Keefe Smiling!

Abstract

Among the legendary thin volumes such asEthics for Used-Car DealersorLove Sonnets for Bureaucrats, one would invariably find a copy ofThe Wit and Humor of Political Science. There is an irony here and it is this: the very subject matter which is studied by political scientists—government and politics—has produced an enormous amount of humor, but those who study it rarely allow themselves the luxury of approaching the topic with levity or a sense of the absurd. How can it be that what is humorous in practice is so serious in theory? There are jokes about sports, jokes about ethnic groups, jokes about sex, and even jokes about religion but can anyone recall the last time he was elbowed in the ribs and had someone snicker to him, “Say, did you hear the latest joke about content analysis?” What would a joke about political scientists sound like? Would it go something like this? Question: How many political scientists does it take to experience love-making? The answer is three—two to ask each other how it felt and the third to determine the degree of inter-coder reliability. Pretty slim pickings on the whole until the book that is the subject of this piece of arrant puffery.