Completing a Ph.D. and at the same time establishing a good academic profile are demanding tasks. Most graduates have teaching assignments, need to do their own research, assist senior researchers and hunt for funding. All this already takes up a considerable amount of time, and there are other activities – such as networking, publishing, conference and professional-association participation, and a whole array of others – junior academics need to get involved in so as to build a desirable academic profile. This paper compiles a few professional development suggestions for graduate students embarking on an academic career in political science in Europe.

This introductory article investigates the relationship between interdisciplinarity and the study of politics, drawing on the symposium papers. Beginning with a brief historiography of the study of politics/political science, we then explain what we understand by ‘interdisciplinarity’. Next, we explore the potential benefits of an interdisciplinary approach in political research, and also identify some of its shortcomings and potential pitfalls. Finally, while acknowledging the need for more debate, we give some doubtless partial guidance regarding further interdisciplinary research.

The history of interdisciplinarity in international relations (IR) is not a simple narrative. Initially a transdisciplinary meeting place for scholars from many disciplines, IR developed after the 1940s into a closed sub-discipline of political science, and only after 1980 did it once again engage with other disciplines in a sustained way. This article traces these ‘three ages’ of IR, and concludes with a case study of the emerging historiography within IR.

Two aspects of the training and status of the contemporary Ph.D. process are dealt with. First, I assess the growing importance of the new doctoral programmes in Political Science and suggest that it is now almost impossible to conceive of preparing a Ph.D. outwith a training programme. Second, I look at changing perspectives on doctoral degrees, and at how a Ph.D. has become a necessary but no longer sufficient qualification for successful entry into the academic labour market.

The ongoing secularisation debate(s) rarely focus on state secularisation, seemingly because of the assumption that the state is definitionally secular and so logically not subject to secularisation. From a less compromised perspective, the secular state appears as an American late-eighteenth century invention while the present day states of Europe retain significant features inherited from the formative period of the modern state when it took a distinctively confessional form – that is, they remain still in part religious.

The nation and the Church are never far apart in Europe. The Westphalian state-system defined allegiance and loyalty to the state as correlates of religious conformity. The re-emergence of religious conflict in Europe is the paradoxical result of globalization and individualization. The new social meaning of faith compels courts, governments, and the general publics to re-examine the old stability pacts between the national Churches and states. The belated secularization of the state is the likely outcome.

This paper deals with the changes within the profession of political science in Europe. The first part of the paper outlines the emerging integrated academic labour market in Europe and the accompanying process of convergence around shared professional benchmarks. The main observation here is the increasing influence competitive meritocracy has on our profession. The second part of the paper deals with some of the structural barriers European political science faces in such a competitive market. The final part of the paper outlines ways by which to surpass these structural barriers and attain a competitive academic profile while doing a Ph.D. at a typical European university.

Despite renewed interest in the concept of interdisciplinary research, the social sciences have produced very little evidence for its feasibility or success. Acknowledging the diversity within comparative politics, this article argues that we have scant evidence of interdisciplinarity, some evidence of successful multidisciplinarity in problem-driven research and more frequent examples of cross-disciplinary borrowing, particularly when comparativists have reached a theoretical plateau in capturing new or persisting puzzles. There is little evidence to support the expectation that interdisciplinarity can create a new epistemology that exceeds disciplinary knowledge.

Political science has been detached from philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular. The latter has also ‘celebrated its purity’. But should political philosophy cooperate with empirical political science? This article argues that since political philosophy is part of the study of politics, if it does not cooperate, political philosophy might lose its relevance, create a distorted notion of politics, and commit a methodological mistake. It is further argued that democratising political philosophy is the way to encourage such cooperation.

This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of the state-led establishment of quasi-monopolistic Islam Councils in Western Europe. The author argues that national consultations representing the Muslim faith in seven European countries share institutional characteristics with 19th and 20th century corporatist arrangements with Labor and Jewish Communities, and pursue similar goals of rendering faith and group ideology compatible with national citizenship while encouraging the moderation of group demands on the state.

When we leave the Ph.D. to embark on an academic career, we soon discover that the strategies for success rely on a range of teaching, research, managerial, and networking skills that we likely did not develop during our doctoral years. This paper compiles advice to new entrants to the profession from established political scientists on some of the general strategies and skills that they identified as being crucial to the development of their academic careers.