BHASO NDZENDZE | Dear matrics, if you choose to study political science, do it for right reasons

As many of our matriculants plan their futures, those bound for university studies will weigh their options. One of the options before them will be political science.

This field is mysterious to many. Anecdotal evidence from my discussions with our students and graduates tend to reveal that many of them typically didn’t previously have a precise sense of what the course involves other than that it has something to do with politics. In fact, some tend to be attracted to it because of the often-melodramatic political spectacle in SA.

As current matriculants look forward, all will do so with the hope of obtaining a qualification which will empower them to get a job and improve their personal and familial circumstances. It therefore seems apt to provide an informal overview of this degree, delving into what it offers and, just as importantly, what it does not.

Put simply, political science is a rigorous attempt to scientifically examine the workings of political power, both domestically and internationally. This covers a wide terrain and makes for numerous options, depending on one’s interests. It can entail the study of voting patterns, constitutions, electoral processes, party politics, civil and international wars and other forms of conflict, global trade, infrastructure development, race relations and increasingly the role of technology in all these dimensions of political life. I could add a hundred more areas of specialisation and even that would not be enough to capture everything.

At the heart of the discipline is the question of the distribution of limited resources across society and among nations. Or, as we often say, “political science is the study of who gets what, when, and how.” It is a fascinating sentence that, in so few words, conveys the essence of our thousands-year-old discipline.

What you get with political science, therefore, is a clearer understanding of politics beyond personalities or the latest debates. Our graduates walk away with a historically based and structural view of the country and the world and can connect dots where others are unable to. For example, a political science graduate is able to draw a connection between the domestic politics of the US and Europe with the lack of agricultural development in Africa, along with lack of decisive action by the UN against climate change, the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine conflicts.

Being able to understand beyond the big headlines, they are also able to provide reasons why a “Brics currency”, is a statistical improbability. They are also able to provide an objective analytical assessment on such matters as SA’s commercial and political ties to China, the management of our borders and the intricacies of our constitution.

Political science is therefore necessary because it provides us with models of reality, upon which current and successive generations can be able to imagine political alternatives.

Therefore, if one wishes to study political science, they have a passion for ideas and for research. It requires disciplineate on evidence-based terms, not just in terms of one’s opinion. Where opinion or lived experience is inevitable or needed, it must be an informed opinion, based on data.

What you don’t get with political science, is a clear career path. Unlike other courses, such as accounting, law, or medicine, one does not study political science to become a specific type of professional. Certainly not to become a politician; although some politicians are scientists, and some political scientists are politicians, the two do not need to go hand-in-hand.

There are, nevertheless, many options ahead of one who has studied political science. And perhaps that is part of the difficulty: it is the paradox of choice, as we sometimes call it in social scientific terms. Many of our graduates have gone on to work in banking, journalism, climate change, in parliament, in public policy-making and on activism. Additionally, political science is a great complement with other disciplines, including law, economics, and engineering-related disciplines.

The world needs physicians, tax accountants, physicists and engineers, but it also needs political scientists to diagnose our problems, measure the costs of key decisions, model the elements of our body politic and craft ever better futures for our country and our world.

As this year’s class of matric graduates make their decision about what their next step is from next year, I hope that many of you will choose political science for all the right reasons and with this information at your disposal.

• Ndzendze is an associate professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg. He writes in his personal capacity