Nancy Fraser’s call for a globally sensitive — that is, post-Westphalian — conceptualization of justice is undoubtedly warranted. Despite my own reservations regarding ‘cosmopolitan’ solutions (I.E. Kant’s  Plan for Perpetual Peace) it seems strikingly clear that any robust concept of justice must take a transnational perspective in order to account for all those lost amidst the economic, environmental, and social forces of globalization. Furthermore, the tripartite structure she articulates is more than necessary; of course justice must respond to demands for redistribution as well as recognition, but as Fraser acknowledges, it needs a framework in order to do so — hence, political representation must go hand-in-hand with the traditional claims of justice. To complicate things further, Fraser also charges against what she refers to as ‘meta-political misrepresentation’; this is not merely the material practice of misrepresentation, but occurs at the discursive level of framesetting, in which the lines of political representation are drawn and the ‘who’ of justice is determined.

However, despite Fraser’s own rhetorical call for a critical theory that proceeds not from the Platonic world of ideas but one that is in tune with historical currents, her idealization of a post-Westphalian justice remains just that: pure idealization. This is not to say that the owl of Minerva must, as Hegel once noted, only take flight with the onset of dusk — that is, that philosophy is inherently backward looking, grasping in thought what had come before in material form, but that such a construction of ‘justice’ could benefit from a more ‘practical’ orientation which speaks more presciently to our own situation. In my own mind, Fraser’s theory falls short in so far as it remains — perhaps naively — hopeful that the institutional framing of international justice is on the rise. Certainly her own demands for a post-Westphalian institutionalized justice do not fall completely on deaf ears, and perhaps may impel the movement toward a ‘dialogical’ and ‘democratic’ international sphere. But I find this cosmopolitan call for action to be not free from problems. Often it seems the vagueness of such calls — whether her own, David Held’s or even Martha Nussbaum’s — defines their appeal. Of course we all stand for international justice, the transparency and accountability of international institutions and corporations which affect us beyond state borders, and the full development of one’s capabilities! All of these programs appeal to ‘core’ Western values of moral universalism, equitable political representation, etc. But we shouldn’t lose sight of where political community occurs at a material level. Despite technological advances which may allow us to bridge communication gaps over extensive geographical distances, the locality of politics seems always tethered to the bodily presence of individuals. I am wary of how these cosmopolitical solutions address the issue of politics, as if institutions, legal formations, and constitution-writing was the essence of political community. Amidst the calls for an international beauracratic machine — transparent, accountable, and just as it may seem — we risk losing sight of the bodied subjects of political life whose sense of identity and community can only emerge in face to face interaction. This certainly isn’t an issue of justice, — it seems Fraser has tackled that issue rather well, to be frank, — but there is much at stake both theoretically and practically in the (still fantastical) formulation of a global polis.

- Mike

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I cannot help but agree with the overall concern Mike has with Fraser’s text on theorizing political justice as representation, but I would extend and contest aspects of his critique.  Undoubtedly, Fraser, like others, has been able to identify that the process of globalization demands a transnational understanding of claims to justice, as sites of the political move beyond (and below) the Westphalian state.  Her piece, “Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World,” however, appears to me to be far more an exercise in understanding issues of misrepresentation in a changing world, than a “hopeful” account “that the institutional framing of international justice is on the rise.”  Indeed, I find nothing in her text that is explicitly hopeful about growing institutionalism on the international level that is or will appropriately address claims to justice; I only find, in this piece, evidence for their absence:

“In general, then, struggles against misframing are revealing a new kind of democratic deficit.  Just as globalization has made visible injustices of misframing, so transformative struggles against neoliberal globalization are making visible the injustive of meta-political misrepresentation.  In exposing the lack of institutions where disputes about the ‘who’ can be democratically aired and resolved, these struggles are focusing attention on the ‘how’” (85).

Acknowledging the absence of institutions and demonstrating that the need for representation goes hand in hand with recognition and redistribution do not, in my estimation, imply that Fraser understands that these needs are going to be met.

In terms of Fraser’s own articulation of a post-Westphalian framing, I completely agree with Mike’s concerns with ‘cosmopolitan calls for action.’  And while I also agree that removing the bodily presence of individuals from the construction of political community is somewhat lamentable (though I would not understand this to be critical to its constitution), I think we must step back further and be cognizant of how cosmopolitan visions lead to totalizing and imperializing actions.  It is not clear that ‘we’ all agree to the centrality of liberal values in the constitution of global life, and the very idea of dialogic communities, apart from their logistical impracticality, presumes, as Michael Williams notes, that people are liberal-leaning in the first place.

- kavi

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I agree with both your arguments. However, I think that we shouldn’t be too pessimistic about the global polis and post-Westphalian justice. It was really interesting to see Fraser’s three-dimensional model of justice and how she acknowledges that the dual model of recognition and redistribution was incomplete and needed to be further developed, especially in the post-Westphalian era. There has been an important evolution at the global level during the last twenty years within the context of what she defines as ordinary-political misrepresentation (2005: 76). This misrepresentation is under the orbit of the Westphalian state, which has had the power to establish the institutional mechanisms in order to cope with the demands of particular groups (gender quotes, changes in the electoral systems and the constitution of political parties, among others). In addition, the Westphalian state has gone as far as creating international institutions aiming to protect citizens from the state itself. The International Criminal Court, the European and Inter-American courts of Human Rights have been playing a salient role because they work “against” the entity who not only created them but also who gave them legitimacy. NGOs and political movements worldwide pushed states to create those institutions as a way of making the state accountable for gross and systematic human rights violations. Despite major problems (Russia, the US and China are not part of the ICC; the ICC’s lack of a law enforcement body; some states – especially in Latin America – do no respect decisions of the courts), the advantage of the Westphalian frame was that there was someone to make accountable for their actions: the State in the regional courts and perpetrators at the ICC, ICTY, SCSL, ICTR.

The problem in the post-Westphalian era, in which globalization plays a salient role and where the states are under permanent challenge, lies in the agent who will be accountable for the injustices of mis-framing and meta-political misrepresentation. In that sense: to whom we should complain? We are affected by the policies and discourses created by the states (the US? Western Europe?) and the elites (the IMF and the WTO, universities and think tanks, the Media and Wall Street?) because they monopolize the frame-setting (2005: 85). But the impact on territorial states is also noteworthy because they have no leverage – especially Third World countries – to correct the injustices or to participate in democratic discussions about the ‘who’. We don’t even know where these discussions are taking place (in G-8 or G-20 meetings?; At the World Economic Forum in Davos?; or/and at the UN Security Council?).

In this sense the all-affected principle, as well as the participatory parity, seems encouraging, but their institutionalization is incipient, such as the World Social Forum. At the same time, it seems that it would be difficult for people to achieve something in the short-term because “the structures that harm them (…) cannot be located in the space of places” (2005: 84). In addition, there always the risk of engendering, as Kavi mentions, totalizing projects with. However, I think that Fraser’s article is really valuable because by reframing justice we are able to recognize the injustices. It is a first step. I think that eventually, as it happened during the Keynesian-Westphalian frame, it would be possible to institutionalized mechanisms which would allow us to pursue global justice in the post-Westphalian era.

