Search

The pluralist image of US democracy embodies diversity and compromise and represents the political behavior of organized groups. Pluralism remains the dominant ideology of democracy in 20th century America. Progressive realists, such as James Madison, challenged the traditional theory of state and focused on the politics of group activity in the increasingly fragmented American society. By the mid-1920s, political pluralism based on group politics was reconciled with the theory of representative government. Since the 1960s the concept is being criticized, paving way for radical pluralism.

A reflection is made on the history of what constitutes political science, its conduct of inquiry while highlighting Thomas Kuhn's view on scientific revolution. It is felt that social pluralism is no longer considered a threat to social democracy as it was in the 1960's.

Zeev Sternhell (ed.), The Intellectual Revolt Against Liberal Democracy 1870-1945 (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1996), 397 pp., $40 (hbk), ISBN 965 208 132 9. The essays [...]

John G. Gunnell, State University of New York at Albany The thirty-seventh volume of the NOMOS series consists of sixteen chapters derived from papers presented at the 1992 Annual meeting [...]

An essay on comparison between theoretical and empirical political science. It discusses interpretation in political theory, the role of empirical matters in political theory, comparison between political theorists and political scientists in terms of having fun in their work, and professional commitments of political science.

Although a great deal has been written about the perestroika movement in turn-of-the century political science its actual place in the history of the discipline has been poorly understood by its founders, defenders, and critics. Perestroika can be best understood as a manifestation of the persistent crises of identity that have characterized the discipline of political science, and it cannot be explained apart from the manner in which it was reflection of issues that attended both the origins of the field and periods such as the 1920s and aftermath of the behavioral era. What has been particularly important in each case has been the impact on both American politics and political science of the ethic of pluralism, which has created significant difficulties for both the practical and epistemic relationship between the discipline and its subject matter. — John Gunnell.This essay is followed by responses from James Farr, Robert O. Keohane, David D. Laitin, Kristen Renwick Monroe, Anne Norton, and Sanford F. Schram. John Gunnell then offers a response to commentators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Man Is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics. Edited by Peter K. Hatemi and Rose McDermott. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. 352p. $80.00 cloth, $27.50 paper.Peter K. Hatemi and Rose McDermott's Man Is by Nature a Political Animal brings together some of the most important social scientists working at the intersection of political science, psychology, biology, and cognitive neuroscience. Given recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and given the proliferation of work in political science that draws on these advances, we have decided to invite a range of political scientists to comment on the promise and the limits of this line of inquiry. What can scientific developments in psychology, biology, and neuroscience tell us about “human nature”? Can these discourses reckon with the variation in time and space that has traditionally been at the heart of political science, perhaps even going back to the classic text from which Hatemi and McDermott derive their title, Aristotle's Politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumed difference and continuing estrangement between political philosophy and political science is a relatively recent development. Both fields sprang from closely entwined concerns about democracy and matters of social and political justice, and today both must still confront their practical as well as cognitive relationship to their subject matter. This issue, however, has receded into the background of these discourses. Ludwig Wittgenstein's vision of philosophy is in effect a vision of social inquiry. His work, when viewed from this perspective, prompts us to reconsider the logical status of various modes of political inquiry: how can these practices, descriptively and normatively, do justice to their subject matter? How can they deal with such foundational issues as the nature of social phenomena, the concepts of representation and interpretation, the problem of knowledge of other minds and what is involved in making explanatory and evaluative judgments about the objects of inquiry? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]