Читать книгу Political Science and Digitalization - Global Perspectives - Группа авторов - Страница 8

The volume goes back to the IPSA International Mid-Term Conference Political Science in the Digital Age held in December 2017 in Hannover, Germany. The aim of the conference was to examine the challenges of digitalization for the discipline of political science in three ways: 1) the reflection on the discipline and one of the most relevant challenges, namely digitalization; 2) connecting the National Associations of IPSA, the Research Committees, but also the IPSA ‘leading personnel’, encouraging networking and cooperation; 3) offering a platform for addressing problems as well as designing ideas for the future work within IPSA. Scholars from all over the world discussed theory, empirical aspects, methodology, teaching and learning, consulting, and publishing.

It was an upmost concern of this conference to encourage a regional stocktaking in order to get an idea of the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in most world regions. One important element therefore was the ‘Roundtables on Regional Perspectives,’ gathering scholars from all regions of the world, presenting balances and experiences from their countries, their teaching and their academic communities. These roundtables proved to be highly factful and valuable, contributing not only to the information about the state of all those national disciplines about digitalization, but also providing a platform for exchange.

In order to follow-up on this positive experience, we decided to provide this stocktaking — the first of its kind in our discipline, as far as we know — to a wider public, inviting the speakers of the round tables to collaborate on such a book project. At this point, we thank all authors for their contributions and their patience during the editing process. We did a blind peer review process, thanking also all the reviewers for their work. Edited volumes always experience some limitations: in our case, we strived to reflect an informative picture of all regions, also on the basis of IPSA’s general mission to specifically include the Global South. While this intention could be well-accomplished in the case of Latin America, the regions of North and sub-Sahara Africa are underrepresented. This evidence, however, deserves some more detailed considerations. One aspect that was also revealed through debate at the conference, is that in many African countries, digitalization in the academic sphere still is at a starting point or developing, so that a stock taking proved to be difficult. This status correlates with an overall rather weak anchoring of political science as a discipline on the African continent, especially in Northern African countries.

Still, the volume presents the first attempt of stocktaking of a topic that will have a great relevance in the future for our discipline: How are research, teaching and learning, how are researchers, teachers, students and institutions of education in the different countries affected by digitalization? And how do the reactions and the options for shaping the digitalization of political science look like in the different countries? This stocktaking at the [12] same time informs us of open questions, problematic aspects, and future challenges which should be tackled either by governments or by the institutions of higher education and by any individual scholar. We are quite aware of the fact that as the dynamics of the development of digitalization take place, findings on this topic easily underlie the peril of being obsolete. At the same time, the well-known fact that changes in education systems are rather cumbersome may neutralize this possible effect. Moreover, as the articles show and as it could be expected, the different regions themselves and countries in these regions display a variation of policies, speed of action, intensity of action.

In order to get a systematic account of the state in the different countries, we asked the authors to follow a guideline including information about 1) teaching and learning, 2) research and 3) specific conditions or circumstances in the respective country. Regarding teaching, we were interested in the following questions: What role does the digital revolution play in the teaching and learning situation in your country? To what extent are digital tools or online-based communication/interaction integrated in the teaching methods? Could/should digital tools be more sophisticated? What are your experiences with these digital tools of teaching and learning? Would you say that there are big differences between the universities in your country in this regard? If yes, why is this so (federalism, financial resources, etc.)? Are there strategies – on a national level or at subnational level - for introducing, strengthening, or complementing these digital teaching and learning tools?

We also asked the authors to consider the following aspects:

• Content aspects: Is the digital revolution an issue covered in the political science curricula of universities? Is digitalization sufficiently covered? If not, are there specific reasons for that?

• Institutional aspects: Have professorships been created in this area (like Politics and Internet etc.)? Did universities develop their own e-learning programs or similar things?

• [13] Desiderata, positive perspectives, possible risks: What are the desiderata in your country? What positive developments do you expect in terms of digitalization and political science in your country? What are evident problems or future risks to be expected?

Moreover, we asked authors to elaborate upon digitalization's impact on research: What role does the digital revolution play for the research situation in your country? How do digital communication/interaction or digital tools and procedures influence the research situation of political scientists in a general way and what are specific impacts of digitalization? Have digital communications and interactions (their implications, their effects for participation and political processes, their institutional context, usage, economic context) become an issue for political scientists in your country? To what extent? How would you assess the quantitative activity of political scientists referring to those issues (as indicators one could use publications, presence on conferences, research projects)?

Content aspects: Are there specific aspects of digital communication and interaction in politics (its implications, its effects for participation and political processes etc., its institutional context, usage, economic context) that the research in your country focuses on? Can you identify these aspects?

Institutional aspects of research: Have new ‘sections’ been created within National Associations of Political Science? Did publishing houses react to the new issue and offer new series? Have new journals for digital aspects in political science been founded? If not, where can or where do scholars of political science publish their articles on digital aspects? Is cooperation between political scientists with scholars of communication or media science more often than before? More intense? Or are there developments insulating them from each other? Have there been founded new research centres in or beyond universities dedicated to issues of political science and digital aspects?

Desiderata, positive perspectives, possible risks: What are the desiderata in your country? What positive developments do you except in terms of digitalization and political science in your country? What are evident problems or future risks to be expected?