Comparison, Connectivity, and Disconnection

2019 ◽  
pp. xiv-37
Author(s):  
Leigh K. Jenco ◽  
Murad Idris ◽  
Megan C. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Comparative Political Theory

This introduction surveys works of comparative political theory, defined here as a discursive space from which to deparochialize the Eurocentric nature of political theory, to advance substantive research in and from global bodies of thought, and to hear from cognate fields. Its methods of comparison focus not on the literal juxtaposition of two discrete objects, but rather on the transformations that occur through engagement with the unfamiliar; and its aims for inclusion are not tokenistic appropriations of marginalized thinkers, but theorizations of global asymmetries of knowledge and power. The chapter argues that the contributions of comparative political theory are connective and disruptive as much as cumulative. As such, it explains how the entries and organization of this handbook can be used to build conversations, challenge paradigms, and trace thematic preoccupations across divergent contexts of time, place, and experience.

The “Legitimacy of Chinese Philosophy” Debate and the Global Extension of Disciplinary Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 699-717
Author(s):  
Leigh K. Jenco
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Disciplinary Knowledge ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

This chapter argues that the ongoing debate about the “legitimacy of Chinese philosophy” (Zhongguo zhexue hefaxing) raises issues relevant to the globalization of knowledge. On its surface, the debate concerns whether Chinese thought can be meaningfully understood as “philosophy”; more generally, it asks how, in the very process of enabling their translation into presumably more “modern” languages of intellectual expression, the terms of a specific academic discipline shape and constrain the development of particular forms of knowledge. The debate reveals the power inequalities that underlie attempts to include culturally marginalized bodies of thought within established disciplines and suggests the range of alternatives that are silenced or forgotten when this “inclusion” takes place. Even contemporary invocations of “Chinese philosophy” are often unable to comprehend the stakes of the debate for many of its Chinese participants, who link the debate to enduring questions about the capacity of indigenous Chinese academic terms to compete successfully with Euro-American ones. These debates may illuminate questions currently motivating comparative political theory.

A Democratic Case for Comparative Political Theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa S. Williams ◽  
Mark E. Warren
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Comparative Political Theory

Political Theory and the Bourgeois Public Sphere

Beyond Reason ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 175-206
Author(s):  
Sanjay Seth
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political View ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Common World

Arguing that political theory is an irremediably Western and liberal enterprise, this chapter shows that it is a discipline that does not seek to accurately represent and explain an object, but is rather knowledge “for,” performance rather than representation. The discipline is directed toward the public sphere, imagined as a realm of individuals possessed of their own “values” who, however, inhabit a common world and engage in rational, critical debate about that which they hold in common. It thus “performs” the liberal conviction that differing moral and political viewpoints being ineliminable, they must contend with each other in rational argument in a public sphere not itself marked by a commitment to any moral or political view. Recognizing the parochialism and Eurocentrism of these presumptions, some scholars have recently attempted to “deprovincialize” political theory by extending its geographical and cultural remit through “comparative political theory.” The chapter evaluates the success and shortcomings of these endeavors.

scholarly journals Institutions, Ideologies, and Comparative Political Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-438
Author(s):  
Joshua Simon
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Methodological Reflection ◽  
Insight Into

The growing prominence of comparative political theory has inspired extensive and fruitful methodological reflection, raising important questions about the procedures that political theorists should apply when they select texts for study, interpret their passages, and assess their arguments. But, notably, comparative political theorists have mainly rejected the comparative methods used in the subfield of comparative politics, because they argue that applying the comparative method would compromise both the interpretive and the critical projects that comparative political theory should pursue. In this article, I describe a comparative approach for the study of political ideas that offers unique insight into how the intellectual and institutional contexts that political thinkers occupy influence their ideas. By systematically describing how political thinking varies across time and over space in relation to the contexts within which political thinkers live and work, the comparative method can serve as the foundation for both deconstructive critiques, which reveal the partial interests that political ideas presented as universally advantageous actually serve, and reconstructive critiques, which identify particular thinkers or traditions of political thought that, because of the contexts in which they developed, offer compelling critical perspectives on existing political institutions.

A Dissenting View on the Group Approach to Soviet Politics

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Odom
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
Group Approach ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Comparative Concept ◽  
Group Concept ◽  
Significant Support

In the struggle to find a successor to the totalitarian model for study of Soviet politics, the interest-group approach has won significant support. Yet this concept fails to meet all three of Huntington's criteria for a “useful” model. First, the group concept emphasizes the peripheral at the expense of what is of critical importance. Second, as a comparative concept it introduces errors in logic as well as a myriad of ambiguities in definition and taxonomy. Third, it is more likely to obscure than to clarify the dynamic character of the Soviet system. The group approach does not promise, as some assert, to bring the study of Soviet politics into the mainstream of comparative political theory.In contrast, the totalitarian model still goes far toward meeting Huntington's criteria. When supplemented by the notion of political culture and by middle-range concepts of organization theory and bureaucracy, the totalitarian model retains great heuristic value as an ideal construct from which Soviet realities diverge in various ways.

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