Emilio

Further, while Woodly notes that “blogs do not overturn the effect of traditional mass media in the public sphere” (122),  implicit in her text is the idea that blogs seem to introduce positive, anti-elite and democratic influences on political communication; but given that the number of people who read/participate in blogs is minimal (118) and that users tend to be “white, male, and have incomes and education well exceeding the national mean” (120), one wonders if this expansion of media influence simply reinforces racial, gender, and class power interests.

- kavi

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Kavi, I can’t help but find myself in agreement with the two points of criticism you have raised in regards to Woodly’s piece. The first point in particular calls into question one of Woodly’s primary theses as I see it: that is, that blogging represents a democratic media innovation radically altering the flow of information as it stands vis-a-vis more orthodox media formats. According to her account, the blogosphere departs from the dominant ‘top-down’ media forms in sustaining a dialogic community through which information ‘percolates upwards’ resultant of the discursive activities of its constituent participants. Thus, the pernicious effects of ‘elite bias,’ ‘infotainment,’ demands for ‘objectivity,’ and corporate ‘conglomeration’ are dulled by the intervention of a new medium which radically decenters the dissemination of information. Your (Kavi’s) point regarding the origin of the informational content of most blogs turns this notion on its head; considering most authors in the blogosphere don’t have the means (capital – economic, social, cultural or otherwise) to perform large-scale investigative reports, blogging comes to be merely relegated to discussing, analyzing, and critiquing the information that ‘trickles down’ (or ‘cascades down’ to put it in Woodly’s lexicon) from more traditional media sources. Thus, the mediatic ‘truth regime’ formed by traditional media forms remains unbroken. Woodly’s analysis would lead one to believe that a decentering of news mediums precipitates a decentering of power relations; however, this seems to leave unquestioned how existing relations of power are always already tied up with verification practices and hence the production of socially legitimated truths. So long as capital (in its varied instantations) is requisite to the verification and accumulation of socially legitimated information (i.e., investigative journalism), the blogosphere will always play second fiddle to the dominance of the established media formats. This gives me little hope that the emergence of the blogosphere as a discursive outlet represents a democratization of American (or transnational) media and thus a further democratization of American political life.

A second allegedly positive (that is, democratic) contribution made by the blogosphere is its ‘practical’ orientation in forming “a communicative space characterized by dialogue among interested peers — a form of political communication that is distinctly different from the communicative capabilities exhibited by or suited to traditional media” (Woodly, page 121). Thus, blogging is to be characterized as a form of political praxis, according to Woodly, in which peers are able to share their varied perspectives and thus refine their respective political intellects. It seems to me that the political value of such a ‘communicative space’ is limited to the shaping of political consciousness’, and thus falls short of qualifying, in my view, as a truly transformative mode of praxis. In certain ways, such dialogue may be generative of the molding of individual or collective will — which precipitates but is not in itself political action. Even if one were to analyze the blogosphere through an Arendtian conception of politics — a perspective which greatly privileges dialogue among peers — blogging would nonetheless fall short in a number of significant dimensions. Most notably, in the formation of political power, a capacity which Arendt rather famously defines as acting in concert. If for Arendt action without speech is mute (and hence politically incomprehensible), speech without action is impotent. Indeed, it seems important to raise the question as to whether blogging may even count as political speech. For Arendt, we certainly know the answer would be negative — speech above all requires vocal utterance and physical gesticulation, and not merely the visual representation and documentation of words. Thus, blogging fails as political activity in reducing the phenomena of living speech to impersonal writing; in other words, blogging is unable to disclose a politically relevant speaker; in rather constructs an anonymous domain of opinion-sharing unable to free itself from the yoke of elite truth-production.

- Mike

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I think that your points (Kavi’s and Michael) are really important in order to make an assessment about the role that blogs may play in political communication. In general, blogs discuss issues that are brought to the debate by traditional media – especially newspapers and TV – but also are part in the agenda-setting in issues that usually are not present – or have barely a presence – in national media. It is possible that on issues related to domestic policy – health reform, local elections, inter-party relations and current economic issues – traditional media are still the main actors not only in the agenda-setting and but also in defining the parameters with which these issues are addressed in blogs. However, in issues concerning world affairs, such as human rights, regional politics (Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, etc) and environmental issues blogs play a salient role, leading the discussion and increasing the participation of interested readers. Academics and political activists have found in the internet, but specifically in blogs, a very useful and democratic tool which allows them to tackle issues which are usually left out in the traditional media. Except when a particular event generate worldwide attention (the International Criminal Court’s indictment of the president of Sudan and/or Angelina Jolie’s visit to displaced camps in Darfur, among other events which may qualify as “infotainment” in Woodly’s words), traditional media tend not to cover events that have no direct link with their audiences/clients. The same can be said about the political elites of a particular country. In this regard, blogs have helped to raise awareness among the interested public and have become popular and powerful tools, especially in relation to advocacy and monitoring in particular causes such as global warming and human rights, among others. Moreover, the fact the blogs may be created by pundits in particular topics and areas allows us to have a better and profound understanding of them. Although I do not dispute Mike’s argument concerning power relations and the preponderance of traditional media, I do think that blogs are a valid alternative to the mainstream discourse in particular issues.

Concerning the second point that you (Kavi and Mike) raise, about the democratic characteristics that blogs may have, I think that blogs are a form of political praxis and, therefore, they have a clear impact on political life. Woodly recognizes that the even though the public may be minimum (119,120), “the influences of the political discussion (and occasional revelations) that take place in the blogosphere have effects that are quite disproportionate to the absolute number of participants because journalist, elected officials and other influential elites are consuming them” (119). In this respect, renowned experts in particular topics have an important influence not only in agenda-setting but also in discourse construction. For instance, during the current crisis, blogs of economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz became the primary source of opinion not only for political elites and journalists in the US but worldwide. Nowadays their opinions and critiques vis-à-vis Obama administration response to the economic crisis are more respected and influential than critiques from Fox News and other traditional media. However, I agree with you guys in that the problem would continue to be the elitist (inherent?) characteristic of the blogosphere.

Emilio

Furthermore, even if we grant some transformative potentials to practices of ‘insurgent sacrrifice’ how are we to characterize such a politics? Is political self-sacrifice ‘sovereign kryptonite’ — that is, the antithesis of sovereign power — or merely an affirmation of some other sovereign entity and thus a de-legitimation of the existing state? Bargu’s account seems to oscillate rather ambivalently between these two possibilities. In a certain way self-sacrifice seems to transgress the limits of sovereign subsumption: he who is willing to destroy himself is unable to be incorporated into any sovereign (or perhaps political) order precisely because he is unable to be sacrificed on in the service of the sovereign’s decree. At the same time, to ‘reclaim’ the sovereign right of decision over life and death is to affirm oneself (or one’s collectivity) as a sovereign entity contra the state. What is the relationship between these two positions? Are these the only possibilities that inhere in political practices of self-sacrifice or may we locate other possibilities — perhaps ones that do not succumb to the discourse of sovereign, but in their alterity posit the potentials for a non-sovereign future?

