Graphic by Daniel Gourvitch/ The Hoya
A recently released global study of political science departments from the London School of Economics and Political Science ranked Georgetown University’s Department of Government 16 out of more than 400 departments in the world.
This distinction adds to the government department’s level of prestige compared to other U.S. universities’ government programs as one of the leading “full service” programs in political science. Georgetown ranked 50th in the same survey released one decade earlier.
The ranking is part of a “global, objective, and easily updated method for ranking departments,” developed by Professor Simon Hix of the London School of Economics and Political Science. “Rankings of academic institutions are key information tools for universities, public and private funding agencies, students and faculty,” Hix said.
Hix devised a method of ranking the top political science departments according to the number of faculty in the department, the total number of articles in journals by scholars from an institution during a five-year period from 1998-2002, and the related impact of those articles.
After gathering data for these categories, an average number is obtained, and the departments of all the institutions are ranked accordingly.
“This rating reflects the very high quality of faculty and students that the Department attracts,” Government professor Anthony Arend (SFS ’80), said. “The Department is one of the very best places to study government in the United States.”
Columbia, Harvard and Stanford universities took the top three spots and the European University Institute ranked fifth and was the top-ranked university outside of the United States followed by the London School of Economics and Political Science, which ranked at 15.
“Some people may be interested in the total output of a department, others in the average quality of these outputs, and yet others in the average productivity of a department,” Hix said.
Hix also stated in his rankings that some existing rankings of political science departments have limitations, such as those of U.S. News and World Report.
“Most publications use peer assessments in ranking departments. But these are subjective, by definition,” he said. “As a result, rankings based on peer assessments are less objective than rankings on the content analysis of [scholarly] journals.”
Another problem with peer assessments, Hix said, is that they are costly and time-consuming, and that they are nationally specific.
Georgetown’s government department, with a full-time faculty of 43, ranked 11 in number of articles, with 77.91, and 14th in measurement of article impact.
The Department of Government hopes to continue its current upward climb.
“We will continue to build on the unique strengths that we already have and maintain the course we plotted several years ago, which seeks to temper the scholarly study of politics with attentiveness to the real world, and at the same time amplifies the study of real world politics with scholarly insights,” Government Department Chair Josh Mitchell said.
