About Us
The MU Political Science Department conducts basic, theoretically significant research in five areas of the discipline that will advance the frontiers of knowledge and also will provide a basis for advanced and contemporary postgraduate education. The Department does not intend to provide applied training for practical politics, but rather sees its primary mission as the education of college and university teachers and researchers.
Advanced education in the study of politics and government is crucial to generating the knowledge and analyzing the values that are necessary to enhance the quality of political life wherever possible. The department at MU provides such basic research and education to the citizens of Missouri, of the other states in the nation, and to the citizens of many other nations throughout the world. We take special pride in the leadership many of our graduates have exercised in enhancing the quality of political life in the universities, parliaments, and governments of a substantial number of countries around the globe, as well as in the United States.
Recognizing the increasing utility of quantitative and computer skills, the Department has increased requirements in these areas. Nevertheless, the Department takes a broad approach to the study of politics and recognizes the value not only of empirical and quantitative research modes, but formal, historical, institutional, and philosophical modes of inquiry, as required by the substantive concerns or questions raised by the researcher. Substance and political relevance take priority over method, although increasing methodological sophistication is necessary to deal with contemporary political complexities.