Political Science at the Crossroads

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Deborah Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Metaphysical Theory ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Past Half

Political science is at the parting of the ways. Its foundations have been undermined by the claims of law and jurisprudence, into whose hands it has been deliberately surrendering itself for the past half-century or more, and now its chief strongholds are under fire from the neighboring fields of sociology, economics, and ethics. So severe and so persistent have these attacks become that the time has arrived when the political scientist must decide whether he will allow his subject to be absorbed in any one or all of these various fields, or will attempt to reëstablish it as a distinctive discipline.The reasons for this state of things are not difficult to discover. They quite obviously lie in the fact that in the pursuit of their basic problem—the search, namely, for the nature and source of sovereignty—political philosophers have so generally followed two equally futile and fruitless paths: either the path of pure speculation leading to a supernatural or metaphysical theory, or the path of legal analysis, leading ultimately to the juristic theory of the state. Indeed, during these recent years political theory has been so increasingly “under bondage to the lawyers” that it is little wonder that a reaction has come, and that thinkers in their determination to find the reality behind the formal juristic conception, are now repudiating not only the legal, but even the political, character of the state.

FUNDAMENTALISM, BUREAUCRATIZATION, AND THE STATE'S CO-OPTATION OF RELIGION: A JORDANIAN CASE STUDY

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard T. Antoun
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Middle East ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Equal Duration ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Past Half

In the Middle East over the past half-century, three religious processes have grown together. One, the growth of fundamentalism, has received worldwide attention both by academics and journalists. The others, the bureaucratization of religion and the state co-optation of religion, of equal duration but no less importance, have received much less attention. The bureaucratization of religion focuses on the hierarchicalization of religious specialists and state co-optation of religion focuses on their neutralization as political opponents. Few commentators link the three processes. In Jordan, fundamentalism, the bureaucratization of religion (BOR), and state co-optation of religion (SCR) have become entwined sometimes in mutually supportive and sometimes in antagonistic relations. The following case study will describe and analyze the implications of this mutual entanglement for the relations of state and civil society and for the human beings simultaneously bureaucratized and “fundamentalized.”

A Reply to A.G. Hopkins

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLYN M. WARNER
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist

The political scientist who relies upon historiographic sources to propose and test hypotheses runs the risk of riling up not only her peers in the discipline, but also the historians upon whose work she must rely to provide the materials for these hypotheses. It was intellectually satisfying and stimulating to learn that my work has been read not only by scholars in ‘my’ discipline, but also by those in the discipline which made my own analysis possible, and I am grateful for Professor Hopkins' extensive comments. As Hopkins notes, there are differences in the orientation of the two disciplines: political science has as one of its central concerns ‘the state’, while historians are more interested ‘in charting changing relativities in international relations’. As a political scientist, I am indeed interested in identifying the factors which lead to such changes.

scholarly journals Inside and outside of science the legacy of Elemér Hankiss

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Ferenc Miszlivetz
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Study Centre ◽  
Historic City ◽  
Past Half

Elemér Hankiss was one of the most influential and brilliant thinkers of the past half century in Hungary and Central Europe. His work overarches disciplines from literary criticism and sociology, to political science, anthropological philosophy and civilizational theory. Thanks to his numerous essays and media appearances he was highly appreciated and well-respected as a non-partisan public intellectual. This essay investigates some of the lesser known aspects of his oeuvre, and his contribution to creating a unique advanced study centre in Western Hungary’s historic city of Kőszeg. It also highlights his outstanding ability to oscillate between different disciplines and public activities, while at the same time continuously focusing on the existential questions of human existence.

A Reckoning with Depth

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-204
Author(s):  
Stephen Skowronek ◽  
John A. Dearborn ◽  
Desmond King
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
American Government ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Administrative Power ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Deep State ◽  
Effective Operation ◽  
Past Half

The Deep State versus the unitary executive has been a spectacle too vivid to ignore. It should impress us all with the unsettled place of administration in contemporary American government. One might have thought that a matter of such vital importance to the effective operation of the state would have been resolved long ago. But over the past half century, questions surrounding administrative power and its political control have been growing more, not less, contentious. Trump’s presidency forces a reckoning that is long overdue. In the Epilogue, we evaluate the lessons of this clash between unity and depth. The problem is not that the president can’t find evidence to hang on his frame: the problem is the solution intrinsic to the frame. The state Trump would have us embrace is every bit as menacing as the state he would have us abandon.

YEZID SAYIGH, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Pp. 96. £70.00 cloth.

