scholarly journals Rethinking the Methodological Foundation of Historical Political Science

Author(s):  
Qipeng Shi

AbstractThe basis of a methodology determines whether a research method can fit the core characteristics of a particular academic tradition, and thus, it is crucial to explore this foundation. Keeping in mind the controversy and progress of the philosophy of social sciences, this paper aims to elaborate on four aspects including the cognitive model, the view of causality, research methods, and analysis techniques, and to establish a more solid methodological basis for historical political science. With respect to the “upstream knowledge” of methodology, both positivism and critical realism underestimate the tremendous difference between the natural world and the social world. This leads to inherent flaws in controlled comparison and causal mechanism analysis. Given the constructiveness of social categories and the complexity of historical circumstances, the cognitive model of constructivism makes it more suitable for researchers to engage in macro-political and social analysis. From the perspective of constructivism, the causality in “storytelling,” i.e., the traditional narrative analysis, is placed as the basis of the regularity theory of causality in this paper, thus forming the historical–causal narrative. The historical–causal narrative focuses on how a research object is shaped and self-shaped in the ontological historical process, and thus ideally suits the disciplinary characteristics of historical political science. Researchers can complete theoretical dialogues, test hypotheses, and further explore the law of causality in logic and evidence, thereby achieving the purpose of “learning from history” in historical political science.

Politics ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Lewis

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this ‘ontological turn’ in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brian Tweed

<p>In this thesis, the learning of conventional curriculum mathematics in indigenous Māori schools is conceptualised as a site of struggle within the wider context of a national New Zealand education system. For example, the research literature documents the effects of inadequate mathematics education resources, detrimental impacts on the nature of traditional Māori language and cultural practices, and concerns about under-achievement of Māori students in mathematics and access to powerful societal knowledge. The thesis aims to uncover a causal mechanism for the struggle with mathematics education in one Māori school.  Empirical data about mathematics learning activities are examined using a theoretical perspective strongly influenced by Dialectical Critical Realism. The methodological frameworks are based on Basil Bernstein’s sociology of education, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory. Using these theoretical and methodological tools, empirical data are related to deeper-level ontological determinations which underpin practices in the Māori school.  The major conclusion of the thesis is that struggle derives from two conflicting ontological determinations about the nature of a person. Mathematics education tends to construe people, and create subjectivities, in terms of their knowledge. The ethos of the Māori school considered in this thesis tends to construe people, and create subjectivities, in terms of their genealogically-embedded, unique, material and spiritual natures.  Based on this conclusion, the thesis indicates some potential consequences and future developments of mathematics education in Māori schools. These developments may be thought of in general terms as a disengagement from current relations with mathematics education, an establishment of autonomy, and a re-engagement with mathematics on different terms.</p>


1939 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Morstein Marx

IT IS a painful paradox that the defeats suffered by the democratic myth abroad have coincided with the rise of a critical realism toward democratic institutions at home. No trend is more marked in contemporary American political science than that of comprehending the polity in terms of “pressure groups” competing for control. Such atomistic segregation inevitably minimizes the essential function of a firmly established ideological framework. Without it, the state is limp; allegiance is reduced to considerations of material satisfaction, changing with demand and supply; individual freedom lacks a dedication to superindividual objectives.


2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACK SNYDER ◽  
ERICA D. BORGHARD

A large literature in political science takes for granted that democratic leaders would pay substantial domestic political costs for failing to carry out the public threats they make in international crises, and consequently that making threats substantially enhances their leverage in crisis bargaining. And yet proponents of this audience costs theory have presented very little evidence that this causal mechanism actually operates in real—as opposed to simulated—crises. We look for such evidence in post-1945 crises and find hardly any. Audience cost mechanisms are rare because (1) leaders see unambiguously committing threats as imprudent, (2) domestic audiences care more about policy substance than about consistency between the leader's words and deeds, (3) domestic audiences care about their country's reputation for resolve and national honor independent of whether the leader has issued an explicit threat, and (4) authoritarian targets of democratic threats do not perceive audience costs dynamics in the same way that audience costs theorists do. We found domestic audience costs as secondary mechanisms in a few cases where the public already had hawkish preferences before any threats were made.


Author(s):  
Shaul Shenhav

One may plausibly assume that the current academic interest in narrative research stems from a growing awareness that human beings are by their very nature storytellers, and that the stories we make become part of who we are, be it as individuals or groups. Indeed, narrative analysis has gained wide ground in many fields of the humanities and social sciences. This bibliography article is intended primarily for students and scholars of politics, but it can be of use for readers and researchers from other disciplinary backgrounds in the social sciences. While political scholars may not be among the pioneers that embraced “the narrative turn,” the connection between politics and narratives is of very long standing. A common reference in this regard is Plato’s discussion on the education of the guardians in the third book of his Republic. For all that, scholars and students of politics who wish to get acquainted with seminal works in narrative research should venture beyond political science into literature studies, sociology, communication, linguistics, historiography, psychology, and many other fields. In fact, the leading approach to systematic study of narratives, known as “narratology,” was developed mainly by literary scholars and is yet to be adapted to questions salient to politics. Therefore it is only right that scholars who wish to engage in narrative study should be able to familiarize themselves with works outside their particular field of expertise. Even a cursory overview of the use of narratives in political science reveals a wide diversity of epistemological and ontological trajectories. The reason is that narrative analysis in political science does not emanate from a preexisting tradition or stream of research, but rather is based on an adaptation of various narrative elements to address an array of questions related to that discipline. Moreover, the variety of assumptions regarding the concept of narrative, manifested in other disciplines, is typical of political studies as well. Such a plurality of definitions and concepts makes the review of selected narrative studies a veritably daunting task. Given the rich, broad, and diverse contents, issues, and methodologies addressed and utilized by scholars who apply narrative analysis in political science, organizing the body of narrative research into clear-cut sections and avoiding overlaps is not always feasible. It is possible, however, to map main trends in the study of narrative analysis in political science. This bibliography begins with a General Overviews and Methodological Sources section. The next several sections largely proceed from studies that emphasize individual perspectives, to research targeting groups and national states, to examinations of the international arena. Several subsequent sections cite mainly investigations concerned with theoretical issues regarding the use of narrative approaches in the political domain. The concluding section comprises a list of fundamental methodological sources and journals relevant for scholars interested in narrative and politics.


