One area of law that is particularly important for the bureaucracy is called administrative law. Administrative law involves the body of law that governs how the government is organized and run. Administrative law includes things like regulations that bureaucracies craft and administer and how those regulations are carried out. The major piece of legislation that governs administrative law is the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946. The APA requires that bureaucracies wishing to publish new regulations must follow certain procedures to not only inform the public of those regulations but to give the public an opportunity to comment on them before they are put into effect. Many challenges to regulations today come out of the APA and the requirements it lays out for making and implementing regulations. In fact, this is so consequential that there is an entire court system, the administrative courts, that hears cases related to administrative law.
Private-Sector Jobs
By the term private sector, we mean nongovernment jobs. Believe it or not, as many job opportunities that exist in the government for political science majors, there are even more in the private sector. Since we left off talking about lawyers in government service, we’ll pick up with that topic here.
Lawyers
If you watch much television, you’re probably quite familiar with the sight of the courtroom lawyers. They either work for government to prosecute crimes or are defense attorneys, defending their clients from a charge or set of charges. While this is certainly a legitimate area of law, there are far more other areas of law that you could become interested in if you choose to become a lawyer. Here’s just a sampling:
— Animal law
— Antitrust law
— Banking law
— Business law
— Communications law
— Constitutional law
— Contract law
— Entertainment law
— Family law
— Health law
— Immigration law
— Juvenile law
— Marital law
— Music law
— Patent law
— Space law
— Sports law
Law degrees can also lead to jobs in entertainment or sports as an agent or representative for business affairs or contracts. It can also be parlayed into teaching constitutional law or writing on judicial issues for the media. Just because you get a law degree does not mean you’re limited in the types of things you can do with it.
Campaigns and Elections
Just as there are opportunities for lawyers both in and out of government service, jobs in the realm of campaigns and elections straddle the border as well. Due to laws restricting the use of governmental staff in the service of campaigning, when politicians run for office, they require a whole separate apparatus to organize and run their campaigns. Opportunities to work on political campaigns are wide and varied but unfortunately ebb and flow with the coming and going of election season. Campaign operatives are needed to assist in organizing travel for both the candidate and needed staffers, communicating with the press, establishing a message to potential voters, mobilizing potential voters, writing speeches, testing public opinion, and, perhaps most importantly, raising money. Today’s modern campaigns require staffers to address new dimensions of life and society, including social media and rapid reaction to comments made by others. Often, jobs with candidates can be parlayed into government positions, if and when the favored candidate wins election.
The importance and scale of campaigns and elections are such that cottage industries specializing in all of these tasks have grown to behemoth scale. These policy shops provide specialized advice to candidates and their campaigns about what their message should be or sound like, the appearance of the candidates themselves, public policy issues, and public opinion. In fact, pollsters, those who construct and conduct public opinion polls, are in high demand not just for those seeking public office but those already in it. Other firms provide services such as crafting media messages and campaign commercials. One of the most important services that these operatives can offer is on how to raise the enormous amounts of money that are often needed to run successful campaigns. A political science degree is excellent preparation for these professions because, in addition to the basic knowledge gained, many programs require courses in research methods and statistical methods that impart strong analytical research skills.
One final area of employment in the arena of campaigns and elections is that of campaign finance law. Given the flow of money into politics today and the complicated laws and regulations about what can and cannot be accepted, campaign finance lawyers are often needed to advise campaigns on what is acceptable or not and to file the required disclosures that most all candidates must file revealing who has given what to their campaign. These lawyers can play powerful roles in the outcomes of elections themselves not only by advising candidates but by shaping the interpretation of campaign finance law.
Business and Finance
Political science degrees can also lead to promising positions in business settings, particularly businesses that have interactions with governments, domestic or foreign. Think about what you learn as a political science major. Your knowledge of global affairs, international organizations, and international politics can assist major global corporations in navigating international hurdles when foreign governments must be considered or dealt with. Many large businesses and financial institutions undoubtedly have foreign dealings, particularly in countries with favorable tax laws.
One of the areas in which political science degrees can be useful is in global trade. The recent negotiation and signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a work not only in politics but economics and trade. It takes quick thinking and a solid foundation of knowledge to be able to negotiate issues not only between countries but between businesses and states. If this line of work sounds interesting, you may wish to consider a minor in business or economics along with a political science major (or admittedly, vice versa).
Businesses often require expertise in the areas of administration and evaluation. An education in the fields of public policy and/or public administration can provide a potential employer with a way to understand their business from a cultural or institutional perspective. Experts in public administration not only help in the everyday functioning of the organization but provide advice on how organizations should be structured or reformed to make them more efficient and effective.
Policy evaluation, or the analyzing of outcomes and outputs of policy to determine if and how well they are solving the intended problems, can help industry understand their own policy initiatives and ensure that they are implemented in a sensible fashion. Any time a company institutes a new policy, the skills of a good evaluator can be used. Program and policy evaluators are often hired on by a company to perform in-house evaluations of their operations and provide policy advice. While evaluators can also form their own operation that can then be contracted to perform evaluations, they are equally as likely to be hired to be on staff.
Nonprofits, Nongovernmental Organizations, and Foundations
Interest groups are those organizations which seek to influence public policy in ways other than getting candidates elected. Examples of these include the National Rifle Association (NRA), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the National