Despite the normative origins of our discipline, political scientists often embrace our role as objective scholars, to the point of teaching our students to undertake research without also helping them to become public-spirited citizens. This essay argues that this restrained approach is inadequate to maintain political science’s relevance in an era characterized by heightened partisan polarization, rising authoritarianism, and democratic backsliding. To help our students sustain democratic systems of government going forward, political scientists must not only recognize our normative roots, but must also extend our normative agenda to a reinvigorated civic engagement pedagogy that is timely, intersectional, and internationalized. In short, how and what we teach our students is the key to our discipline’s relevance in difficult political times.
