Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 350
Author(s):  
N. Abinales Patricio
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Science Theory

Discussion of Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu's Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-208
Author(s):  
Thomas B. Pepinsky ◽  
Barbara Geddes ◽  
Duncan McCargo ◽  
Richard Robison ◽  
Erik Martinez Kuhonta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Sensitive Area ◽  
Theoretical Orientations ◽  
Social Science Knowledge ◽  
Science Theory

Comparative politics has witnessed periodic debates between proponents of contextually sensitive area studies research and others who view such work as unscientific, noncumulative, or of limited relevance for advancing broader social science knowledge. In Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis, edited by Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu, a group of bright, young Southeast Asianists argue that contextually sensitive research in Southeast Asia using qualitative research methods has made fundamental and lasting contributions to comparative politics. They challenge other Southeast Asianists to assert proudly the contributions that their work has made and urge the rest of the comparative politics discipline to take these contributions seriously. This symposium includes four short critical reviews of Southeast Asia in Political Science by political scientists representing diverse scholarly traditions. The reviews address both the methodological and the theoretical orientations of the book and are followed by a response from the editors.

Political Science: Seeing Like a Subversive Social Scientist

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-437
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
New Democracy

Much of the work of political science revolves around institutions—the structures through which politics happens. Leaders enter the frame, of course, but often as institutions in human form: presidents, premiers, populists, and mobilizers who serve to channel and direct who does what and what they do, much like an agency or law. We might trace this pseudo-structural, largely mechanical reading of human agency to political scientists of an earlier era: the behavioralists of the 1950s and 1960s. James C. Scott began his career as just such a scholar. For his dissertation-turned-book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite, Scott surveyed a gaggle of Malaysian bureaucrats to examine, effectively, the extent to which their values and assumptions supported or subverted the new democracy they served. Although itself fairly prosaic, that work foreshadows the political grime and games that soon pulled Scott in more promising directions theoretically, whether scrutinizing Southeast Asia or global patterns: disentangling structure from norms, finding agency around the margins of class and state, and rethinking how power looks and functions.

The Application of Method in the Construction of Political Science Theory

1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.W. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Science Theory

On veut montrer dans cet article qu'une grande partie du débat actuel entre les « behavioristes » et les « post-behavioristes » porte à faux, en ce qu'il repose sur une fausse conception de la science, partagée par les uns et les autres. La question posée est donc : comment ces deux groupes conçoivent-ils la science ? Il est montré que l'image de la science que se font les « post-behavioristes » découle de celle qui est proposée par les principaux tenants du behaviorisme. Or cette image est fausse en ce qu'elle insiste trop sur la construction théorique par voie inductive. L'examen, à la lumière de la philosophie des sciences, des notions d'observation, de conceptualisation et de construction théorique montre cette fausseté. Si on fait une distinction analytique entre un contexte de découverte et un contexte de justification, la critique méthodologique du behaviorisme peut être reformulée et néanmoins maintenue, tout en annulant plusieurs aspects importants de la critique « post-behavioriste ». Tant qu'on ne reformulera pas ainsi la conception de la science partagée par les deux groupes, le débat entre eux demeurera faux. Si on veut le poursuivre et le résoudre de façon féconde, il devra être tranché à partir de la connaissance du monde politique qui est fournie par les deux groupes, et non pas à partir des accusations dramatiques qu'ils échangent entre eux.

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