scholarly journals Firmer Roots of Ethnicity and Nationalism? New Historical Research and Its Implications for Political Science

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 564-570
Author(s):  
Kurt Weyland
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Choice ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Flexible Boundaries

Among social scientists, constructivism has long reigned supreme in the study of ethnicity, nationality, and nationalism. Accordingly, scholars have highlighted the role of cultural framing and political choice in the definition of ethnic categories, their fluidity, and their flexible boundaries. Conversely, they have deemphasized the historical roots of ethnicity and depicted nations as the contested products of nationalist movements and political leaders and as (merely) “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991). Although constructivism encompasses a broad gamut of theories that differ in the malleability ascribed to ethnicity (Chandra 2012, 19–22, 139–49), recent authors have emphasized its susceptibility to change by highlighting manipulation by political-electoral entrepreneurs (Wilkinson 2012) and focusing on “identity in formation” (Laitin 1998), “ethnicity without groups” (Brubaker 2004), and “imagined noncommunities” characterized by “national indifference” (Zahra 2010).

Leaders and Foreign Policy: Surveying the Evidence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Benedict Dyson ◽  
Thomas Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Leadership Influence ◽  
Causal Variable

Political Science accounts of international politics downplay the role of political leaders, and a survey of major journals reveals that fewer than 3% of all articles focus on leaders. This is in stark contrast to public discourse about politics, where leadership influence over events is regarded as a given. This article suggests that, at a minimum, leaders occupy a space in fully specified chains of causality as the aggregators of material and ideational forces, and the transmitters of those forces into authoritative political action. Further, on occasion a more important role is played by the leader: as a crucial causal variable aggregating material and ideational energies in an idiosyncratic fashion and thereby shaping decisions and outcomes. The majority of the article is devoted to surveying the comparatively small literature on political leaders within International Relations scholarship. The article concludes by inviting our colleagues to be receptive to the idiosyncrasies, as well as the regularities, of statespersonship.

Logics of Gender Justice and Their Meaning for the Study of Sexuality and Gender Identity: A Dialogue

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-526
Author(s):  
Phillip M Ayoub
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

Abstract This piece dialogues with Htun and Weldon's exceptional new book, The Logics of Gender Justice, as it relates to LGBTI rights. Beyond engaging the authors' questions of when and why governments promote women's rights, I also engage their argument that equality is not one issue but many linked issues, including issues of sexuality and gender identity. My own reflections on their work thus address the contributions the book makes to the study of political science, as well as open questions about how their logic of gender justice might apply across other issue areas less explored in the book. Htun and Weldon's own definition of gender justice also rightly includes space for LGBTQI people, which I see as an invitation to think through the typology in relation to these communities. The piece begins by reflecting on the book's theoretical and methodical innovations around the complexities of gender politics, before moving on to the multi-faceted role of religion in gender justice, and then theoretical assumptions around visibility of the marginalized.

Politics and Power

Philosophy ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 38 (144) ◽  
pp. 117-135
Author(s):  
P. H. Partridge
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Proper Definition ◽  
Definition Of

In recent years, political scientists have talked a great deal about the proper definition of their subject, and of how the ‘field’ of the political scientist is best distinguished from that of other social scientists. One proposal that is frequently made is that political science might quite properly be defined as the study of power, its forms, its sources, its distribution, its modes of exercise, its effects. The general justification for this proposal is, of course, that political activity itself appears to be connected very intimately with power: it is often said that political activity is a struggle for power; that constitutions and other political institutions are methods of defining and regularising the distribution and the exercise of power, and so on. Since there seems to be some sense in which one can say that, within the wider area of social life, the political field is that which has some special connection with power, it may seem plausible then to suggest that the study of politics focusses upon the study of power.

scholarly journals The Role of the Department Chair: A Replication and Extension

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Roy E. L. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Department Chair ◽  
University Administration ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Broad Agreement ◽  
Strong Consensus ◽  
Definition Of

This article reports the findings of a survey of faculty opinion which both replicated and extended an earlier study of the perception of the chairperson' s role at one university. Broad agreement now exists in the definition of this role. Social Scientists no longer hold views which conflict with those of their Natural Science and Humanist colleagues. This strong consensus is best explained by the shared experience of being administered by a bureaucracy established in response to the demands of the I960's for reform of university administration.