Just some jumbled reflections, but I’m interested in hopefully opening up some sustained dialogue on these issues…

- Mike

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I think your (Mike’s) reflection’s on bodily protests, the ultimate and irreducible way in which to construct resistance to a sovereign, to reclaim one’s right over life and death, is an idea undoubtedly present in Banu’s work, and while I understand the practical concerns with death-fasts, with struggles that ultimately destroy the resisting agent, I think we need to make some distinctions clear.  Death-fasts are analytically separate from other forms of bodily protest – self-immolation, suicide bombing – in that it is process of the fast that is the act of resistance.  As Banu points out in her piece, “Spectacles of Death,” “Death was not a certain or even intended outcome of the struggle, only a risk to bear” (7).  In this manner, death-fasts are a bit of misnomer as they are more about a “willingness to live” (ibid).  Prisoners were concerned with prolonging their lives as much as possible, specifically because this form of resistance, this reclaiming of the sovereign body contra to the state, is embodied in the fast and not in death. Further, while we can say that the personal act of resistance ultimately ends with the last breath taken, or in the case of Turkey’s prisons, when a prisoner was released, but to conceive of the collective act of resistance ending in the death of the individual is underestimating the this form of protest.

However, I do agree that connections with larger social mobilization outside of bodily protest is important for sustained resistance, and I found this to be one of the interesting aspects of Banu’s lecture.  In particular, I find the impetus for her research, to bring the voices of the margins to the center of power, normatively attractive, and a guide for those of us who intend to do empirical work.  Further questions arise, however, in this context of social movements being constructed along those ‘doing’ the protest and those – we can say – ‘informing’ the protest; this feels to be a division of labor of sorts, that may make intellectual sense within notions of comparative advantage, but because those ‘doing’ are often involved in a deeper form of sacrifice and risk, I wonder if this tension is part of the reason why, at least in the US-context, academics and social movements have lost their previously close relationship.  Even Banu, during her lecture, expressed a certain uneasy reflection on her role as researcher in relation to these prisoners, and how they were, in the most direct and dramatic fashion, putting their lives on the line for a cause.

- kavi

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I agree with Mike’s points concerning the political possibilities that self-sacrifice may open in the public arena. In this sense, it is important to take into account how the general public reacted to such a radical act. Did they see the hunger strikes as form of political action? Did the general public see the Death Fast struggle as legitimate? In this sense Banu argues that “the irregularity of the militant-martyr pushes him outside the law, but not necessarily outside legitimacy. The militant-martyr’s counter-claim to legitimacy is based on an appeal to the transcendent, whether is the People or the Proletariat, a force superior to the boundaries to political action drawn and sanctioned by existing legality” (From the Acheron : 15).

Mike raised a very important question in this matter: “What sort of political possibilities are to be opened through the performance of an act that culminates in the destruction of the agent?” I think that the answers will come from the people in general in which, in my opinion, should lie the processes of recognizing and legitimating a particular acti

This seems to be the moment where Plotke’s implicit commitment to liberal legal tolerance and his far more explicit commitment to a democratic political process come into conflict. The primary point to note here is Plotke’s insistence on repression as the means of stemming the tide of the successful emergence to power of some anti-democratic political element. In other words, if an anti-democratic political force (lets say, a political party) comes to power via democratic means (i.e., election), Plotke’s commitment to democracy impels him to advocate undemocratic (repressive) means in order to save democracy. Thus, the state is not neutral after-all; indeed, in such a limit-case the democratic state is forced to assert democracy as a political ‘good’ over and against the will of the demos. In other words, Plotke’s democratic state is not ‘formless’ – that is, it is not absolutely subject to the popular will (as Article V of the US Constitution ultimately frames our state to be) – but rather operates within fixed boundaries of democratic process. Liberal neutrality is eschewed in favor of the salvation of the democratic state – even if this entails, rather paradoxically, anti-democratic state repression. This is certainly a moment that compels some Schmittian reflections. Is Plotke here justifying a “state of exception” in the name of democracy? If so, who is the decision-making agent (of course we will recall that for Schmitt, it is only the sovereign who can decide upon the exception)? The possibility of such a ‘failure’ of incorporation opens up the anti-democratic exception as defined by Plotke’s conception of democracy; though we should bear in mind that the exception is always that which defines the rule.

- Mike

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David Plotke raises a very important issue in the debate about democratic practices in the current world. The problem of dealing with anti-democratic groups within a democratic state is a moot point. One of the main problems lies in the concepts that we use to define democratic practices and even democracy itself. In this sense, Plotke acknowledges that the liberal conception of the state as a neutral entity is not easy to fulfill (8) and that a democratic state “has the support of a founding majority of citizens. And a democratic government results from authorized procedures, which usually require a majority of voters (or at least a strong plurality)” (9).

As a consequence, the rules and regulations of any given democracy have the endorsement of the community, which at the same time acknowledges the role of the state and its institutions. Within this legal framework, tolerance, incorporation and repression strategies are – or should be – always present. The legal framework should be flexible enough to enable different strategies in accordance with certain circumstances, especially when tackling with anti-democratic forces.

While some democratic political regimes can be open and flexible in matters concerning religion and cultural issues, they can also be extremely restrictive in terms of institutional participation. Does that mean that a particular democratic country is repressive? Not necessarily. In this regard, the concept of ‘reasonable’ that Plotke’s uses – that is, people willing “to propose and abide by fair terms of social cooperation among equals and their recognition of and willingness to accept the consequences of the burdens of judgments” (8) – is really important because it enables us to analyze the characteristics of a particular democratic system. The German case is very illustrative of this, for instance, in the Anti-Nazi laws passed after World War II. For the politicians who drafted these laws, as well as for the people who elected them, the principles of freedom of speech and association had – and still have – a limit. In other countries, this would be considered not only repressive but also anti-democratic.

I don’t think that Plotke is justifying the state of exception. He clearly makes the distinction between legal repression and emergency powers (24). However, it is crucial that the state had made prior legal arrangements in order to cope with potential challenges posed by anti-democratic groups. These arrangements, while related to a repressive strategy from a liberal perspective, are a sine qua non condition for a democratic state to function. For instance, the 1999 Austrian election, in which a neo-nazi politician was elected with around 25% of the vote, generated immediate responses not only from the European Union but also from Austrian citizens. Did the responses from national and international observers stem from a state of exception? I don’t think so. Then, there is a hierarchy of values and principles within democratic states. Which ones are more important? And, who is in charge of deciding the validity of an outcome of a democratic election? In a democratic regime, the decision-making agent is the majority of the citizens.

