Political Theory Today: Results of a National Survey

ABSTRACT This article reports the results of a 2008 national survey of political theo-rists. The results, based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States, provide information about the demo-graphic characteristics of political theorists, opinion data on the place of political theorywithin political science, the proportion of political theorists in political science departments, teaching loads, expectations for tenure, the experience of political theo-rists on the academic jobmarket, and, finally, rankings of theorists, journals, publish-ers, professional organizations, and Ph.D. programs. In the fall of 2008, I conducted a survey of politicaltheorists in the United States.1 The survey asked awide range of questions about the place of politicaltheorywithin political science, the experiences of polit-ical theorists as teachers and scholars, and about what and how political theorists teach.2 My goal was to investigate theorists ’ views on the long-runningdebate overwhether polit-ical theory belongs in political science,3 as well as to get a snapshot view of the practice of political theory as a subfield today. For purposes of the survey, I defined political theory as the study of political philosophy, including both normativ