The Present State of Ukrainian Historiography in Soviet Ukraine: A Brief Overview

1979 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Lubomyr R. Wynar
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
The West ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Definition Of

“To write history well, one must live in a free society.”— Voltaire to Frederick the GreatHistoriography, as a special historical discipline, is defined as a history of historical scholarship reflecting the development of historical thought. In the context of this definition the study of modern Ukrainian historiography is directly related to the analysis of present historiographical trends, historical concepts, the conditions under which the discipline developed, the role of Ukrainian historical research centers in Ukraine and the West, the nature and scope of historical serials, critical evaluations of contributions of individual historians, as well as the study of characteristics of various historical schools. In my opinion, the older definition of historiography as the history of historical writings is too narrow and sometimes results only in critical or enumerative historical bibliography covering writings of individual historians.

Threat, Politics, and Attitudes

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 343-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Lambert ◽  
J. P. Schott ◽  
Laura Scherer
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Powerful Effect ◽  
American President ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emotional Appraisal ◽  
Contrasting View

Social scientists have long known that threatening situations can have a powerful effect on sociopolitical attitudes. One of the more dramatic examples of this phenomenon is the “rally ’round the flag effect,” characterized by dramatic spikes in popularity of the American president. Previous models of rally effects have strongly emphasized the role of anxiety and the desire for security as explanations for these changes in support. In this article, we present a contrasting view, showing support for an anger-based conceptualization that builds upon earlier research on emotional appraisal. We discuss the relevance of our findings for theory and research across a variety of different paradigms in the social psychological and political science literature.

Charles Merriam, Max Weber, and the Search for Synthesis in Political Science

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avery Leiserson
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
World View ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Public Recognition ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Governing Institutions

The centenary of Merriam's birth provides the opportunity to reappraise the consequences of his prophetic advocacy of a more scientific expression and systematization of political knowledge. The vehicle for this appraisal is a comparison of Merriam's ’activist” epistemology wjth the more self-limiting methodology of Max Weber who, perhaps among all twentieth-century social scientists, stated most explicitly and experienced most poignantly the tensions among the requirements of acquiring objective knowledge about politics and exercising responsibility in political action. Notwithstanding their many points of difference, Merriam and Weber are interpreted as sharing common grounds of disbelief that the disjunction between science and politics will be removed by the development of a unifying, paradigmatic world-view, either within political science or between the several sciences of man, nature, and society. The political context and role of scientists are visualized by the author as consisting in: (1) mastering the personal temptations and obstacles to achieving their own peculiar brand of political competence, (2) securing public recognition and respect for the factual-scientific component of controversial situations involving their sphere of expertness, and (3) acting upon the assumption of joint skills and contributions, along with other scientists, philosophers, technicians (including politicians), and participating citizens in improving the utilization of scientific research in the formulation of public policy and reform of governing institutions.

Technique Trumps Relevance: The Professionalization of Political Science and the Marginalization of Security Studies

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Desch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Self Image ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Basic And Applied Research ◽  
Definition Of

I explain here the disconnect between our discipline's self-image as balancing rigor with relevance with the reality of how we actually conduct our scholarship most of the time. To do so, I account for variation in social scientists' willingness to engage in policy-relevant scholarship over time. My theory is that social science, at least as it has been practiced in the United States since the early twentieth century, has tried to balance two impulses: To be a rigorous science and a relevant social enterprise. The problem is that there are sometimes tensions between these two objectives. First, historically the most useful policy-relevant social science work in the area of national security affairs has been interdisciplinary in nature, and this cuts against the increasingly rigid disciplinary siloes in the modern academy. Second, as sociologist Thomas Gieryn puts it, there is “in science, an unyielding tension between basic and applied research, and between the empirical and theoretical aspects of inquiry.” During wartime, the tensions between these two impulses have been generally muted, especially among those disciplines of direct relevance to the war effort; in peacetime, they reemerge and there are a variety of powerful institutional incentives within academe to resolve them in favor of a narrow definition of rigor that excludes relevance. My objective is to document how these trends in political science are marginalizing the sub-field of security studies, which has historically sought both scholarly rigor and real-world relevance. — Michael Desch.This essay is followed by responses from Ido Oren, Laura Sjobreg, Helen Louise Turton, Erik Voeten, and Stephen M. Walt. Michael Desch then offers a response to commentators.

scholarly journals Digital Technologies, Dysfunctional Movement-Party Dynamics and the Threat to Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deana Rohlinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Information Studies ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The U.S

On January 6, 2021, the world watched as Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol. However, in this paper, I argue that social scientists should not simply focus on Trump or the Republicans who have supported his false claims that the presidency was stolen from him. Instead, researchers need to leverage the insights provided by sociology, political science and information studies and communication to unpack the increasingly dysfunctional movement-party dynamics in the U.S., which not only made the January 6th riots possible but continue to erode democratic processes. Here, I outline four developments over the last thirty years that help account for the contemporary political moment and underscore the role of digital technologies in these developments.

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