Doing Archival Research in Political Science By Scott A. Frisch, ...

For years, political scientists have sought to explain how politicians try to control the agenda through a carefully crafted, concise, and frequently repeated message. This memo, from a future presidential press secretary to a man who nearly became Speaker of the House, captures the essence of political communication in a frank and unguarded memo that can be shared with students.

Other examples of documents found in congressional papers that can be used in the classroom abound. Students are often curious about how members are placed on committees. Copies of letters requesting committee assignments are great ways to illustrate the multiple motivations that members have for pursuing committee assignments. Staff memos can be used to illustrate the important role played by staff as well as the influence of lobbyists and policy analysis in the legislative process, press releases are a great way to illustrate concepts such as credit claiming and position taking, and the actual pages of a marked-up bill can be used when discussing the mark-up process. Polling data from campaigns help students understand campaign strategy, positioning, and the ability (or not) of candidates to communicate effectively to voters. Though we can go on and on, the point is that every trip a researcher makes to an archive provides additional ideas and resources that can be applied in the classroom.

Reason Three: New and Better Data Will Be Introduced

As a field, it sometimes seems that political scientists are focused more on developing new and increasingly sophisticated ways to analyze data than they are on finding appropriate data to answer key questions. It seems that article after article is published in the leading journals consisting of new ways to look at roll call data, campaign spending data, or American National Election Studies data. Casual observation suggests that less emphasis is being placed on efforts to develop better data sets that are more specifically designed to answer the research questions that are being asked.