As Plotke acknowledges repression does not necessarily entail violence or anti-democratic actions. However, in general repression has been automatically linked with dictatorships and anti-democratic practices. In Latin America, the democratic election of left wing parties during the 1960s and 1970s gave rise to domestic and international pressure (sometimes overt intervention) in order to change the situation. Usually this was followed by coup d’états and military dictatorships which were characterized by the use of indiscriminate violence toward political opponents, namely leftist political groups. But should creating an institutional legal framework within a democratic regime in which certain attitudes and deeds are penalized (associating with illegal organizations, pronouncing xenophobic and discriminative speeches or publishing inflammatory and racist articles) be considered repression?

- Emilio

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As a matter of framing my response, I would just like to acknowledge how Plotke’s work seemed so ‘political’ in the traditional ‘political science’ sense of the word: strategies of the democratic state to deal with anti-democratic forces seems like something that would be found in any department.  Of course, Plotke’s analytical methods are similar to that of others in our department, but in terms of content, it would appear quite traditional.  I am aware that I am using loaded, and in the New School context, pejorative words like ‘traditional’, but I do not necessarily mean it as a value judgment – just as a point of interest.

That all being said, I both take Mike’s point and disagree with it.  I think you are correct in arguing that Plotke gives in to his ‘democratic’ commitments when he says that the state must ultimately rely upon repression if incorporation fails (and to be sure, I agree with Emilio’s assessment that repression in Plotke’s case is distinguished from a state of emergency and embodies a number of practices that cannot simply be understood as force), but this, I think, is nothing of significance for Plotke.  The premise of his piece is that states may need not be neutral with regards to different competing political forces, a point that “may be disturbing for those who emphasize the value of neutrality for a liberal state” (8).  I, therefore, do not feel that this is a contradictory or contested aspect of his text; rather, it is completely in line with the overall thrust of his argument.  Certainly, if repression is conceived as anti-democratic force (as opposed to some form of legal repression), this is an ironic paradox: using anti-democratic measures to save democracy, but this is a paradox that pervades democratic polities.

What struck myself as problematic in this piece was the conceptualization and evidence provided for how successful incorporation measured can and were produced.  Plotke notes:

“The first step [for political incorporation] is a meaningful declaration from the government and other democratic political actors that the participation of non-democratic and anti-democratic forces is really possible.  All that is required is a willingness to participate in accord with the main elements of established democratic procedures.  No unconditional assent to the virtues of democracy is required” (28).

However, isn’t a willingness to participate in democratic procedures entail accepting a democratic virtue?  It appears to me completely contradictory for an “anti-democratic” group to consider participating in a democratic process.  For those groups interested in imposing fascist dictatorships or theocracies, why would they be interested in taking part of democratic procedures unless they know they have no chance of achieving their political goals?   What I would call an illiberal group – hate groups, for instance – would be willing to use democratic means, but can we agree with Plotke and call these groups ‘anti-democratic’?  White supremacists (which Plotke understands to be anti-democratic) believe that certain people should not have rights – is this undemocratic or illiberal (or both)?  We largely accept that the U.S. has been a democratic nation from its beginnings despite the fact that half its population could not participate in democratic life until the 20th century.

Further, while Plotke gives a list of successful cases of political incorporation – Catholic church in the US, Black Nationalism, Islamist movement in Turkey, Communists in Western Europe – but while it is apparent that these forces became part of the political process, it is unclear that any ‘strategy’ of incorporation by the state was their reasoning.  For instance, in discussing the anti-democratic nature of the Catholic Church, Plotke notes:

“While nativist currents in the United States called for strong anti-Catholic measures, Catholics were not expelled or silenced.  The Catholic Church came to affirm the value of religious toleration, at first for reasons that were local and strategic.  It became a significant participant in democratic politics” (31).

Is incorporation, then, merely not enacting repressive measures?  There is no discussion of any government outreach to bring Catholics into democratic politics; there is only a lack of repression against the church.  Similar remarks can be made about the Black nationalist movement, where the government engaged in repression but the movement ended up entering into local and state elections, without any strategy on the part of the government.

- kavi

“The reason why a politics of recognition…dominated rival political movements in India was its relatively greater ability to recast the common self-understandings, institutions, and practices of ordinary people in ways that made sense of their desire for equality.’

But such a conclusion appears almost tautological: the politics of recognition worked in Indian democracy because that was the approach that appealed to people’s idea of democratic equality – i.e. that was the one that worked.  By the end of this piece, though interesting in its discussion of liberalism and communitarianism, it is difficult to discern exactly what is learned in the case of India beyond its starting premise, the politics of recognition is a central part of Indian democracy.

- kavi

I agree with Kavi’s point in that the relationship between politics of recognition and India’s democracy support each other. It seems that the politics of recognition not only explain India’s democracy but also help to bridge the gap between theory and practice by addressing a myriad of factors that interact in politics.

However, I found Ruparelia’s article really interesting in the context of democratization processes, especially for emerging democracies in Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the aftermath of decolonization in those regions, as well as the materialization of democratic regimes after years of dictatorships, there was a tendency to implement traditional western models based on liberal and republican ideas. The idea that these models could be replicated in recently independent and multicultural countries without major difficulties has sometimes paved the way to totalizing projects that have undermined not only democratic values but also democracy itself.

In multinational democracies and plural societies, politics of recognition may play a salient role because they enable the construction of institutional frameworks that consider and acknowledge the different realities of a particular society. In this regard, analyzing India as an example of a plural democratic society in the developing world is more useful than using western multinational countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. These western countries have usually been shown as “successful” models of consociational democracies, particularly in the fields of political science, international relations and conflict resolution. However, geographic, socio-economic and cultural issues in emerging democracies differ drastically from those western societies.

I think that the politics of recognition, while not perfect due to potential inequalities, unequal redistribution and lack of common good (42-43), can give practical and useful tools for other societies because they allow tackling cultural and historical differences, which seems to have been disregarded in the liberal, Marxist and republican traditions. In societies in which minorities have not been recognized and processes of (forced) assimilation have taken place, grievances have often arisen in violent ways (Yugoslavia, Spain, DRC and Sudan). In addition, it is important to point out the role that leaderships play in implementing polices that encompass the entire society of a given country. Nehru’s actions and ideas, for example, were essential to reach certain agreements about the democratic regime in India.

Emilio

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Kavi, while I do see the point you raise in criticizing Ruparelia’s argument as tautalogical, I am not certain I can fully agree. There is undoubtedly a certain opacity as to why the politics of reocgnition has been so successful in the process of democratization in India since English withdrawal in 1947. However, I think the notion of ‘equality’ in Ruparelia’s account is richer than your rendering credits it. Lets pay some attention to his argument: “the desire for equality of condition unleashed by the idea of democracy… compelled a politics of recognition based on differential group entitlements due to the absence of equal social conditions in pre-independent India” (page 51). Now, the conceptualization of equality Ruparelia is discussing here is not any old notion of ‘equality’ (i.e., not a liberal understanding of equality of individuals in their individuality) but one based distinctly on an understanding and a practice of ‘differential group entitlements’ leading to an equalizing of conditions across the board. As Ruparelia notes above, this understanding follows directly from the historical legacy of a pluralism of inequalities in Indian society prior to the process of decolonization.

