Political views of academics

[RFayette]

I agree with you, especially Economic seems to be dominated by conservatives now. History is probably closwer to 50-50, which a rightward lean.

I think even econ leans Dem in academia.

[RFayette]

I'd be interested to see the numbers on graduates (by major).

Business grads lean GOP I believe.  I think people with a BA in econ also trend conservative.

[RFayette]

I'm an agricultural economics major, all of my instructors are Republicans.

Out of curiosity, do they tend to vote GOP because of the party's general friendliness toward agriculture, or more based on social issues/military/"rural culture" generically? 

[RFayette]

In the engineering world, academia certainly leans to the left, decisively but not overwhelmingly (somewhere between 60-40 and 70-30 I'd guess). Most of the conservative engineers tend to go into industry, and since there are far, far more engineers in industry than academia, those with any engineering degree are overall a Republican demographic.

The most liberal field is probably gender studies, which I suspect votes about 100-0.

I think that might be the main reason why academia leans to the left. Left-wingers tend to stay in after graduating while more conservatives and Republicans go into an industry, whether it is in their field of study or not.

This is true.  Personality-wise, liberals on average are more likely to see education as an end in and of itself, whereas conservatives tend to see education as a means toward getting a job and securing a livelihood.  For conservatives that are more "intellectual" (I hate this term because of how loaded it's become), many are more likely to gravitate toward think tanks where they'd encounter less ideological opposition. 

[RFayette]

In the engineering world, academia certainly leans to the left, decisively but not overwhelmingly (somewhere between 60-40 and 70-30 I'd guess). Most of the conservative engineers tend to go into industry, and since there are far, far more engineers in industry than academia, those with any engineering degree are overall a Republican demographic.

The most liberal field is probably gender studies, which I suspect votes about 100-0.

I think that might be the main reason why academia leans to the left. Left-wingers tend to stay in after graduating while more conservatives and Republicans go into an industry, whether it is in their field of study or not.

This is true.  Personality-wise, liberals on average are more likely to see education as an end in and of itself, whereas conservatives tend to see education as a means toward getting a job and securing a livelihood.  For conservatives that are more "intellectual" (I hate this term because of how loaded it's become), many are more likely to gravitate toward think tanks where they'd encounter less ideological opposition.  

This is one of those things that's clearly true but very odd about American politics/society if you stop to think about it. On one hand, you have the stereotype of the academic sitting in his ivory tower thinking about some arcane abstract theory with very limited relationship to the common man outside on the ground vs. the practical but theoretically illiterate private sector: "I'm going into industry because I want to accomplish something in my life", etc.

But on the other hand, the moment we start to talk about philosophy or ethics the roles are suddenly reversed (stereotypically of course) where you have the more conservative private sector man, permitted to keep his opiate of the masses that tells him something about personal behaviors that are immoral even if he falls short and no one gets hurt. Meanwhile the academic in his ivory tower does not accept such idealism in ethics and instead subscribes to a consequentialist ethic that the common man can handle rather than some "unrealistic expectation of human behavior". Here the academic suddenly becomes practical rather than theoretical.

Indeed.  Academia has been pretty much fully secularized outside of religious institutions since the 1950's/1960's, and perhaps as early as the late 1800's/early 1900's for some of the Ivy League institutions.  American society at-large didn't really fall away from civic Christianity until the early 1990's, and the nation is still far more religious than its academics.  

To me, it seems that ideologies (almost always left-wing, though some libertarians also fit the bill) fill in the role of religion for many left-wing academics.  What astonishes me is how seriously many of them take their ideologies, especially the Marxists (just looking at the reams of literature and long articles with zero practical purpose whatsoever).  I find it amazing how academics hold so strongly to a non-metaphysical ideology (no concept of afterlife, eternal reward/punishment) to an arguably greater extent than most regular folks take their religion.  A classic example is how Peter Singer influences a lot of this class to live on no more than 30K/year, while most churches would have a hard time getting its members to tithe. 

[RFayette]

Why is nursing Republican? Nurses are more monolithicly Labour than teachers over here.

Probably because of the influence of the AMA.

It's entirely anecdotal, but of all the medical professionals I know, they are very Republican. Unless they're Asian, of course. Ditto with other minorities, but in my experiences medicine has been dominated by whites and Asians, so in the end it balances out in favor of the Republican Party.

As to why? Not entirely sure, but probably a combination of high incomes + age + frustration with the ACA meddling in the healthcare industry (though many agree that there is a serious need for reform, it's more that they're mad about politicians [i.e. lawyers] doing the legislating and "not listening to them")

Again, this is entirely anecdotal.

This is definitely true with doctors.  There are a ton of doctors among my extended family and they all despise the healthcare law and tend to be more conservative in general.

[RFayette]

Doctors by and large despise all change done to any medical system anywhere at any time (aside from stuff like "more money!!!"). They opposed the formation of the NHS over here and then abruptly changed their mind and swung the other way after about ten years. Because Tories typically push the strange reforms (agency staffing, increased amount of private-sector drafted middle-management and the insanely complicated NHS reform bill of last parliament) they will go with the party that treats them well (they also dislike Tory anti-immigrant views which would leave the hospitals understaffed . I was mainly confused at the Nurses being GOPhers, because they are typically fairly low paid and vulnerable to being replaced by agency staff and "cost-cutting".

Many nurses are doctor's wives (at least in my area), so they tend to be conservative due to the presence of them in the family.  Academic studies I have seen have consistently shown nursing professors in the United States to be pretty much the most conservative department behind agriculture.  It's an interesting question why this is, though. 

