What is a Political Scientist? Existing Trends and Possible Perspectives

Abstract

The aim of this paper is not only ontological, but also purely pragmatic. While we are preparing for the transition to new educational standards for the group of specialties and areas of training named “Political Science and Regional Studies”, this paper is addressed at Russian professionals who have been teaching in this field for many years and invites them to evaluate the current stage and to predict the future of the institutionalization of Political science in Russian higher education. To identify the international and the nation-specific, the paper uses a comparative analysis of twelve Russian and twelve Western universities, the curricula of leading Western and Russian universities where Political science are taught, as well as employs synthesis methods and analogies, by means of which we propose the components of the educational model which are more consonant with modern requirements for professional political scientists. The conclusions made in this study relate primarily to the fact that the Political science in the Russian context of higher education is unjustifiably positioned among the disciplines of the humanities cycle, which attracts applicants unwilling to study mathematics and sciences, or to receive a wide range of social science knowledge. Russian programmes are also devoid of numerous components that could make the graduates of Political science departments more attractive in the labour market. Finally, it is concluded that the curricula should include subjects that help to form competencies corresponding to a whole range of new requirements that the information society makes to the level and content of knowledge of a modern political scientist, including Big Data, a deep understanding of the interrelationship of the Internet and the political sphere, as well as other social spheres.