The mechanics of precisely why and how the specific experiences of inequality in India prior to decolonization led to the emergence of this ‘social imaginary’ of equality still remains rather opaque to me, however. Without tying these threads together we’re left with a picture either too broad (leading us to speculate as to whether forms of inequality in all cases always engender a desire for their opposite among those subjected, – that is, a desire for the politically practical antidote to the social woes they imbue) or too narrow (the politics of recognition succeeded in India because of the regionally specific history leading up to the process of democratization – but without any clear inference as to why such a process took place we learn nothing about the potentials that lie in the politics of recognition). The case of India holds much potential to explain the mechanics of how a recognition-based politics succeeds or fails; however, without careful explication as to how this process operates we’re left with just more unsatisfying speculation.

- Mike

This novel approach to social phenomena allows us to comprehend in a broader way the interconnection between human actions and their context by including phenomena that were beyond the scope of traditional analysis. The trend has been to take nature and other nonhuman phenomena for granted, as in a ceteris paribus condition, in which the analysis of a particular phenomenon (such as a war, the construction of a dam, or the fight against a pandemic disease) focuses principally on human actors and intentions and/or on economic and political advantages/disadvantages for a particular group.

I think that it is important to understand the role that nature plays in social phenomena, as well as the consequences that the interactions of different factors posed for humans and the environment. This is because the ability of humans to control and manage the context in which they interact is limited. As Mitchell argues “techno-politics is always a technical body, an alloy that must emerge from a process of manufacture whose ingredients are both human and nonhuman, both intentional and not, and in which the intentional or the human is always somewhat overrun by the unintended” (2004: 42,43).

- Emilio

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Among the politics department, it seems that the general consensus is that Rafi Youatt’s work is among the most radical, intellectually speaking.  As Emilio notes above, understanding the domain of politics to extend beyond humans, to inscribe some degree of agency to non-human subjects, is exciting in the way it expands our conceptualization of the discipline.  But in every expansion, every muddying of the borders of the discipline, there is a sense of insecurity that we will lose any coherent center.  In “Can the Mosquito Speak,” Mitchell has an interesting comment on the social sciences that philosophically grounds the direction of his analysis:

“Social science is always founded upona categorical distinction between the ideality of human intentions and purposes and the object world upon which these work, and which in turn may affect them.  There is little room to examine the ways they emerge together in a variety of combinations, or how so-called human agency draws its force by attempting to divert or attach itself to other kinds of energy or logic. …[Nonhuman elements] appear merely physical, secondary, and external” (29).

Mitchell, then, incorporates a variety of human and non-human actions that culminated in the 1942-44 disaster in Egypt.  While I am sympathetic to the idea of multidimensional analysis, incorporating the myriad ways in which different elements interact to construct a telling narrative of a phenomenon, I wonder if this just brings a study in politics to a historical study.  In theoretical abstraction, privileging certain actors or ideas over others, we undoubtedly lose something, but in attempting to take everything into account, what do we end up saying?  This tension, I believe, lies ultimately at the heart of the theme running through our course concerning understanding/explanation, interpretivism/positivism, politics/political science.  In the desire to be ever-critical, aware of contingency and distrustful of generalizations, do we end up in a purely reflective mode?

- kavi

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In reviewing the readings in preparation for Rafi Youatt’s lecture I couldn’t help but consider how Mitchell and Latour’s distinct calls for a politicization of nature ran contrary to so many of the traditional distinctions that undergird our understandings of ‘the political.’ The tradition of modern political thought has, since it’s inception, defined itself in opposition to nature – whether it be in the guise of outrageous and unpredictable fortuna (Machiavelli), the violence of the state of nature (Hobbes), or even the necessary nourishment and reproduction of the life-processes as a function of private life (Aristotle/Arendt). My initial worry was that such calls for a ‘politics of nature’ would lead to a reduction of politics to nature; essentially, this would be the ‘naturalization’ of politics – a subjection of the questions of freedom and justice to the rule of ‘necessity.’ Instead, such work did the precise opposite: a politicization of nature which sought to grant agential qualities to the natural world! A rather ‘liberating’ move indeed…

Kavi, in response to the concerns you’ve raised regarding the (potential) desirability of maintaining traditional boundaries: it seems Mitchell, for example, does not implore us to take up natural elements in all of our analyses. It seems if we attempted to widen our analytical scopes to the point of accounting for all agential variables everytime we took up a new analysis, we would ultimately have to account for…. well, everything. Every analysis necessarily involves negligence of some implicated phenomena, but this is merely an inevitability. In the words of Spinoza, ‘every determination is a negation.’ However, in becoming aware of the agencies we exclude in determining our specific units of analyses we are impelled to reflexively articulate and justify these exclusionary tactics, which in the end only makes us better social scientists. The point of extending agential properties to the natural world is not to overwhelm the study of political phenomena in demanding researchers always take account of these forces; but rather that we at the very least self-consciously account for why we are not speaking to these agencies, always aware of the fact that they are indeed present and can (so-to-speak) speak.

- Mike

Hey guys, here’s my (Mike’s) response. It is perhaps a bit detailed and lengthy, so I will aim to stray away from this format for my other notes. Anyway, hopefully this will provoke some conversation from you guys:

Hattam’s starting point is that language is the ground of politics, and it is certainly a point I find myself in agreement with. Language, however, is by no means a dead thing; it is a living battleground through which concepts, categories, and understandings are continually constructed, contested, and reconfigured. Thus, Hattam’s illumination of the curious discursive dialectic formed by the race-ethnicity distinction immediately raises for me a significant meta-question. Namely, what is the connection between the public conversation on race and ethnicity that Hattam traces via a mapping of the dominant discursive mediums (i.e., media sources, political rhetoric, documents, etc.) and everyday practice? This question can be raised in both directions. Firstly, what bearing does the dominant discourse on race and ethnicity hold on the micro-politics of everyday life? To what extent does it serve to reproduce (or contest) practices of discrimination and domination occurring at the everyday level? Second, and more interesting in my view, is the question as to what degree everyday discursive practices can affect modes of public discourse? Is there a clear cycle of discursive reproduction that we can trace here or is the process open to more contingency than any systematic mapping could possibly account for? If the latter (and it seems that this is the likely candidate), what avenues of resistance are open in contesting the often pernicious alliance of the more malignant tendencies of these concepts (as Hattam points out – the way in which the associative coattails of ethnicity often help to bolster the inequality implied in understandings of race)? Hattam clearly lobbies for an integrative reconfiguration of these concepts, and even highlights some ways by which this has been moved toward (i.e. the 2006 ‘Day Without an Immigrant’ protests), but it still leaves open the question of how such a reconfiguration can be approached more systematically.

