Theory and Research Process in Social Sciences in Nigeria: A Synthesis and Evaluation of the State of Debate in Political Science

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Celestine O. Bassey
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disciplinary Matrix

The disciplinary matrix of politics has been at the epicentre of the theoretical and epistemic ferment which has characterized the social sciences in the past forty years. This epistemic ferment found cogent expression in the Nigerian social sciences in the!980s and 1990s, as could be seen in the works of a number of scholars. By and large, however, the ‘search for a paradigm’ an inclusive attempt to comprehend the theory and practice of states’ behaviour which has characterized endeavours in the political science discipline, in the West and East is still an exception rather than the rule in the literature concerning Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. The ‘golden age’ of contemporary political analysis involving the best and brightest in both East and West is still a distant future horizon for Nigeria. This paper argues that the reason for this epistemic ‘underdevelopment’ of political science in Nigeria has multiple causes and is organically linked to generational thought forces which devalue theory and methoiiin political science, castigate Marxist epistemology and seek through intimidation to make ‘disciples’ rather than ‘scholars’ out of the young ‘initiates’ into the discipline.

Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Politics ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ontological Turn

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.

The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (03) ◽  
pp. 616-618
Author(s):  
Diego Mazzoccone ◽  
Mariano Mosquera ◽  
Silvana Espejo ◽  
Mariana Fancio ◽  
Gabriela Gonzalez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Science Discipline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

Reflexivity and International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inanna Hamati-Ataya
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Ethical Problem ◽  
Research Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Sociological Studies

Reflexivity has in the past few decades become a core concept and concern in the social sciences and has increasingly shaped (meta) theoretical debates in the field of International Relations (IR) since the 1980s. While there is no single understanding of what reflexivity (sometimes referred to as reflectivity or self-reflexivity) means or entails, a broad consensus identifies reflexivity as the capacity to reflect on one’s own epistemic situation and process, and how these affect the nature and meaning of the knowledge one produces. As such, there are different strands of reflexive or reflexivist scholarship in IR, based on how these different elements are envisaged and addressed. Expanding beyond mere “control against bias,” which was a core concern of American behavioralist scholars in the 1950s, reflexivity has turned from a standard for the pursuit of “objective” knowledge to a problematization of, and response to, the historicity and social-situatedness of knowledge. Discussions of reflexivity in IR are thus typically generated within self-labelled post-positivist intellectual traditions, wherein reflexivity becomes a fundamental epistemological, methodological, and/or ethical problem that requires constant engagement as an integral part of the research process, and that also affects other aspects of the scholarly vocation and practice, including pedagogy and public engagement. Within this broad literature, this annotated bibliography will cover works that have contributed to clarifying and promoting reflexivity as a metatheoretical standard for IR (i.e., reflexivity as a core question for epistemology, ontology, methodology, and ethics), but also works that have contributed to an empirical understanding of IR’s historical and social embeddedness. The reason for including the latter within reflexivist IR—in the broad sense of the term—despite the fact that many authors of such works have not necessarily self-identified as reflexivists, is that they in effect provide an important empirical basis upon which the problematization and clarification of the problem of reflexivity become possible in philosophical and praxical terms. Indeed, in most social sciences such empirical investigation of the embeddedness of knowledge within social structures and orders is provided by historiographical and sociological studies on the sociohistorical conditions of the “production” or “constitution” of knowledge. But IR scholars have in the past few decades developed an in-house historiographical and “science studies” agenda that has increased the whole community’s understanding of the specific sociopolitical and institutional contexts and factors that shape its nature and evolution. The two literatures are therefore conceptually and practically connected, and together contribute to whatever level of reflexivity IR as a field can now be said to enjoy.

A Survey of the Discipline of Political Science in Iran

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-127
Author(s):  
Maryam Rutner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
University Curricula

AbstractThis survey examines the content and purpose of the political science discipline in respect to seven prominent universities in Iran and its significance for the Iranian society. It is based on quantitative and qualitative data including personal interviews and survey results, as well as theses conducted by political science students, academic articles written by scholars in the field, and university curricula. The survey suggests that Iranian political science after the 1979 revolution addresses contemporary political problems and challenges related to Iran only to a limited extent, and is predominantly theoretical and “borrowed” in nature, despite the goal during the Cultural Revolution to indigenize and Islamicize the social sciences.

Open Video Repositories for College Instruction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Miller ◽  
Anna CohenMiller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Significant Variation ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
College Instruction ◽  
The Past ◽  
Production Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Wealthy Donors

Key features of open video repositories are outlined, followed by brief description of specific sites relevant to the social sciences. Although most were created by instructors over the past 10 years to facilitate teaching and learning, significant variation in kind, quality, and number per discipline were discovered. Economics and Psychology have the most extensive sets of repositories, while Political Science has the least development. Among original-content websites, Economics has the strongest collection in terms of production values, given substantial support from wealthy donors to advance political and economic agendas. Sociology stands out in having the most developed website in which found-video is applied to teaching and learning. Numerous multidisciplinary sites of quality have also emerged in recent years.

Les débuts de la science politique dans les milieux chrétiens

Res Publica ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-520
Author(s):  
Rudolf Rezsohazy
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Nineteen Eighties ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learned Societies

The social problem incites the Belgian catholics to study scientifically the human collectivity. As early as the nineteen-eighties learned societies are ouded, seminars, congresses, lectures are organized, a review is launched. At the Catholic University of Louvain the School of Political and Social Sciences is inaugurated in 1892. The sociological approach of the problems becomes wide-spread.All this movement is prepared by the work of a pioneer : Edouard Ducpétiaux (1804-1868) . He opens the way by his numerous publications and realizations in as various fields as the social inquiries, statistics, sociography, social economics, political science, criminology... The article analyses his methodology and shows place of E. Ducpétiaux among the main intellectual currents of the past century.

This Is Not a Turn: Canadian Political Science and Social Mechanisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireille Paquet ◽  
Jörg Broschek
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
The Social

AbstractMechanism-based explanations are gaining in popularity in the social sciences. Canadian political science has somewhat embraced these debates. Recent work has explicitly identified with mechanismic explanation and, at the same time, there is a point to be made about the compatibility of CPS's cannons with a mechanism-based understanding of causation. In this paper, we survey past and recent work aligned with this ontological approach. We demonstrate a heterogeneous engagement with the methodological literature regarding mechanisms and different understandings as well as uses of mechanisms in political analysis. This survey allows us to argue for the potential of mechanism-based explanations for CPS while also forcing us to advocate for a sober and discerning use of this approach.

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.

Studying the (Economic) Consequences of Populism

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 204-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Short Piece

Pundits and academics alike are increasingly interested in populism. This is a welcome development, since not long ago research on populism was relegated to the margins of the social sciences. Among those who are starting to undertake comparative research on populism, there is, however, a tendency to overlook the cumulative scholarship that has been developed on the topic (e.g., Rovira Kaltwasser et al. 2017). In this short piece I offer an overview of the ideational approach to populism, which is becoming increasingly influential in the political science literature and can also be useful for those interested in studying the economic consequences of populism.

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