from Chronicle of Higher Ed: "Senate Moves to Limit NSF Spending on Political Science"

[zazen]

from http://chronicle.com/article/Senate-Moves-to-Limit-NSF/138027/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

March 21, 2013
Senate Moves to Limit NSF Spending on Political Science
By Paul Basken

Congress took a giant step on Wednesday toward easing the threat of another budget stalemate, but the price of securing that compromise will continue to be felt at research universities and especially at those involved in political science. The Senate, by a vote of 73 to 26, approved a measure to finance the government through the end of the fiscal year, on September 30. The bill is expected to win approval in the House of Representatives.

....And the Senate included an amendment that broadly restricts the ability of the NSF to approve any grants involving political science unless the agency can certify them "as promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States."

The amendment was proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma who has sharply criticized the foundation's spending priorities. Mr. Coburn sent a letter last week to the NSF's director, Subra Suresh, listing a series of agency-financed projects he considered a waste of taxpayer money. His list included several involving political science, including studies of voter attitudes toward the Senate filibuster and of the cooperation between the president and Congress.

The Senate vote drew condemnation from Michael Brintnall, executive director of the American Political Science Association, who called it a dangerous act of political interference in science. "Basically, it's shutting down a whole mode of independent federally funded research on the behavior of the government," Mr. Brintnall said.

[liberal_at_heart]

1. piece by piece, brick by brick

I'm sure republicans would love if Americans didn't have access to learning how our government works, and democrats are going along with it.

[Recursion]

2. You know, if you have to use the word "science" in the name of your discipline...

... that's probably a sign that it isn't. Sorry, just some STEM-grad griping there.

[zazen]

3. Yeah, I've seen some lightweight stuff in that field,

and some rigorous stuff too. But I still don't like Senators directly targeting programs they think will have findings that challenge their ideology.

There are far more esoteric humanities-related topics at NSF than anything in the Poli Sci programs, under the rubric of science & tech studies (and God bless 'em--I find it interesting.) If Coburn wanted to find really "silly" topics he could hop on over to some philosophy and ethics of science projects.

He's just going after this because he wants to hit poli sci departments at universities, who are overwhelmingly liberal.

Economic "science" studies (on STEM) get funding from NSF, but since they typically hold the neoliberal pro-market line, they're left alone.

[HereSince1628]

4. Corburn and others are STILL PISSED about this study that exposed pysch roots of conservatism

http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf

Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
John T. Jost
Stanford University
Jack Glaser
University of California, Berkeley
Arie W. Kruglanski
University of Maryland at College Park
Frank J. Sulloway
University of California, Berkeley


Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (au-
thoritarianism, dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure,
regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justifi-
cation). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological
variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r .50); system instability (.47);
dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (–.32); uncertainty tolerance (–.27);
needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (–.20); fear of threat and loss (.18);
and self-esteem (–.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification
of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty
and threat.

[ProSense]

5. Coburn 1, political scientists 0

Coburn 1, political scientists 0

By Steve Benen

When we talk about Republicans having an anti-science agenda, we're not just talking about biology, climate science, human sexuality, cosmology, physics, chemistry, and the environment. As GOP policymakers reminded yesterday, they're against political science, too.

A measure limiting National Science Foundation funding for political science research projects passed the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, quietly dealing a blow to the government agency.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) submitted a series of amendments to the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, the Senate bill to keep the government running past March 27. One of those amendments would prohibit the NSF from funding political science research unless a project is certified as "promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States."

Coburn has been on this kick for several years, but he's never had this level of success until now.

It's never been altogether clear why the far-right senator has this hang up over political science -- we're talking about $13 million in grants, which is less than a rounding error when it comes to federal spending -- but it's even less clear why Coburn's colleagues went along with this nonsense. It's not like the move even saves money, per se, since this is more about restricting the kind of research that's eligible, not cutting the grants themselves.

<...>

I suspect most folks won't give this a lot of thought, but this new NSF provision puts at risk, among other things, the American National Election Study, which is the nation's longest-running report on American public opinion and voting behavior.

But for Coburn and his colleagues, apparently that doesn't matter. Research on voting, elections, democracy, and political institutions is now inexplicably unworthy on federal grants, regardless of its value.

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/21/17403348-coburn-1-political-scientists-0

Clearly, this $13 million is cutting into the $83 billion in subsidies for big banks and the tens of billions for oil companies. Can't have that!