The indispensable Arthur Goldhammer points to a fulmination in Le Monde Diplomatique (en Francais, naturellement) against the overweening power and media ubiquity of French political scientists.
The situation of political scientists resembles that of media economists: the same omnipresence in the press, the same ideological orientations … anointed with the authority of sovereign public opinion that is revealed to them through the alchemy of survey polls, they pronounce on everything.
There’s plenty more in the piece on political scientists, covert ideological affiliations thereof, frequency of appearances on television, possible corrupt motives motivating same etc etc. To the extent that it is true (Arthur doesn’t think much of the piece), it suggests that French political scientists face a quite different set of problems than those we face on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. Getting vigorously denounced for our relentless stranglehold on American public debate sounds like it would be fun.
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I’ll be a visiting professor at Sciences Po this coming academic year: does this mean I’ll be on TV all the time? Too bad I don’t speak French, typical American monoglot that I am.
Those guys are just on TV because they are telegenic and not for what they are supposed to explain to the viewers. They basically are pundits with a PhD.
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