Political Science in Parliamentary Debates

Abstract

The digitalization of parliamentary debates in a long-term perspective under recent years has opened up unforeseen possibilities for political science. In opposition to the fashionable “digital humanities” and “big data” studies we insist on the new chances by using simple search options in conceptual and rhetorical analysis of parliamentary debates. In this panel we shall discuss the very presence of political science itself in parliament. “Political science” is not always regarded as an academic discipline but as a wider current of scholarship. Also the discipline have been a variety of names – say: Politikwissenschaft, Politische Wissenschaft und Politologie in German. Or, as in Scandinavia the official chair names are still hiding the politics-term, by replacing it for instance with a state-referring title. So, the search presupposes knowledge of the history of the discipline and the variety in its academic politics of naming. The very status of political science has been contested. In some newly independent countries (including Finland) special hopes were directed at founding the discipline, whereas at other occasions the entire discipline fell in disrepute as being no proper science but a host of radicalism or revolution. Struggles on the legitimacy and funding of the discipline were to some degree also conducted in parliaments. References to political science discussions and results as to the names of individual scholars, whether contemporaries or classics of the field, can also be found in parliamentary debates. There it is interesting to know, which are the debates, how is the scholarship mentioned and interpreted or misinterpreted in them. Who are the “political scientists” who are most frequently quoted in a parliament and how does their parliamentary reputation persist or change? In early days of parliament political science professors could be found among the members. Today this is rare, but it would be important how they are using their academic competence and profile as MPs and how they do understand themselves as politicians?

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