What’s to know about politics? Positivism and tradition in Australian undergraduate programme and course descriptions

How do Australian universities today communicate to potential and new students what constitutes fundamental knowledge in the study of politics? To address that question, this article discusses data generated on eight programmes and 108 required or core undergraduate course descriptions in political science; international relations; and, politics, philosophy and economics across five Australian universities. The programme descriptions, it observes, treat students as rational actors who want knowledge about politics for high-status employment. The fundamental knowledge that they need, the course descriptions suggest, is traditional and positivist. Few descriptions made reference to interpretive, feminist or critical methodologies; fewer, to indigenous perspectives. Calls to globalise the political sciences and decolonise the production of academic knowledge currently go unacknowledged in the programme and course descriptions studied. We conclude by suggesting that universities try addressing potential and new students as members of political communities, rather than power-seeking individualists.