Political science in Egypt seems to have a clear grasp of everything, as its clan members have their names tagged to newspapers articles, news analysis broadcasts, TV programmes, and key political posts. But what lies beneath the surface is in fact utterly different. That Mubarak's last youth minister, before the revolution ignited by the youth, was and still is a professor of political science speaks volumes on the failure of this discipline in Egypt. Not only has political science in Egypt failed to foresee the collapse of the political regime, but also most seriously failed in the heat of the moment to recognise the revolution for what it is. To this is added that it was unable to provide explanation for the revolution, nor present feasible options for the administration of the transitional period under both military and civilian rule. The metastasis of political scientists throughout the Egyptian body politic exacerbates the country's unhealthy condition. It is the contrast between the spread of presumed experts of the royal art and deteriorating political conditions in the country that this article seeks to explore. In June 2012, Lisa Anderson, president of the American University in Cairo, published a study on the problems of political science. She argued that proliferation of social media and research engines created problems for political scientists, as their monopoly of facts and information was broken. Political scientists, she suggested, need to reshape their identity as active practitioners involved in a dialogue with students and policymakers. Anderson's argument, a late echo of Alvin Toffler's popularised notion “information overload”, totally missed the mark. The problem of political science does not bear upon the production and dissemination of information. Rather, it hinges upon the absence of credible analytical frameworks for filtering the flux of information, which has existed in every age by its own standards. Ironically, in the fall semester of 2012, the American University in Cairo witnessed a belated revolutionary show, which Anderson firmly confronted by closing the university gates and suspending on-campus activities. The problem of political science in Egypt, which extends to that in the US, hinges upon the prevailing behaviouralist tradition, which was behind the progressive myopia — if not blindness — of political scientists, Egyptians or American. Although the world has moved ahead and went far beyond behaviouralism, political scientists still cling to it in the manner of a religious faith under the false pretext that it is the only game in town. It is therefore a must to discuss some tenets of the behaviouralist tradition in political science in order to refute what events has already discredited. Value-freedom or ethical neutrality is the basis of behaviouralism, which means that a moral vacuum is the indispensable condition for a political scientist to reach the truth about what he studies. Habituation to neutrality between good and evil can have very grave effects on political scientists. In the words of Leo Strauss, “The more serious we are as social scientists, the more completely we develop within ourselves a state of indifference… or of aimlessness and drifting, a state which may be called nihilism.” As a result, the political scientist will scorn all considerations of public or private relations, and must take refuge in the value of value-neutrality. Having lost his ethical edge, the political scientist not only will be unable to differentiate between good and bad forms of government, but also more importantly will become disengaged from his own political reality. It is the direct relationship with his reality that was supposed to provide him with leading questions, theoretical orientation, conceptuality, method and role. Most dangerously, the practice of political science will lose every aim or purpose except the increase of the political scientist's safety, income, prestige and power. Scientific skills and experience will be transformed to a commodity for sale in the political market to the highest bidder. One can only say with Leo Strauss that political science that does find tyranny dangerous and evil, the way a physician finds cancer so, does not deserve to be called a science in the first place. One can grasp the amount of distortion and even mutilation that the behaviouralist tradition has subjected political science to when we retrieve the Platonic concept of “the Sophist”. Plato refers to Sophists as mercenary individuals who teach the opinions of the masses and call these opinions wisdom. He even goes one step further to clarify his view by comparing them to a man who meticulously studies the tempers and desires of a wild beast. Such a man knows too well how to handle the beast, at what times to approach it, why it becomes dangerous or calm, and can also interpret the meaning of the beast's shrieks, and knows the sounds to be uttered in order to soothe or infuriate the beast. Because of continually attending to the beast, the man has become perfect in all his undertakings, which justifies for him calling his knowledge of the beast “wisdom” and even makes it a “system” to be taught. This man, Plato tells us, has no principles for differentiating good and evil, and therefore calls what is good and evil, just and unjust, or honourable and dishonourable according to the tastes and tempers of the beast. Without Plato telling us, our Sophist never seeks the truth and has no other purpose for his knowledge than to ride the beast. It is not without reason that one should distrust the integrity and loyalty of such a person. Bearing the resemblance of Plato's Sophists, political scientists nowadays in Egypt are part of the problem not the solution. They are not the cure for the sick body politic. Rather, their existence is a striking symptom of its sickness. If Plato found no solution but to expel poets from his Republic for fear of destroying its ethical foundations, for the same reason political scientists should not be spared the same treatment.
The writer is associate professor at Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science.