To complicate her analysis further, I’m interested in asking what role other identity categories play in relation to the ongoing discursive contestation between race and ethnicity. How are we to situate class (particularly salient in the immigrant protests), or religion (quite obviously marked in the discourse surrounding Jewish identity), or even gender and sexuality, in relation to race and ethnicity? As Hattam’s diagram of associative chains in figure 1 of her book details, ethnicity is comprised of a cultural component, which certainly overlaps with these other identity categories. How are we to demarcate struggles contesting ethnic-identity from struggles over class, religion, gender, etc., when such categories are often clearly evoked and articulated? For example, is not the Day Without an Immigrant protest perhaps above-all a labor protest – invoking class-position perhaps just as saliently (if not more than) as it does ethnicity?

-Mike

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When reading Hattam’s work, I was struck by a tension that speaks to Mike’s second point about how discursive practices can resist the current significations of race/ethnicity discourse.  Hattam makes explicit her desire to reinvigorate “progressive politics in the United States” via a re-imagining of the dialectic relationship between race and ethnicity, but she does not offer up any project through which this can be accomplished; indeed, I don’t believe Hattam even leaves open the question of how a systematic reconfiguration of discourse can take place, as she explicitly notes that “processes of resignification are not readily secured through programmatic reform.  There is no ten-point program readily at hand.”  It seems that for Hattam, progressive politics needs a change in discourse on race/ethnicity, but to do so is a “diffuse and unwieldy task” with no clear actionable starting points.

This seems to be one of the unsatisfying dimensions of discourse analysis.  While often insightful in its ability to call attention to the importance of discursive practices, the prescription for ‘what is to be done?’ is always vague and largely not actionable.  How do ‘we’ change discourse?  In a sense, doing discourse analysis itself is a first step to contesting the associative chains at hand, but for this to have larger import, the work of the academic needs to have a place and resonance in the public sphere.  Alternatively, we are left to rely upon political elites for such reconfiguration, which I think Hattam implicitly acknowledges by focusing some of her case studies on specific political leaders.  Still, however, it feels unsatisfying to think that change must come from some kind of Hegelian world-historical figure who “crystallize nascent changes at hand.”

Finally, Mike, I think you are right to note that alternative identities (particularly class, but others too) are interwoven in the race/ethnicity discourse, and there is no intellectually honest way to unproblematically separate them.  Hattam’s analysis of the May Day parade presupposes a clear class dimension, and I think that Hattam’s project of disturbing the associative chains of race and ethnicity, such that the latter comes to involve concepts of power and inequality, almost necessarily entails an economic – and therefore a class – component.

-kavi

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I agree with your points concerning language, the possibility of changing meanings and the use of discourse. As she points out, the really critical thing is to analyze if the change that has took place from race to ethnicity in the discourse has comprised a change in the “associate chains”. Thus, it is important to know whether we have only replaced the word ethnicity for the word race. To comprehend if this change actually has taken placed I think that is a complex endeavor.

In addition, I found really interesting the analysis the Hattam does about political campaigns and the link between race and ethnicity. How politicians, social leaders and the media construct their discourses in accordance to different circumstances. It was clear that Obama’s speech was trying to tackle the issue of race/ethnicity without making any polarizing statement. Moreover, the use of the race/ethnicity issue in the political campaigns of Ferrer (New York) and Villaraigosa (Los Angeles) shows this construction and reconfiguration of discourse. Once both candidates lost their elections, they sharply changed the focus of their campaigns with the aim of gaining the votes of those who didn’t feel represented by ethnic/racial discourse. For instance, Ferrer’s slogan in 2001 “The Other New York” drastically changed to “The Mayor for all New Yorkers, for a change”. Similarly, during the May 2006 demonstrations both politicians had a very low profile. I understand that Mr. Villaraigosa was an American public official during the immigrant rallies but he avoided being involved in any kind of political statement that could compromise his political career. However, it brought my attention the idea that minorities worked together with a common purpose. Usually, minorities in different countries have faced many problems in interacting with each other, especially when the ethnicity/race issue is part of the equation.

I think that it also worth to mention that throughout her analysis nationalities are mentioned only in relation to the immigrant rallies, when people from different countries of Latin America, as well as from Africa, were carrying their national flags. Especially concerning Latino immigration to the US, I think that the role that nationality plays is really important because the identities and even some cultural traits are very different. In Zolberg’s article “Why Islam is like Spanish”, he mentions these differences between Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Mexicans, especially concerning foreign policy and economic affairs. The advancement of the Spanish language is kept as a common ground (Zolberg / Litt Woon: 1999: 26).

I have the same opinion as you guys regarding the May rallies, in which ethnicity, class and labor were interconnected, but I think there was a primacy of the economic component. I would like to know how the second or third generations of Latino immigration reacted to this phenomenon. Clearly Villaraigosa didn’t want to become a representative of the Latino immigrants.

Finally, I would like to mention one thing concerning Al Sharpton’s speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, which made me think about our conversation whether voting should be mandatory or voluntary, when discussing Miller’s books. I guess that my idea of mandatory vote is related to Sharpton’s account of the fights that African-Americans have throughout American history. He says that “the vote is sacred to us”. I think that coming from a region where political turmoil and dictatorships were the rule for many decades, voting is really important because it is a way of strengthening democratic political participation.

Emilio

- Mike

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I, too, was struck by Miller’s distinct narrative style and its reliance on historical background, interviews, and, in general, thick description, but taken in the context of his professional career, which included stints in journalism, it is not altogether surprising that Miller approaches the study of politics and political theory in this fashion.  I tend to agree with Mike that such methods draw the reader to an historical understanding of political phenomena and concepts, such that they become situated spatially and temporally, but this approach conjures two thoughts worth discussing further: 1) how does the (academic) study of politics differ from what journalists do, and 2) as researchers, how important is it to articulate an autobiography in our own research?

With regards to the first point, I cannot help but think of the Shapiro piece.  In arguing for a problem-driven rather than theory-driven approach, Shapiro notes that one of the reasons why political scientists tend toward the latter is in order to differentiate themselves from journalists, who also study political phenomena.  Engaging in theory-driven work, with all the jargon that necessarily accompanies it, permits occupational distinction but produces, in Shapiro’s estimation, “esoteric discourses with high entry costs for outsiders.”  This, of course, recalls questions we have been dealing with throughout the seminar: what are the boundaries of political science, what is the purpose in doing social science research, and how has political prose been used to obscure rather than discover ‘truth’.  I find myself sympathetic to Shapiro’s position, but there is a great deal of ambivalence of what it means to study politics that comes along with accepting this.

The second point draws attention to the idea that perhaps not only the biographical context of individuals studied is necessary (in this case, Rousseau, Foucault, or SDS activists) but also of the researcher herself (in this case, Jim Miller).  Miller’s in-class discussion of his own background did much to illuminate how he approached scholarship and its purpose; in the same way that Miller historicized Rousseau, would it not be equally important in evaluating his work were he to discuss how he came to this study?

