Med kritiskt uppdrag. Fakultetsopponenternas recensioner av statsvetenskapliga doktorsavhandlingar 1976-1996

Abstract

With a critical mission. Published reviews of dissertations in political science 1976-1996. Approximately a fourth of the reviews published in Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift are reviews of doctoral dissertations (sometimes also called viva) in political science. These reviews are of particular interest as they constitute one form of scientific communication and are important -powerful-as they articulate the relevance of the critical work. This genre simultaneously contributes to the production and even more the reproduction of the norms of science. This paper makes these reviews (N=107) the subject of a systematic analysis of content and also examines whether characteristics of the reviewer can explain the depth, style, overall judgment and other differences in the content and character of the reviews. What characterises a satisfactory critical examination? The normative presupposition in this paper is that an examiner should structure the criticism according to a model that combines a focus on the most fundamental elements of the research process (problem, theory, method, sources and results) with certain distinctly different requirements on the reading/examination of these elements. These requirements consist of the reviewer's capacity to reproduce, understand, evaluate and independently construct an alternative version. The composition of the body of examiners has changed in three ways over the twenty-one years examined. The share of full professors has increased remarkably and so has the share of foreign reviewers. This development can be seen as an expression of the ambitions to improve the status of the academic dissertation defence. The share of examiners who defended their own dissertations at the same department as the author has also decreased. ";Home matches"; are rare nowadays, whereas this was the more common situation prior to 1975. These changes can explain the simultaneous tendency towards a less energetic and less critical or ";unfriendly"; examination of the dissertation under review. This result is obtained by using several different indicators. Foreign examiners and professors tend to be more positive/less negative in their judgement on almost all of the thirteen studied elements of the research process. They also discuss alternative methods to a lesser extent. They write slightly shorter reviews, they write reviews that to a greater degree restate the thesis, they include fewer original references, and they contribute less of their own work in the form of tables and figures.