A fundamental challenge. Are the affordances of political science being wasted?

A fundamental challenge. Are the affordances of political science being wasted?



Article received: 2023.12.30. Accepted: 2024.01.17


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.02.02
EDN: AOJEQK


For citation:

Ilyin M.V. A fundamental challenge. Are the affordances of political science being wasted? – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.02.02. EDN: AOJEQK (In Russ.)


The article reflects research done in the framework of INION research topic “Current trends in the development of science in the context of social and information-technological changes”. The outcomes of the research are also partially reflected in [Ilyin, 2023] and the paper “The Poverty of the Rich Inheritors. How to Retrieve the Achievements of Political Science?” presented at the conference “Political Projection in the Domain of Social Communications”, Moscow, RSUH, November 2-3, 2023.


Abstract

The author recalls the reveries of the times of the creation of the journal Polis. He critically assesses
three decades of attempts to nurture the achievements of world political science. He admits that the results of these efforts are far from expectations. The reasons are the haste to act and our miopic vision of the standards of world political science, as well as the awkward backwardness of these standards themselves. The generic trauma of the newly emerging political science goes with the reductive adjusting of evolving practices of political goal- attainment to the straitjacketing models of jurisprudence, philosophy and history. As Ch. Tilly has shown, the corresponding pernicious postulates were questioned only during the glorious twenty years of political science renewal in the 60s and 70s of the last century. These pernicious postulates are related to the reduction of evolving political phenomena to simplistic mechanistic schemes and abstractions. They continue to dominate mainstream political science. As for the alternative possibilities of political science, they require taking into account the spatio-temporal variability of political phenomena and using an expanding and increasingly complex research apparatus. The author gives a number of examples of such sophisticating renewal, including the treatment of the existence of nations as everyday referendum (Renan), of diverse polities as mestorazvitiya (evo-localizings, lit. place-developments) (Savitsky), of political institutions as conceptual variables (Nettl), of crises as alternating phases of dissynchronization and resynchronization (Almond and colleagues), of center-periphery polarization (Rokkan). The article also mentions the efforts of R. Dahl and F. Schmitter to “save” modern democracy from various kinds of reductions by reinterpreting it in terms of polyarchy and accountability. It refers to the geochronopolitics of G. Modelski and further similar ventures of V. Tsimburski. It also cites efforts of A. Melville and his colleagues in correcting the reductive rendering of the global community of states by extending the factual scope multidimensionality of its analysis. Further cases include the fuller and more multidimensional consideration by G. Tsebelis and R. Putnam of alternative policies and aspirations in terms of nested, two- and multidimensional games, and finally, the efforts of W. Patzelt to instigate an evolutionary morphology of politics.  

Keywords
crisis of political science, big structures, long processes, longue durde, huge encompassing comparisons, space-time, mestorazvitiya, conceptual variables, dissynchronization and resynchronization, center-periphery polarization, polyarchy and accountability, geochronopolitics, nested, two- and multidimensional games, evolutionary morphology of politics.


References

Almond, G.A., Flanagan, S.C., & Mundt, R.J. (1973). Crisis, choice, and change: Historical studies of political development. Colchester: TBS The Book Service.

Dahl, R.A. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Evans, P. (1997). The eclipse of the state? Reflections on stateness in an era of globalization. World Politics, 50(1), 62-87. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887100014726

Lipset, S.M., & Rokkan, S. (1967). Party systems and voter alignments. Cross-national perspectives. New York: Free Press.

Nettl, J.P. (1968). The state as a conceptual variable. World Politics, 20(4), 559-592. https://doi.org/10.2307/2009684

Patzelt, W.J. (2007). Evolutorischer Institutionalismus. Theorie und empirische Studien zu Evolution, Institutionalitat und Geschichtlichkeit. Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag.

Patzelt, WJ. (2022). Evolutionsforschung in der Politikwissenschaft. In: Evolutorische Okonomik: Konzepte, Wegbereiter und Anwendungsfelder (pp. 395-433). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34287-6_29

Putnam, R.D. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games. International Organization, 42(3): 427-460. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027697

Renan, E. (1882). Qu’est-ce qu’unenation. Conferencefaite en sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882. Paris: Ancienne Maison Michel Ldvy Frbres.

Rokkan, S. (1987). Centre-periphery structures in Europe: an ISSC workbook in comparative analysis. New York: Campus Verlag.

Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1955). Le phdnombne humain. Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Tilly, Ch. (1984). Big structures, large processes, huge comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Tsebelis, G. (1990). Nested games: rational choice in comparative politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Dahl, R. (2003). Democracy and its critics. (Russ. ed.: Dahl, R. Demokratiya i ee kritiki. Moscow: ROSSPEN.)

 

Ilyin, M.V. (2018). Sovremennaiya politicheckaya nauka: krisis ili pazvitiye? (tezisy dla discussii) [Contemporary political science: crisis or advancement? (discussion paper)]. Political Science (RU), 1, 40-67 (In Russ.)

Ilyin, M.V. (2019). Morphology of geopolitical spaces. Problems of Geography, 149, 322-353. (In Russ.)

Ilyin, M.V. (2023). Alternativy preodoleniya krisisa sovremennych politicheskich form [Alternatives for overcoming the crisis of modern political forms]. In Mezhdunarodnyie otnosheniya: grani nastoiaschego I buduschego [International relations: facets of the present and future] (pp. 309-336). Moscow: Russian International Affairs Council. (In Russ.)

John Peter Nettl: 1926-1968. Editorial introduction to the section “Rereading the classics”. (2011). Political Science (RU), 2, 208-212. (In Russ.)

John Peter Nettle Archive. Editorial introduction to the “Intellectual Archive for Tomorrow”. (2012). METHOD, Moscow Yearbook of Papers from Social Science Disciplines, 3, 306-309. (In Russ.)

Melville, A.Yu., Malgin, A.V., Mironyuk, M.G., & Stukal, D.K. (2023). Empirical challenges and methodological approaches in comparative politics (through the lens of the Political Atlas of the Modern World 2.0. Polis. Political Studies, 5, 153-171. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.05.10

Nettle, J.P. (2011). The state as a conceptual variable. Political Science (RU), 2, 213-241. (In Russ.)

Nettle, J.P. (2012). The state as a conceptual variable. METHOD, Moscow Yearbook of Papers from Social Science Disciplines, 3, 310-345. (In Russ.)

Okunev, I.Yu. (2009). The Stanford model of development the crisis. Polis. Political Studies, 3, 136-144. (In Russ.)

Patzelt, W.J. (2014). Reading history: an essay of evolutionary morphology. METHOD: Moscow Yearbook of Papers from Social Science Disciplines, 4, 228-260. (In Russ.)

Patzelt, W.J. (2016). The problematic interface: biology and comparative political science. METHOD: Moscow Yearbook of Papers from Social Science Disciplines, 6, 13-45. (In Russ.)

Patzelt, W.J. (2018). Is political science in crisis? Political Science (RU), 1, 68-92. (In Russ.)

Renan, J.E. (1902). Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? (Russ.ed.: Renan, J.E. Chto takoe natsiya? In Renan, J.E. Sobranie sochinenii v 12-ti tomakh. T. 6. (pp. 87-101). Kyiv: M.M. Fikh Printing House.

Reteyum, A.Yu. (1988). Zemnye miry [Terrestrial worlds]. Moscow: Mysl'. (In Russ.)

Savitskii P.N. (1927). Rossiya - osobyi geograficheskii mir: I. Kontinent-Okean; II. Geograficheskii obzor Rossii-Evrazii [Russia is a special geographical world: I. Continent-Ocean; II. Geographical overview of Russia-Eurasia]. Paris; Berlin; Praga: Evraziiskoe knigoizdatel'stvo. (In Russ.)

Savitskii P.N. (1932). Mestorazvitie russkoi promyshlennosti [Local development of Russian industry]. Berlin: Eurasian Publishing House. (In Russ.)

Teilhard de Chardin, P. (2002). Le Phdnomfene humain. (Russ. ed.: Teilhard de Chardin, P. Fenomen cheloveka. Moscow: AST.)

Content No. 2, 2024

See also:


Sorokin K.E.,
Russia and Multipolarity: a Time to Embrace, and a Time to Refrain from Embracing. – Polis. Political Studies. 1994. No1


PANORAMA OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN RUSSIA: THE SPACE AND TIME OF POLITICS. – Polis. Political Studies. 1999. No4

Bikbov A.T.,
Morals in Politics: Coercion of Those Who Rule. – Polis. Political Studies. 2002. No4


REFLECTIONS ON MATTERS IN PRINT. – Polis. Political Studies. 2001. No6

Shcherbinin A.I.,
Totalitarian Indoctrination: at the Outset of the System (Political Festivals and Plays). – Polis. Political Studies. 1998. No5


Screen version