- kavi

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I also found interesting Miller’s literature style and I especially appreciated the way he narrates “Democracy is on the Streets”. I think that the personal circumstances and professional relations and backgrounds of the different protagonists of this story help to understand the link between theory and practice. It is useful to analyze the way they reacted to different events and, therefore, while having detailed description of these events, we also have the possibility to comprehend the big picture. Similarly, in the cases of Foucault and Rousseau, personal experiences located in a particular place and time enable to grasp the particularities of each author in a thorough way, allowing to comprehend the way in which they developed their political thought.

In this sense, I think that Miller’s books also show the role of the intellectual in a broader perspective, for instance, the interaction between the intellectual and its context, especially in C. Wright Mills and Foucault. Both were critics of the current state of affairs and provided very negative perspective for men. However, Foucault direct social involvement in the 1968 protests and in the GIP and an active political participation via the Maoist movement – although he at a later stage abandoned both groups – differ completely from the role that Wright Mills played in the US, which wanted the public to react to his ideas. In spite of the disappointment and negative outcomes of their political participation, SDS activists and Foucault “tried” to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Miller mentions that Wright Mills never “offered a systematic defense of his political principles (…)” and “never made a sustained effort to demonstrate the feasibility of his political vision (…)”. If I understood correctly the whale metaphor, the idea that Wright Mills imagined outside the whale relates to the fact that he was ‘disconnected’ from society, trying to provoke a reaction on others without openly involving himself. I see Wright Mill’s role as an iconoclast more than an activist when Miller defines his attitude as “resist, protest, dream of alternatives” (….) (1987:90).

Emilio

- kavi

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Taking a more comprehensive view of Zolberg’s work, something I found rather striking about his approach to social science research is his pluralistic take on methods. Of the pieces we read, he is able to integrate ethnographic, biographical, statistical, and textual data in a synthetic analysis of the ‘mamagement of cultural diversity in contemporary societies.’ Certainly, however, Zolberg approaches his research with a firm methodological footing, and it is precisely this rooting that permits him to adopt any necessary means for the analysis of his subject. As Zolberg outlines in the Introduction to “How Many Exceptionalisms?,” his methodology is one of tracing ‘patterns’ – “that is, dynamics characteristic of certain situations under certain historical circumstances.” Thus, he takes as his point of departure an ontology that characterizes the social world as irreducible to mere ‘objective’ causality – a move that would seek to reduce social phenomena to the operation of a few general ‘laws’ independent of the doings of actors caught within the structures that define the social world. It is this departure point that permits Zolberg to classify “socio-political configurations as unique, but not accidental”; his methodology permits him to understand the structures and movements of the political without reducing them to pre-formulated models. This eschews the oft-dominant ‘predictive’ models of behavior-based analysis in favor of cognizing eruptions of ‘the new’ within politics. Zolberg hence orients his work not according to his selected method, – which becomes pure means, – but rather, his research is constituted according to the ‘problem’ that he has selected to pursue in accordance with his methodological grounding. Hence, he ends up being neither a mere quantitative social scientist nor a qualitative researcher, but can approach social phenomena in a sophisticated and focused manner using a plurality of methods.

- Mike

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I really enjoyed Zolberg’s articles, particularly the range of topics that he focuses on his writings and the approach that he took on his studies about Belgium, Mali and Ivory Coast and Why Islam is like Spanish. He uses different methodological tools in his analysis in order to comprehend social phenomena in a thorough way. Ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, geographical and international factors are taken into consideration in order to show different patterns of integration and identify formation. The emergence and evolution of the Belgian state is paradigmatic in the sense because it has become one of the most developed countries in the word in spite of its heterogeneity. As Zolberg argues that “the Belgian case illustrates how tribes can arise even in civilized societies and why war does not follow in their wake” (Zolberg 1974: 181). Even when recently political crises have arisen as consequence of the rife between Flemish and Walloons, and autonomist and independent political parties have gained relevant positions in state-institutions – challenging the existence of the Belgian state -, problems have been solved in peaceful terms.

As Kavi mentions, 9/11 have changed the language issues in the United States in order to focus more on religion, especially in Islam. This can be a result of external factors (Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the permanent challenge posed by Iran) but in day-to-day life the Hispanic challenge is still a very important issue. For instance, the Anti-Hispanic media and scholars such as Samuel Huntington (in his book Who Are We?) place the Latino community as a menace to the American identity.

Furthermore, Zolberg’s analysis of Islam in Europe reflects the current social and political problems faced by different states such as France, the Netherlands and Spain, among others. Zolberg mentions several international events that changed the view of Islam in Europe aggressive civilization (1999: 17) that has been reinforced for some people after 9/11. This has created a completely new context of the relations between Muslims and Europeans. For instance, the riots that took place in France in 2005 and recent policies concerning the used of religious symbols in public schools, have brought under debate the traditional assimilation policy of the country. These clashes have generated a wave of racism in Europe that can be viewed not only in the increasing number of political parties with racist and xenophobic platforms gaining seats in provincial and national parliaments but in the European Union parliament as well.

In an ever-increasing globalized and interconnected world issues related to culture, religion, class and language, as well as the concept of boundaries employed by Zolberg, play a salient role because they drastically affect processes of national and international integration and identity creation.

Emilio

At first hand, it sounds unusual that, according to Mr. Perestroika, the majority of the articles share the same methodology – statistics or game theory – in a discipline that is very diverse. The utilization of different methods and models of inquiry are important not only for political science but for the entire social sciences. This would enable to have a broader view about political phenomena worldwide. May be the US academia, especially those closely linked with APSA, needed some kind of wake-up call in order to change the way that they have seen the field during the last decades.

On the other hand, I disagree that with Rudolph’s statement that “anonymity prevented the identity of any particular Mr. or Ms. Perestroika from defining the movement” (2005: 13) for two reasons. First, if the power that APSA has over the discipline is that big, nobody wanted to face the consequences for such an act of defiance to the status quo. Second, the idea of belonging to some groups it is really important not only in the discipline but for everybody. May be Mr. or Ms. Perestroika is a student,  may be is just a small groups of professors, or may be one professor, and nobody want to become a pariah in a field that, as Luke argues, everything is related to prestige and status.

Moreover, she focuses too much on the modes of inquiry (Scientific vs. Interpretative) and their characteristics, but I think that Mr. Perestroika goes beyond this. I think that the idea has been to have an open and interdisciplinary political science in the US and generate discussions about the role of one of the most representative of its institutions: APSA. The publication of the book “Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science” in 2005 is a clear result of the challenge posed by Mr. Perestroika.

Concerning the recommended reading in section A, APSA Task Force on Graduate Education focuses on the commitments that graduate study in the discipline should have, including explaining human experiences, intellectual honesty, diversity of methods, ethical norms, communicate clearly, among the most important ones. It also makes recommendations or suggestions to Departments of Political Science all over the country, including a how to organize the programs for PhD students in terms variety of methods, views, and approaches; training in specific areas; Fellowships; minorities and international students; ethics; research and teaching experience; evaluations; information to prospective students (including a recommendation with important features that should be included, for example, in the department website) etc. Also points out the role that university should have concerning the preparation of students for their professional life.

