of this six-variable model in this article, and show that the most statistically robust and important predictor of ratings success—department size—reflects a characteristic of departments that is beyond their control, and has no direct bearing on the quality of the members of the departments concerned, while a second important indicator—the proportion of full professors—is at least in part similarly beyond departmental control. Our confidence that this model taps central features in the ratings game is enhanced by the consistency of its performance in explaining the ratings of other social science departments.

Department Rankings: An Alternative Approach

“…As the analysis pieces in the June 1996 PS demonstrate, while reputational rankings have some relationship to the quality of scholarly output, they are dominated by the size of faculty, the number of Ph.D.'s produced and the reputation of the university (Jackman and Siverson 1996; Katz and Eagles 1996;Lowry and Silver 1996). Even the NRC report itself acknowledges that "reputational measures provide only one tool for reviewing the relative standing of doctoral programs in a field" (NRC 1995, 23).…”

Graduate Training, Current Affiliation and Publishing Books in Political Science

“…In response to these opinionbased rankings, a number of researchers have developed what they claim to be more objective measures of department quality based on the research productivity of the faculty (Ballard and Mitchell 1998;Miller, Tien, and Peebler 1996;Robey 1979). While department rankings using these two methods are often similar, there are always noteworthy differences and these have generated an additional literature that explores the relationship between the rating systems (Garand and Graddy 1999;Jackman and Siverson 1996;Katz and Eagles 1996;Miller, Tien, and Peebler 1996).…”

Profile of Contributors to the American Political Science Review, 2010

“…2; 2013 61 departments at the top 10 schools maintain their high status over the seven periods, but we do see a dip for Columbia's. Current gains by the departments at Cal Tech, MIT, Rochester, Washington University-St Louis, UC San Diego, and Duke are also worth noting since, especially in the last several decades, each has produced a number of scholars who make it to the top of the profession, and thus each would rise drastically in rankings based on production of recent Ph.D.s who have gone on to distinction" (p. 533).The study of Katz and Eagles (1996) Of the 68 males with 69 (86.25% of total) positions, 7 (10.1% of male positions, and 8.75% of total) are employed by Yale University; 3 (4.3% of male positions, and 3.75% of total) each by Harvard University, the University of Illinois-Champaign, MIT, University of California-San Diego, and the University of Chicago; 2 (2.9% of male positions, and 2.5% of total) each by 9 different institutions; and 1 (1.45% of male positions, and 1.25% of total) each by 28 different institutions. Of the 11 females with 11 (13.8% of total) positions, 2 (18.5% of females, and 2.5% of total) were employed by Yale University; and 1 (9.1% of females, and 1.25% of total) each employed by 9 different institutions (Table 4).…”

“…283-284;Erne, 2007;Garand & Graddy, 1999;Hesli et al, 2012;Hix, 2004;Ishiyama et al, 2010; Kaba, 2012a, pp. 28-29;Katz & Eagles, 1996;Lowry & Silver, 1996;Lopez, 2003;Mann, 1998; Masuoka et al, 2007ab;McCormick & Rice, 2001; "Political Science Ranked in 2009," 2013Schmidt & Chingos, 2007).In a study of the most highly cited 400 published political scientists from the 1950s to the 1980s, Masuoka et al (2007a) point out that:"…we see that the departments at Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Michigan, Berkeley, Princeton, and Columbia continue to be among the top producers overall of the most highly cited political scientists, and that those at Stanford and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill have moved up in ranking. Comparing across the seven decades sees more evidence of change.…”