Training tomorrow’s political scientists. Italian PhD programmes in Political Science presented by their directors.
Italian PhD programmes in political science have recently undergone deep changes. Since the beginning of the 1980s, when this academic degree was established in our country, we only used to have one programme, located at the Università di Firenze.
All the universities where the discipline was taught were formally affiliated to this programme, which was, de facto, the unavoidable entrance to any academic positions as a political scientist in Italy. Since the mid-nineties, however, other programmes appeared, starting from the one in Pavia, each one with its own areas of specialisation, approaches, peculiarities. Each one, in fact, with its own ‘identity card’. Currently, we have six active programmes in Bologna, Firenze, Milano, Pavia, Siena, and Torino, with the Bologna programme joining the one in Firenze next year. Together with the directors of each graduate school, we try to consider the pros and cons of this evolution, and the way forward.
Could you please provide a short presentation of your PhD programme? What are its specificities? In your opinion what are its strengths?
Prof. Morlino (Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane – Firenze)
The doctoral programme in Political Science at the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in Florence (www.sumitalia.org) offers to the highly selected students of different nationalities, the chance to study with very high standard Italian and overseas professors. One of its specificities is that 12 other Italian universities are part of the consortium that supports the programme (Bologna, Pisa, Napoli Federico II, Firenze, Trieste, Cagliari, Padova, Calabria, Macerata, Urbino, Sassari, Roma III). Its strengths are: the international faculty and the supply of accommodation, as wellas the fellowship. This is a unique feature that no other PhD programme in Italy has and which are very few in Europe. It was mostly created upon the initiative of Italian colleagues who were involved in a previous programme based in Florence. The aim is to train future scholars in one of the main fields of political science who may then find their way into Italian or foreign University as well as in other private and public sectors.
Prof. Martelli (Università di Milano)
The Doctorate course in Political Studies “Institutions and public policies” extends over a three year period. Its mission is to train highly-skilled professionals who acquire appropriate planning and implementation expertise, in order to fill up the discrepancy between institutional and policy designs and their outcomes, which is a major contemporary political issue at national and international level. In our view its strengths are the combination of standard political science, positive political analysis and contemporary political theory which face problems such as state and market failures, value systems uncertainty and conflicts at the borders of public and private.
Prof. Fedel (Università di Pavia)
The PhD programme in “Political Science – The Comparative Analysis of Democracies” (Scienza politica – Analisi comparata delle democrazie) is a product of the coordinated teaching and research activities of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Pavia (which constitutes the official home of the programme) and the Department of Political and Social Studies of the University of Genova (which constitutes an associate research centre). Founded in 1996 by Mario Stoppino, the programme is currently directed by Giorgio Fedel.
The programme aims at providing students with a wide-ranging intellectual base, which involves, particularly during the first year of study, a training scheme that is designed to avoid both a premature specialization and an overly heterogeneous assortment of courses. The essential idea is to give priority, in the first year, to training on the general theory of politics, with a view to providing unified conceptual frameworks upon which an informed choice can be made regarding the subject of the doctoral thesis.
Prof. Isernia (Università di Siena)
The PhD in Political Science – Comparative and European Politics (http://www.gips.unisi.it/gradschool/phd) was launched in year 2000. The School was directed by Maurizio Cotta from 2000 to 2005 and since then by Pierangelo Isernia. The aim of the programme is to provide professional training in Political Science, with special emphasis on Comparative and European Politics. The programme offers advanced empirical training to would-be political scientists by providing them with the appropriate theoretical and methodological tools for the analysis of contemporary political systems. Our goal is to train scholars and professionals to be able to operate across different contexts, at the national, European and international levels. The University of Siena is particularly well-placed in this context, given the fact that it has been designated by the national Ministry of the University as a centre of excellence for post-graduate training. The school of political science is part of the Santa Chiara Graduate College (www.santachiara.it).
Prof. Mastropaolo (Università di Torino)
The Torino PhD programme in Political Science has already been offered for five years (cycles). Its goal is to provide a general training in political analysis. Judging from the theses submitted by graduate students, the most popular subjects appear to be in comparative politics, especially with reference to extra-western countries, and policy analysis.
What are the main features of the training that students receive?