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-196
Author(s):  
Ann M. Lesch
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Movement ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Palestinian National Movement ◽  
Past Half

Yezid Sayigh's encylopedic history focuses on the role that the idea of armed struggle played in the Palestinian national movement as it evolved over the past half-century. His central thesis is that “armed struggle provided the political impulse and organisational dynamic in the evolution of Palestinian national identity and in the formation of parastatal institutions and a bureaucratic elite, the nucleus of government” (p. vii). The concept of armed struggle reforged Palestinian national identity, mobilized Palestinians, provided political legitimization to the Palestinian movement, made the Palestinians a distinct political actor in relation to the Arab states, helped to create institutions that could form the basis of a government, and established a well-defined political elite. Thus, even though Palestinian leaders never transformed the armed struggle into a people's war along the lines of Algeria or Vietnam, and never liberated any part of Palestine by force, armed struggle served other important, statist functions.

scholarly journals Discussion, Dream, Art, People

Theater ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Tom Sellar
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Altered Consciousness ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The Future ◽  
Past Half

In this article, Tom Sellar, the editor of Theater for sixteen years, reflects on the five-decade legacy of the magazine. Sellar’s personal retrospective looks both backward and forward, from Theater’s polemical beginnings in the late 1960s and his own encounters with the magazine as a student in the 1980s to the political exigencies of the present day and the demands this moment makes on the future of theater and criticism. As Sellar writes, Theater’s early radical spirit has not left the magazine’s mission: “Part muse, part archive, part mirror, Theater has held tightly to … its permanent stance that the theater can provide a vessel for transformation, bringing altered consciousness and maybe a better society.” Tracing this history, Sellar illuminates how Theater, as a journal and a reflection of its object of inquiry, has responded to the evolving idea of a public — a sphere that has narrowed and expanded, fractured and recombined over the past half century.

scholarly journals Demons, Spirits, and Elephants: Reflections on the Failure of Public Administration Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvin J. Dubnick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Past Half

For the past half-century, those defining the field of Public Administration in their role as its leading “theorists” have been preoccupied with defending the enterprise against the evils of value-neutral logical positivism. This polemical review of that period focuses on the Simon-Waldo debate that ultimately leads the field to adopt a “professional” identity rather than seek disciplinary status among the social sciences. A survey of recent works by the field’s intellectual leaders and “gatekeepers” demonstrates that the anti-positivist obsession continues, oblivious to significant developments in the social sciences. The paper ends with a call for Public Administrationists to engage in the political and paradigmatic upheavals required to shift the field toward a disciplinary stance.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Jeremy Prestholdt
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
The State ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Past Half

Why do particular figures appeal to diverse audiences at specific historical moments? What social roles do icons play in an interfaced world? Tracing the history of global icons over the past half-century demonstrates that the answers to these questions lie not only in the form and connotations of icons, but also in their significant malleability across space and time. Global icons crystallize thought, channel ideas, foster real or imagined linkages, and focus communal energies. They represent imagination beyond the state, political party, or movement. In short, audiences transform iconic figures into the dynamic products of the transnational imagination and collective interpretation. Seemingly timeless, iconic figures symbolize transcendence and communal ideals while remaining malleable. Thus, attraction to icons is not the idolization of the individual per se. Rather, it is the idolization of possibility, of the visions and values that audiences imagine iconic figures to represent.

Political Science and Prevision

1965 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand de Jouvenel
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
States Of Nature

The political scientist is a teacher of public men in the making, and an adviser of public men in activity; “public men,” that is, men who are taught, invited or assumed to feel some responsibility for the exercise of political power; “political power,” that is, concentrated means of affecting the future.Obviously we can not affect the past, or that present moment which is now passing away, but only what is not yet: the future alone is sensitive to our actions, voluntary if aimed at a pictured outcome, rational if apt to cause it, prudently conceived if we take into account circumstances outside our control (known to decision theorists as “states of nature”), and the conflicting moves of others (known in game theory as opponents' play). A result placed in the future, conditions intervening in the future, need we say more to stress that decisions are taken “with an eye to the future,” in other terms, with foresight?

Sexual Propositions

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Josh Sides
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Past Half

California—simultaneously celebrated and reviled for its fabled sexual tolerance for the past half-century—has pioneered the use of sexual propositions, ballot initiatives designed to either expand the scope of “obscenity” censorship or to suppress the rights and aspirations of homosexuals. Viewed through the prism of the sexual propositions, the political landscape of California looks quite different than we generally imagine. This article examines the history of these propositions, their financial backers, and the politicians involved with them, including E. Richard Barnes’s Proposition 16, John Briggs’s Proposition 6 (The Briggs Initiative), and William J. “Pete” Knight’s Proposition 22.

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