Author(s):  
Emeka A. Ndaguba ◽  
Onyinye J. Ndaguba ◽  
Michel M. Tshiyoyo ◽  
Kgothatso B. Shai

To conceive the notion of corruption presupposes the existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations. The existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations you might say presupposes the presence of an entity. Every entity (i.e. state or corporate) has laid down procedures, processes and methods of doings and functioning. When these procedures and processes are negated, one could be accused of subversion. Subversion is an element in the definition of administrative corruption and is the unwillingness to follow stipulated plans of actions. An action that negates procedures falls under corrupt practice. This article will answer the following research questions: How has corruption been framed and perceived and what are the underlining consequences in Africa? In what ways, if any, has the prevailing perception of corruption undermined and understated the notion of corruption in Africa? In what ways can a remedial be conceived in the fight to make Africa free of corruption? And finally: How can Kleptoafronia be conceived as a panacea for corruption in the continent? This article uses themes and narrative analysis in the qualitative realm to provide answers to the research questions. Over 500 scholarly materials were read and scanned from journal articles, Internet sources, textbooks and several academic indexes to provide evidence for the arguments in this article from five disciplinary standpoints: political science, public administration, criminology, psychology and medical sciences. This article is a conceptual article that tends to demonstrate that corruption in Africa is a psych-administrative disorder termed – Kleptoafronia.


Author(s):  
Stephen Pratten

Critical realism in economics is centrally concerned with demonstrating how an explicit focus on social ontology can help identify the nature of contemporary mainstream economics and promote the further development of more relevant alternatives. In examining the relationship between critical realism and post-Keynesian economics two issues are considered. First, this chapter addresses the question of how a project that is primarily concerned with social ontology can productively inform, or offer directionality to, a more substantive program such as that of post-Keynesian economics. Second, the chapter considers how post-Keynesian economics can provide certain important resources for those seeking to stake out a distinctive position in social ontology. The argument is that the two projects can be mutually supportive. Critical realism can clarify what post-Keynesianism is and how it relates to other projects. Post-Keynesian economics, meanwhile, through its accounts of central social categories, offers material with which to work to those critical realists seeking to focus on issues in social ontology at a less abstract level than has been typical in the project.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-366
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac

The broad theme of “nature and politics” has been ubiquitous at least since Aristotle's Politics, the fourth century BCE text often considered the founding work of political science. Long before “political science” took the distinct disciplinary and institutional forms with which we are familiar, the effort to understand the sources and the range of political experience was typically linked to reflection on nature—the nature of politics, the nature of human beings, the nature of existence, and the nature of “nature” itself. In contemporary, post-World War II political science in the United States, much of this reflection about nature has until recently been linked to the work of Leo Strauss and his followers, who saw themselves as heirs to a philosophical discourse at odds with modern social science. At the same time, serious consideration of nature as a theme of political science never disappeared and in recent decades has dramatically expanded. (And of course interpretations of the science of nature, i.e., “science,” have been at the center of political science, especially since the advent of behavioralism.) One source of this expansion of interest in nature has no doubt been the growing politicization of “the environment” and heightened attention to the natural world as both the setting in which human interaction takes place and the object of extraordinary human transformation and degradation. Another source has been the politicization of identities—race, gender, sexuality—that had long been considered natural and whose contestation raised anew questions about “human nature” and its limits, variations, and transformations. A third source has clearly been the technological and theoretical development of “the natural sciences” themselves, and the growth of new discourses—evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience—that raise new questions about the complex relationships between the non-human dimensions of nature—physics, chemistry, biology and especially neurobiology—and human individuals and the social worlds that human individuals inhabit.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Kuorikoski ◽  
Petri Ylikoski

In this paper we argue that, despite its influence, critical realism is not the most promising version of scientific realism for economics. The main problem with critical realism is its hermetic insulation from the mainstream of the philosophy of science. We argue that this intellectual isolation is unfortunate, as it has meant that critical realism has missed many opportunities to develop its central concepts, such as causal mechanism, emergence, and explanation. At the same time, we argue, critical realists have missed some crucial aspects of the intellectual strategy of modern economics. Our point is not to defend mainstream economics, rather it is to show that a better understanding of modeling as a scientific research strategy opens up the possibility of a more penetrating analysis of its possible shortcomings.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-114
Author(s):  
Irina Diana Mădroane

AbstractThe article looks at a corpus of personal stories told by Romanian migrant women who work as caregivers in Italy or by journalists, from the women’s perspective, in two Romanian diasporic publications. It aims to gain an insight into the ways the narrators use the diasporic media space to (re)situate themselves in relation to the home and host societies. A methodological framework that incorporates elements from narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis is applied for examining the (self-)construction of agency and social roles, the negotiation of belonging to social categories, and the positionings that emerge, including towards dominant worldviews and discourses on low-skilled migrant women. The findings indicate that the women narrators build their identities in a complex interplay of (dis-)empowering stances, using their experience of migration to attain agency and to contest, but also reaffirm, in a transnational context, traditional gender roles, occupational and class stigmas, and stereotypical perceptions of nationality.


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