Theory Survey or Survey Theory

Moore's survey of political theorists in U.S. American colleges and universities is an impressive contribution to political science (Moore 2010). It is the first such survey of political theory as a subfield, the response rate is very high, and the answers to the survey questions provide new information about how political theorists look when compared to political scientists overall. We are roughly the same age, for example, and are slightly more likely to be female. The survey also gives us a picture of political theorists' conditions of employment: about half of us get jobs in the first year upon receiving our Ph.D.s; most of us teach at schools that range from 1,000 to 10,000 students; most of us are not at Ph.D.-granting institutions. Moore's report on the survey findings also says much more than this. He writes that he hopes "the results of the survey will be the catalyst for a discussion among political theorists within the discipline more broadly about the role of theory in political science, as well as about whether we are training graduate students appropriately for the jobs that await them." He adds, "Knowing the actual state of political theory in the discipline is the first step in deciding whether we are happy with the status quo and, if not, how we might go about changing it" (Moore 2010, 270). I wonder: do we really know the actual state of things? Does thisor any other surveyprovide knowledge of the actual state of things? Surveys provide answers to questions, but are the questions the right ones for providing knowledge of the state of things, particularly if that state is characterized by disagreement, antagonism, and conflict at multiple levels? What sort of knowledge is at work here? What sort of things are presupposed or imagined? Moore suggests a knowledge that might be connected to change, implying a useful kind of knowledge, an instrumental or practical knowledge that can be put to use. But then we wouldand shouldbegin to wonder about whose uses and to what ends. We begin to wonder, in other words, about what these questions do, what paths this information opens up, what it enables, sets to work, generates, or blocks. I am concerned, then, about the uses of these statistics, these findings, about what knowing them might set in motion. I will call this the "reflexive concern." It informs the three areas I want to discuss further. Most bluntly put, the "reflexive concern" highlights the potential repercussions and effects opened up by making political theorists' discussions with each other, the sorts of things we might say early in the morning over coffee or late at night over wine, part of the official knowledge of political science as a discipline. Those who find "reflexive concern" jargonistic might prefer the designation "paranoid concern." That is fine with me. First, one of the lines of inquiry in the survey concerns political theorists' sense of ourselves in the discipline. Questions in this area ask about theorists' perceptions of whether our papers are published and our panels accepted. An interesting finding here is the high degree of uncertainty among political theorists as to whether our work is given a fair chance or whether we are respected by political scientists generally. Mo t resp nd d that they were not sure or did not know. Accompany ng this finding are numbers that suggest that political theorists at the same time feel that our work is underrepresented in the field. Well over half (close to 60%) think that what we do is not properly reflected in the discipline. The ques ions them elves should make us wonder: what is the discipline anyway and what does it mean for it to reflect our work? Moreover, what perspective do we take when we think from that of the discipline? What perspective does the survey implicitly ask us to take? I want to mention a contrast here with political theorists' sense that our work is under-represented: the draft1 20082009 annual report of the co-editors of the American Political Science Review describes normative theory as somewhat overrepresented in the journal (24% of published articles were catgorized as normative political theory; 26% of the articles were in comparat ve politics and 21% were in American politics). This difference in perception is interesting and warrants further study. One possible location of the difference could involve differing ways of counting what theory is or of thinking about what theorists do and what "the rest of the discipline does." T re are two points here. First, is there really a "rest of the discipline" or is there a plurality, big tent, multiplicit of approaches, interests, and concerns under the heading of "p li ical science"? If the survey implies "rest of the di cipline," is it reinforcing a methodological view that one might expect political theorists actually to reject? In other w rds, if political theory raises questions about the political, its founda ion , the ways it changes, and the struggles through which such changes occur, then the phrase "rest of the discipline" installs a sort of boundary and rigidity already at odds with the w rk of political theory. Second, what about the differen e among theorists? Moore usefully distinguishes b tween theorists at heart and theorists by necessity. I would lik to kn w how the survey questions "co-vary" with these categories. The survey notes that fewer than 50% of the political theorists who are members of the APSA are members of the Foundations of Political Theory organized section. It would be nice to know why and whether membership correlates (c -varies) with being a theorist at heart. I also w nder whether some of the theorists at heart identify themselves more with Division 1 (History of Political Thought) or Division 3 (Normative Political Theory) and associate the organized Foundations section exclusively with Division 2 (Foundations of Political Theory). Are political theorists who identify themselv s as b longing to these organized groups more or