Prof. Morlino The programme is organized along six fields: Political Science – Comparative Politics; Public Opinion and Political Communication; Administrative Science; Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy; Institutions and Policies of the European Union; International Relations. Teaching is spread across two years: the first year is dedicated to the completion of students’ methodological and theoretical background, as well as the knowledge of two foreign languages, concluding with an exam conferring a “Master’s Degree in Political Science”; the second year during which the students attend specialized seminars and start to work on their dissertation. The third year is exclusively dedicated to the empirical research and to writing the dissertation. A period abroad is among the requirements.
Prof. Martelli The first year is spent in Italy and is devoted to an intensive study with about 400 hours of lectures and high-level seminars. Doctoral students take an active part in the coursework by discussing assigned reading lists, presenting reports and writing papers. Moreover they are specifically trained for writing a PhD thesis through the periodical sessions of a Project Colloquium. After a period abroad during the second year, the third year is devoted to writing the doctoral thesis under a supervisor chosen by the doctorate council.
Prof. Fedel During their first year of study, the PhD students pursue two main kinds of activity. First, individual study (on subjects covering the main areas of political inquiry). Depending on the practical context, this study has as its natural outcome the writing of papers, the oral presentation of material and/or group discussions. Secondly, intensive participation in seminar courses, including, among others, the Permanent Research Seminar on Political Theory (Seminario permanente di teoria politica) – a seminar that has continued for more than a decade – and the Graduate Seminar on Political Studies (Seminario permanente dei dottori e dottorandi di ricerca). The latter, which is chaired by the director of the PhD Programme, brings together all the students of the programme and provides each with an opportunity to present work in progress and research results.
Prof. Isernia The programme offers a systematic and continuative training programme, organised in semesters, for a total of 180 credits. In order to attract a wider audience, the programme is entirely carried out in English. In the first year, the student is expected to attend a minimum of 6 courses, the Tuesday Seminar where invited guests expose their ongoing research, and a PhD Colloquium. A broad set of political topics (i.e. European institutions, International Relations, Comparative Political Institutions, Political Behaviour) is covered and combined with courses on basic methodology and statistics (with an emphasis on use of SPSS and STATA). In the second semester students also start preparing the research dissertation. In the second year students are expected to attend 2 courses and continue the dissertation. Most students spend part of this year in universities or research centres abroad. In the second semester students present their research to fellow students and staff at the PhD Colloquium. The third year is totally devoted to the completion of the dissertation.
Prof. Mastropaolo The training is based on a weekly seminary and a series of teaching activities carried out at the “Facoltà di Scienze Politiche”. One of the programme’s prominent aspects is our students’ inclusion into various research groups at the University of Turin.
How much importance do you place on the internationalisation of the programme? Is the recruitment of foreign students and professors among your goals?
Prof. Morlino The programme is already internationalized, as we already have formal agreements with MIT, Stanford University and the European University Institute that is very close to Florence, but we will go on developing a set of new features as much as possible in order to additionally stress this aspect. We have foreign students and we will go on developing this feature as well.
Prof. Martelli The utmost importance. First, the period abroad (from six months to a year) is spent in highly qualified universities such as Columbia, LSE, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, NYU, UCL, UCLA, and is devoted to highly-focused courses, to the formulation of a research project and to the initial drafting of the thesis. Second, a considerable effort has been made in order to recruit foreign students, so that presently more than 40% of our students are foreigners, coming from various countries, such as Brazil, Germany, Poland, Russia and Eastern Europe. Third, although most courses are offered by Italian professors, most seminars are held by foreign scholars.
Prof. Fedel The internationalization of the PhD programme, together with the ability to attract staff and students from abroad, is one of the objectives that the newly constituted Doctoral School in Economic, Legal, Political and Social Sciences – of which the Political Science programme is an integral part – has placed at the centre of its strategy to promote closer contacts with partner institutions and an efficient coordination of training activities.
