“David Glenn”:http://chronicle.com/article/Senator-Invokes-Waterboarding/48809/ has a good summary of the debate in the Senate over Coburn’s efforts to defund political science.
Federal grants for political-science research are wasteful and unnecessary, and they fuel a deficit that will “waterboard” America’s children, a Republican senator declared on Tuesday. … The fate of Senator Coburn’s amendment remains uncertain. The Senate suspended work on the appropriations bill on Tuesday evening, after the Democratic leadership did not obtain the 60 votes necessary to end debate and bring the bill to a vote. The bill might not return to the floor until next week. … Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Democrat of Maryland. defended the political-science program. Among other things, she argued that it generates insights about “how we can work with other people around the world and build democratic societies and democratic institutions.”
For video of Coburn and Mikulski, see “Zero Intelligence Agents”:http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=1421.
It’s good to see that “Lin Ostrom’s contribution was highlighted”:http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2009_record&page=S10347&position=all
We also had another woman win the Nobel Prize—Dr. Elinor Ostrom. Her training is in political science. She won the Nobel Prize for economics. She is the first woman ever to win the prize for economics—an American woman. Although not in the Congress, she has received several political science grants from NSF because political science also looks at institutions which also have an impact on our economy. Since 1974, Dr. Ostrom has received over 20 grants, and these grants helped her do her fieldwork all over the world in relationship to the economic activity of people and communities. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences thought enough of her work to award her the Nobel Prize. But long before they heard of her in Stockholm, the National Science Foundation had heard of her and helped her with her award winning research.