Finally, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea’s article focuses on different three categories (1. Empirical = Quantitative; 2. Split; 3; Empirical = Quantitative and Qualitative) of universities in accordance with their sub-fields, programs, expertise and area of specialization. She acknowledges the differences among different programs, the requisites within the curricula, the type of courses and approaches toward political science. She concluded that departments of political science, even those who focus on a particular method, should “cultivate awareness of the full range of methodological possibilities”.

Emilio

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Among the elements contributing to the lack of discipline in political science is the ongoing methodological debate between positivists and post-positivists/interpretivists. A number of the readings this week focused on undermining or at least questioning the primacy of positivism in order to create a greater space for interpretive research. Patrick Jackson, for instance, argues for giving up the impulse to ‘objectively’ study social sciences, opting instead for a monistic, Weberian approach that acknowledges how research/knowledge produces reality itself. In Jackson’s estimation, with which I tend to agree, a ‘real’ world of sorts exist, but it is so embedded with “knowledge practices” that it is fruitless to try and separate them; the positivist approach, which has its ontological basis in dualism – i.e. the world is made up of things and thoughts – strives for something that cannot be realized: a neutral, disembodied analytical eye. Therefore, we should give up on that project.

Dvora Yanow’s piece echoed the spirit of Jackson in that she argues for an invigorated non-positivist approach to studying politics. She, however, in reflecting on the quantitative/qualitative divide, puts forth the idea that constructivist-interpretive qualitative methods should be considered scientific as they proceed with a formal logic and argumentation. It’s an attractive assertion, to broaden the understanding of the term ‘science’ to include any formal argumentation, but does science lose its meaning then? If one were to argue for a certain interpretation of a piece of literature, for instance, would we then call that science?

Least radical in their attack on positivism was James Johnson’s pragmatic evaluation. In his critical review of KKV, Johnson uncovers a tension between the desire for causality in social sciences- which KKV call the “unity to social inquiry” – and the philosophical groundings of KKV’s treatise (i.e. positivism). Positivism focuses on observables/verification and is suspicious of defining causality because doing so inevitably relies upon unobservables; KKV’s gets in trouble by emphasizing the need for causality/explanation in social science research, a situation that Johnson says creates two negative consequences: 1) we lose the ability to appropriately evaluate quantitative research, and 2) by assuming positivism, KKV engenders “unproductive” polemical debates between positivists and interpretivists.

The second point is worth considering further; are we coming to the end of these methodological debates in the discipline, where each side seems to construct a caricature of the other? Is there a growing space for pluralism in studying politics, or do interpretivists need to keep ‘fighting’ for a place? While I know that post-positivist positions are in no way mainstream, it feels like acceptance is certainly on the rise; the APSA conference divisions, for instance, certainly suggest a diverse understanding of what constitutes our discipline. Part of me thinks we interpretivists enjoy attacking the ‘center’ from the ‘periphery’ just a little too much.

kavi

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Richard Snyder’s “The Human Dimension of Comparative Research” is the introduction to the same book from which the James Scott interview is lifted, so if you read that piece you should have some familiarity with the general intent and direction of Snyder’s essay. Snyder seeks to situate comparative politics with a view to its practioners. This is not meant as a purely epistemological exercise; that is, he is not merely looking to draw our attention to the fact that political science research is performed by concrete individuals with nuanced life-histories in order to draw out the implications this bears on the status of political knowledge, perhaps circumscribing it within fixed limits and/or curtailing the possibility of certain forms of knowledge. Rather, Snyder seeks to ground research in the very relatable ‘human’ experiences of the researcher – the personal motivations, the risks and rewards, the passionate urge for creative scholarship, the role of the imagination and human emotions all step to the forefront in Snyder’s account. This is all to reminds us that political science is not a field autonomous of the happenings of the political world, nor free from the affective involvements and motivations of the individuals who participate in and constitute the discipline. Rather, research is performed by individuals tied to their research subjects in varying ways – perhaps with a normative political interest, a personal or biographical background, or some other type of affective stakes. Further, Snyder seeks to interrogate – and expose – the community that is formed around the discipline. This is not a disembodied noetic community, but rather one formed in and through various sorts of associations and networks that have tangible bearing on research. In a word, Snyder seeks to draw back the cloak formed by the “rhetoric of impersonality” in order to reveal the ‘corporeality’ of political science. With this Snyder’s audience most clearly steps to the fore: he is writing for those newcomers to the discipline, often seemingly unaware of the material communities and bonds that form the substance of the discipline. Indeed, Snyder’s piece even ends with advice on generating creative research questions as drawn from the interviews with the comparativists that follow.

The “Making Doubt Generative” piece, penned by Karen Locke, Karen Golden-Biddle, and Martha S. Feldman, is an interrogation into the discovery process of scholarly research, which the authors remark at the outset to be an underdeveloped subject of discussion within scholarship on theory and method. The authors argue that doubt plays a significant role in producing the insights that guide scholarly research; doubt bolsters the process of abductive reasoning – a concept coined by Charles Sander Peirce to describe the imaginative process of, put more colloquially, ‘hunch-forming.’ In his own words, “deduction proves that something must be; induction shows that something actually is operative; abduction merely suggests that something may be.” Doubt is traditionally situated in the former two processes as a systematic method of epistemic validation. However, as the authors here indicate, doubt is the ‘engine of abduction’ – it is crucial not only to refining the product of knowledge-production, but in the generative process itself – in generating research ‘hunches’ and questions that guide scholarly work. The authors argue, following Peirce, for a cycle of ‘belief, doubt and abduction,’ in which doubt functions to disrupt the given order of things (in scrutinizing inherited belief), making room for the eruption of imaginative (abductive) reasoning. Further, the authors, not unlike Snyder above, situate scholarly research as tied to the body; doubt has a bodily dimension – it is a ‘living sensation.’ Similarly, hunches themselves have a sentient element perhaps captured best in the metaphor of ‘gut’ instinct. The body is thus given a primary role in theorizing; the physical pulls and inclinations of our corporeal being underlie the scholarly research produced in the halls of academia. Akin to the Snyder piece, the authors of this essay seek to re-affirm that knowledge-production cannot be disconnected from embodied life.

By focusing upon the process rather than merely the end product of research the authors seek to emphasize the significance of openness in scholarly work. Indeed, they repeatedly warn against ‘premature closure’ – foreclosing the possibility of more imaginative prospects within the work. Indeed, this is an ill seemingly encouraged by the institutional practices of the academy that emphasize refining the validation process and avoiding mistakes over the open-ended process of generating the ideas and intuitions that guide research. However, to this we must ask: what is the meaning or significance of accuracy in validation practices if the research is not concerned in exploring questions that compel readers’ interests and/or encourage us to view the world in new and challenging ways? It seems this focus upon validation and eliminating error at the expense of the discovery process ends in a discipline of little value for those of us still fascinated by the seeming boundlessness of the human imagination. Research without a creative motive tends toward reproducing the tightly enclosed community of academia, moving scholarly research further and further away from holding significance in regards to the lived experiences of the everyday world.