Prof. Isernia Internationalisation is among the most cherished goals of our programme and we strife for offering an attractive environment for non-Italian students. Internationalization to us means two things: On the one hand, and more obvious, students are encouraged to spend a research period abroad. Almost 80% of our students have done so, especially during the second year. Moreover, students regularly participate in international conferences and meetings. On the other hand, and to an extent even more important, it means offering the student a lively and challenging international intellectual environment. This purpose is pursued first by trying to attract participation from foreign students. For this reason, the programme is entirely taught in English. Out of approximately 300 applications received since 2000, more than one third are coming from foreign countries. 40% of the 60 students enrolled at all times comes from abroad; one fifth of the total from non-EU countries. Second, a Visiting scholars programme has been activated since 2005. In the last three years, 25 visiting scholars have visited the School, spending a research and teaching period in Siena ranging from a few weeks to the whole academic year. 40% of these visiting scholars come from non-EU countries and the rest from the EU member states. Third, students are, in different capacities, systematically involved in some of the international research projects carried out by CIRCaP. Recently, students have been involved, at different stages, in the INTUNE Integrated Project under the 6th Framework Programme, the EURELITE project financed by the European Science Foundation, the Transatlantic Trend Survey financed by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia di San Paolo, and the European Elite Survey was also supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo. We are also pleased to see that several of our students (Italians included) find a job abroad. Approximately 40% of students graduated from our programme have found a job abroad.
Prof. Mastropaolo This is another salient aspect of the Programme. Our PhD students are strongly encouraged to spend study and research periods abroad, to participate in Summer Schools and in international conferences, meetings, etc. Currently we also tutor two external PhD students and two of our PhD students are foreigners.
What kind of professional does your programme aim to produce? Do you think your students can use their skills somewhere else outside the university? Does your programme aim at developing such skills?
Prof. Morlino The programme is basically devoted to preparing scholars of a high standard. However, in doing so professionals are prepared and can take on other research jobs in other non university institutions.
Prof. Martelli The aim of our doctoral programme is to train professionals who can undertake research within academic institutions and research centres as well as provide consultancy for political, economic, public or private organizations in both national and international spheres. To this end we offer the most up-to-date knowledge and methods in the field of political science and political philosophy required to analyse complex institutions and organisational processes, and to understand and address the ethical dilemmas involved.
Prof. Fedel By virtue of the wide-ranging, theoretical training it provides, the PhD programme in “Political Science – The Comparative Analysis of Democracies” represents a suitable starting point for further research activities in political studies, either in universities (with a view to pursuing an academic career) or in research centres within non-academic organizations. Furthermore, the programme aims to meet a perceived demand in the job market, in particular as regards access to managerial roles in public administration or in the organization of private companies, and more generally as regards access to all those occupational areas that require a high level of cultural education, a flexible mind and a familiarity with logical and argumentative reasoning.
Prof. Isernia The PhD programme is open to graduate students from various disciplines. It welcomes students aiming for an academic career. It also encourages the participation of students who are interested in non-academic professional careers in Italy, as well as abroad, that require a strong political science background. For this purpose, the programme aims at offering a systematic training in empirical political science and it devotes more than average attention to quantitative and qualitative training through courses, “crash courses”, seminars, Labs experience (the CIRCaP has a CATI centre that is used for both training and research tasks) and the opportunity to attend the ECPR and ICPSR summer schools.
Prof. Mastropaolo We are still not able to evaluate which job opportunities a PhD Programme may offer, besides traditional University careers.
How do you evaluate Italian Political Science PhD programmes, and yours in particular, compared to the best European schools? What do Italian programmes need (if anything) to be competitive at the highest international level?
Prof. Morlino In a near future our challenge is to become one of the best European schools.
Prof. Martelli Our programme has been designed in order to give our doctorate the capacity to compete with the most qualified PhDs in Europe and all over the world. Moreover our faculty is wholly qualified to deal with all main issues of contemporary political studies. Our problems derive from the modest financial resources, which bring about a poor supply of non-academic services (accommodation, etc.) to non-Milanese students and professors in exciting but expensive Milan. However pooling the forces of four PhD programmes the Graduate School has been a good strategy for more efficient fund raising.
Prof. Fedel Italian doctoral programmes compare relatively well with the best doctoral programmes in other European countries. Moreover, they do so in spite of the handicaps of the Italian university system caused by under-funding and excessive bureaucracy (this last factor directly prevents the advertising of places with grants reserved for foreign students and the simplification of the application procedures). If the aim is to increase our competitiveness with respect to the best foreign doctorates, one important move will obviously be a further increase in the proportion of seminars and teaching activities held in English.
