Transnational, Transhistorical: Identities, Interests, and the Tasks of Political Science in the 21st Century.

Political science in the 21st century should make empirical and normative studies of the political processes through which political identities are formed more central to the discipline. Major transformations in existing identities and statuses and the increasing creation of new forms of political community require this shift. The study of political identity formation and transformation cannot, however, be best pursued either through formal theory or efforts to discern timeless regularities in political behavior through quantitative analysis. Such work requires a substantial element of interpretive, historical, and ethnographic research. David Laitin’s influential study of Russian speakers in newly independent republics proves as much. We can still hope to achieve more general theories of the politics of political identity formation; but they must be more substantive, and they will still be incomplete without interpretive historical and ethnographic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]