Ok, here's a question that's been bugging me for a while...

the Blogosphere has lots of economists. Lots. Whether they're leftist like Max, Rightist like Jane Galt, or whatever-the-hell like Bradford Delong, you can't toss a disappeared Blogger entry without hitting an economist. Ditto for law professors (although that's probably to do with Glenn and his notoriety).

So where the hell is everybody else?

I mean, there's been rather a lot of talk about foreign societies lately, but I haven't detected even a whiff of a sociologist. Warblogging is basically political discussion by another name, but I can't think of any political scientists off the top of my head. I don't quite know where, say, an Anthropologist would enter into it, but I'm not going to find out, either, because they ain't exactly thick on the ground. A lot of discussion revolves around the nature of various religions, but precious few people seem to be weighing in as experts in that field; and while cultural studies is a pretty damned problematic field of study (in my humble opinion), not too many people who are commenting on culture seem to actually have much of a theoretical grounding in it.

Now, I'm not necessarily trying to inject some sort of credentialism into an anarchic medium, but I think that the analysis that's going on right now is somewhat lacking. We'll get some situational analysis, and maybe some comparative analysis (although the comparisons are sometimes of dubious validity, it's still going on), but most of the theoretical analysis has been complete seat-of-the-pants stuff with little connection to actual theories in the relevant field. Except, of course, in the case of economics, where the algebra and charts flow fast 'n thick if you'll let them.

Assuming for the moment that experts in the field are worth at least listening to, where are they?

Edit: Ack, blogger ate my post. Bloody thing. Anyway, a few responses in the comments section showed that there are, yes, people with political science backgrounds who both write blogs and (apparently) read my site. Duly noted.