Prof. Isernia Italy is clearly a late-comer in the market of graduate training and there is no match with long and well-established graduate programmes, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world (not to mention the US). However, I think there is some room for improvements in our graduate training experience. In particular, programmes offered in English, with a strong empirical orientation and a solid staff supporting it, could capture a potentially growing portion of students from Eastern and Central Europe and the Greater Middle East. Italian programmes can be an appealing alternative to (some) graduate programmes in Europe both in terms of costs, work environment and mainstream political science training. To meet this demand – and to be more competitive both domestically and abroad – programmes should do several things, among which I think two are crucial. First they should invest more resources, both financial and human, in formal training of students. Second, graduate programmes should pair formal training with a strong research commitment by the staff involved. For this reason we have tried to create CIRCaP (http://www.gips.unisi.it/circap) a small but committed and cohesive research community in Siena which offers an intellectually stimulating environment to PhD students. This process will also bring a certain degree of specialization in the political science areas covered by the different programmes.
Prof. Mastropaolo The philosophy behind our PhDs is different from that of foreign programmes. In Italy a PhD must be completed in three to four years, at most. Abroad a PhD is completed when a thesis is deemed to be of outstanding quality. This means that our theses are still often work-in-progress and as such should be judged. Obviously, in some cases they are credible work-in- progress and in others not. Indeed I believe it could be useful to introduce a national level procedure to judge their quality, for instance by submitting dissertation samples to anonymous referees.
Until a few years ago, the only PhD programme in Political Science in Italy was the one in Florence. Today we have many programmes, partially different from one another. How do you judge this evolution? Do you think differentiation will increase in the future? Or some of the programmes will be forced to give up or to join forces?
Prof. Morlino The proliferation of PhD programmes was due to a 1998 law, and not to other reasons. In a small country such as Italy in terms of social science and especially political science this development was an unfortunate event. However, as this is now the situation, I do think that we should make the best of it by developing a virtuous competition among the different programmes in order to attract the best students and to have a sound recruitment both at the very first moment when winning a fellowship for the doctorate and later on when entering the university as young researcher. Today, this is collectively our task.
Prof. Martelli In our view only qualified academic settings can carry on effective PhD programmes. Of course this does not depend on the quantitative dimensions of the university, but on the strength of the vision and on the amount of the academic, organizational, and financial resources. It is probably too early to foresee successes and failures of the new initiatives, but it is plausible that some breakdowns and some mergers will occur in the future. In that case such events should be considered as normal supply adjustments in the newly born high education global market.
Prof. Fedel The evolution of the Italian PhD programmes in political studies in the direction of a progressive differentiation and specialization (which tends to reproduce the divides that are to be found within the discipline) is, in a sense, an inevitable development. This differentiation brings about the same dangers that arise in relations between the different areas and approaches in political science: a lack of communication and an inability to combine research results in a cumulative way. Despite this, in light of current tendencies regarding the division of labour among political scientists, we are unlikely to see any slowing of this evolution towards differentiation. Taking this point as given, however, a partial but important corrective mechanism, involving a greater degree of coordination between the Italian doctorates and, above all, the promotion of improved contacts and exchanges between graduate students, would appear to be both achievable and desirable.
Prof. Isernia A trend toward a more differentiated and competitive environment has to be praised. Of course, limits of scale and other institutional constraints affect the number of alternative graduate programmes that can be offered and realistically survive and grow in Italy. How far this trend of greater differentiation and virtuous competition can go on depends on many factors. One among them is whether we target our programmes only to Italian or Italian-speaking students or also elsewhere. A market limited to Italian students is too narrow (and shrinking) to allow for a robust competition among different programmes. If programmes open to attract students abroad, there is room for further differentiation and greater competition. The future of Italian programmes is also different depending on the size and nature of political science departments. On the one hand, it is quite unrealistic to expect that each university might set up its own graduate programme. In this connection, the tendency in part under pressure from the Ministry of Education, to penalize forms of scientifically effective and administratively sound coordination among different universities is potentially worrisome. On the other hand, bigger universities have resources largely underutilized to create new autonomous PhD programmes.
Prof. Mastropaolo I believe that the abolition of Inter-University Consortia was not a good idea, since they allowed, among other things, to cultivate a national teaching body and helped to set a national standard for the students. At the moment I do not believe that it will be possible to bring them back. But I consider it to be a good idea to start some common activities with the other PhD programmes in Political science and to carry on some teaching and research activities together with the other PhD schools in other disciplines in our University. This is for instance the case of the course in research methods in social sciences that we run together with the PhD programme in sociology at the University of Turin.
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