Letter from the Dean

Christopher Arterton, Ph.D.

Dean, The Graduate School of Political Management

During the past three decades, democratic politics in America have changed markedly, becoming less dominated by networks of personal contacts, often referred to as “the old boys’ club.”  Now, political activity is increasingly dependent upon technical knowledge.  Internet communications, polling, computer assisted research, media advertising, and communications all constitute a teachable curriculum of politics, whereas personal contacts do not.  As a result, consultants have replaced ward bosses and back-slapping lobbyists have been superceded by professional managers. Both electoral politics and governing have become increasingly specialized and professionalized.

The Graduate School of Political Management is both a response and a challenge to this trend.  On the one hand, it has now become possible to organize a curriculum that prepares students for careers in politics.The trend toward commercialization, on the other hand, has produced a number of unfortunate consequences for our politics; the rising cost of effective political activity is a prime example.  The creation of the GSPM, the nation’s first professional school for politics, constitutes a sustained effort to define and acknowledge the ethical boundaries and professional constraints that must guide the application of political technology. Our new concentrations in public affairs and political leadership have extended the scope of our curriculum into a broadening circle of political activities.   Having the privilege of conferring a professional degree in politics means, however, that our responsibilities must extend beyond efforts to refine and intensify each course that we teach.We must also address the less obvious but equally important obligation to develop a way of thinking about the field of political management itself.If our graduates were to be noted only for their ability to win political victories, regardless of any ethical, moral, or social considerations, we would not have accomplished our purpose.

As thoughtful people, we must be concerned about the low esteem in which citizens hold our political system.   For too many of our citizens, contemporary politics carries wholly negative connotations: influence-peddling lobbyists, corrupt public officials, venal special interests.The word “political” has become synonymous with lack of merit.   The professional, on the other hand, thinks and speaks in terms of rating points, pull operations, tracking polls, attack ads, bundled contributions, soft money, targeted mail, and so on.It is a language unintelligible to the lay person and intimidating to citizens who would become active in politics.  But, somewhere between the jargon of the professional and the popular view of politics as nothing more than hype, greed, and corruption, lies the reality of our political system – a messy process full of compromise and accommodation, where, despite its frustrations and terrible inequities, the issue of who gets what is decided with less violence, more stability, and greater personal freedom than perhaps anywhere in the world.  As faculty, students, and administration, we are challenged by the range and the richness of the field and by a continuing need to develop new materials and new methods to teach it.  The development of a new discipline, much less a frame of reference or point of view for a new profession, is a collective effort that will evolve over many years.  Thus, we are mindful that we are describing our aspirations, not recounting our accomplishments.