[RFayette]

I'm an agricultural economics major, all of my instructors are Republicans.

Out of curiosity, do they tend to vote GOP because of the party's general friendliness toward agriculture, or more based on social issues/military/"rural culture" generically? 

Its a healthy mixture of both, but the former probably helps with keeping the department so overwhelmingly GOP. 

Another hypothesis I have as to why nursing/business/ag professors tend to be far more conservative than the average professor is that many of them (at least in business I know) spent at least some time in the private sector, unlike the vast majority of others in academia.  Is this true for the ag professors you had?  I assume most of them grew up on a farm (or worked on it as a kid), but do many also manage land in addition to teaching?

[RFayette]

The other day my econ professor made a joke about Paul Krugman, so I presume he's at least a tad right-of-center on economic policy.  Don't know about any of my other professors though.

[RFayette]

I was a political science major.  I think it was a mistake.  It's probably by far the most establishment-oriented social science field, both in terms of the professors who teach it and the students in the classes (who are way more likely to be aspiring lawyers/politicians than activists).  Out here, establishment-friendly means Democrat.  In more conservative areas, political science can be pretty Republican.

This isn't too surprising; if the object of what you  are studying is a current political system, it would be pretty unlikely that many professors

My guess is that the social sciences would look something like this relatively speaking [I also put in some other majors and about where I thought they'd be in parentheses; I've heard that physicists and biologists tend to be pretty darn liberal, whereas chemists are slightly more conservative, possibly due to the larger industrial bent to parts of the discipline] :

<Left>
Gender/African American/Sexuality studies
Anthropology    Sociology

Psychology
(Biology, Physics)


(Chemistry)
Political Science    History

(Engineering)
Economics
(Business and finance + Nursing, Agriculture)
<Right>

Of course, even the average econ professor is more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican, but at the same time, the vast majority of econ departments have a healthy contingent (if a minority nonetheless) of right-of-center professors (and especially students) and some may even outright lean GOP in more conservative areas.

What do others here care to agree/disagree here?

[RFayette]

The left lean of sociology really sucks, as I really enjoy my soc classes.

Does criminology count as part of sociology?  If so, you do have John Lott and Mike Adams then.

[RFayette]

All academics are liberal.

It's a fact.

Harrumph.

Less so in the hard sciences, Muon2.   Oh, and of course in the economics departments, and business schools.

I had always thought that hard sciences were more conservative fields in academia until I saw a link (oft-repeated in liberal sites) that scientists are pretty overwhelmingly liberal.  I am curious if muon2 could comment on the accuracy of this poll:  is it really the case that only ~6% of scientists are Republicans?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html

If that survey is accurate, that would mean that economics, engineering, and business professors are far more conservative than scientists, who pretty much seem akin to humanities professors in political preferences.

[RFayette]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/29/96-percent-of-ivy-league-presidential-donations-were-for-obama/

fun little fact

Okay?  Ivy League school faculty are probably more liberal than other universities, especially ones in other regions other than the East Coast.  If all you're trying to do here is "validate" your ideology as intellectually superior, you're not adding to this discussion.  The OP clearly wanted to know how the political views of academia change across fields.  What percent of all faculty are the finance professors??  Probably not enough to even change the average.

Indeed.  I think it's pretty clear from the data that medical school & business school professors of all kinds, econ professors, engineering professors, and nursing professors are more Republican than average for professors as a whole.

Social sciences (non-econ), environmental science, and pretty much all the humanities are more Democratic than average for professors as a whole.

The wildcards are the hard sciences and fields like computer science and mathematics as well.  I believe the last two still lean a bit more Republican relative to academia though I am not sure about the hard sciences, based on the link I gave before showing just how liberal scientists in general are, hence why I am curiously awaiting muon2's response regarding scientists' political leans.

[RFayette]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961500080X

if your institution provides access to papers, this paper published recently is pretty interesting reading.

Does it break down by discipline?  If so, could you paraphrase the data?

[RFayette]

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Curious, are your computers proffs super-focused on cool-sounding concepts like "Big Data", talking about how CIS is like the most employable field ever, and how the Internet revolutionized human life (with convenient mentions of the Arab spring) etc.? Only taken one comp class so far, but that was the gist I got.

Not really.  It's more like "Student X took my class 10 years ago and founded Startup Y and stuff like that.  Big Data was 't really touched on as the course just covered the basics of data structures, graphics, and syntax.  The political references were completely random..."This graphics package has methods using polar coordinates.  Not a polar bear, guys.  (Solemn look) You know what though?  This is a terrible time to be a polar bear.  Here's what polar coordinates are..."

Or another one..."I really don't like Donald Trump, but that's a different story" (after praising Obama on net neutrality and discussing how fields like public policy need more coders)

[RFayette]

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Virtually everything touched by academia exudes liberalism, but CS is typically one of the most liberal engineering fields (if you consider it one). It's certainly more liberal than chemical, mechanical, or civil engineering.

Yeah, I never considered CS to be engineering in the proper sense, but it seems all 'technical' majors get lumped in as engineering.  The left lean of CS is rather longstanding.  I read the book 'The Innovators' by Walter Isaacson, and he discussed how many early coders were 1970's hippies who helped start the open source movement.  The influence of the Bay Area almost certainly has an impact as well, since that is the biggest hub of the tech industry.

I agree that government funding is a big reason why professors lean Dem,  but I suspect religiosity is also a big reason.  Not a single professor goes to my church, whereas about 100 students go at least occasionally.  It seems most are irreligious and those who do go would attend Jewish or liberal Protestant services mostly.