Making Political Science Matter

Sanford F. Schram teaches social theory and social policy in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College where he also teaches research methods for undergraduate political science majors. He is the author of several books including Words of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty which won the Michael Harrington Award from the American Political Science Association and Welfare Discipline: Discourse, Governance, and Globalization.Brian Caterino is an independent scholar and has taught at the University of Rochester, the New School, and the State University of New York, Brockport. He lives in Rochester, New York.

• ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Reframing the Debate Brian Caterino and Sanford F. SchramPart I: The Flyvbjerg Debate1. Return to Politics: Perestroika, Phronesis, and Post-Paradigmatic Political ScienceSanford F. Schram2. The Perestroikan Challenge to Social Science David D. Laitin3. A Perestroikan Straw Man Answers Back: David Laitin and Phronetic Political ScienceBent Flyvbjerg4. A Statistician Strikes Out: In Defense of Genuine Methodological DiversityPatrick Thaddeus Jackson5. Re?ections on Doing Phronetic Social Science: A Case StudyCorey S. Shdaimah and Roland W. StahlPart II: Phronesis Reconsidered6. Social Science in Society Theodore Schatzki7. Power and Interpretation Brian Caterino8. Contesting the Terrain: Flyvbjerg on Facts, Value, Knowledge, and PowerMary Hawkesworth9. The Bounds of Rationality Stewart Clegg10. Making Intuition Matter Leslie Paul ThielePart III: Making Political Science Matter11. Conundrums in the Practice of Pluralism Peregrine Schwartz-Shea12. Unearthing the Roots of Hard Science: A Program for Graduate StudentsGreg J. Kasza13. Political Science and Political Theory: The Heart of the MatterDavid Kettler14. Finding New Mainstreams: Perestroika, Phronesis, and Political Science in the United StatesTimothy W. LukeReferences About the Contributors Index

Devotees of the perestroika movement will find many of the chapters reinforce their views of the field. . . . Recommended. (Choice) A bold call to rethink political science. The authors imagine a discipline that challenges power, challenges society, and challenges the ways we think. Making Political Science Matter is a wise, erudite, broad-ranging, sometimes witty gauntlet tossed before contemporary scholarship. It is more than a book, it is a movement. - James A. Morone,author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History A significant and thoughtful discussion of key issues in the philosophy of social science, one designed to encourage a richer variety of methodological work in political science. - Kristen Renwick Monroe,editor of Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science This edited collection offers and up-to-date and very readable discussion of knowledge, research, and method in the political sciences and social studies more generally, suitable for academics and doctoral students alike. - Thomas Ahrens,University of Warwick This well-written and accessible collection will be an invaluable resource for students and academics in social sciences in general. (Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography) Articulates and debates the idea that academic work should be primarily concerned with addressing the largest and most immediate challenges faced by societies. (Urban Studies)