I Political Science : Method and Theory / Science Politique : Méthodes et Théories
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00208345211038640 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
507
I
POLITICAL SCIENCE : METHOD AND THEORY
SCIENCE POLITIQUE : MÉTHODES ET THÉORIES
71.4991 ACHARYA, Amitav — The myth of the “civilization state”:
rising powers and the cultural challenge to world order.
Ethics and International Affairs 34(2), Summer 2020 : 139-156.
“Civilization” is back at the forefront of global policy debates. The leaders
of rising powers such as China, India, Turkey, and Russia have stressed
their civilizational identity in framing their domestic and foreign policy plat-
forms. An emphasis on civilizational identity is also evident in US president
D. Trump's domestic and foreign policy. Some analysts argue that the
twenty-first century might belong to the civilization state, just as the past
few centuries were dominated by the nation-state. But is the rise of civili-
zation state inevitable? Will it further undermine the liberal international
order and fuel a clash of civilizations, as predicted by the late S. Hunting-
ton? Or might ideas from East Asian and other non-Western civilizations
contribute to greater pluralism in our thinking about world order and the
study of international relations? [R]
71.4992 AHRENS, Petra, et al. — Gender and politics research in
Europe: towards a consolidation of a flourishing political
science subfield? European Political Science 20(1), March
2021 : 105-122.
Over the past twenty years, the field of “gender and politics” has flourished
in European political science. We take stock of how the “gender and poli-
tics” field has developed over the ye ars. We argue that the field has now
entered a stage of “consolidation”, which is reflected in the growth, diver-
sification and professionalization of the subfield, as well as in the in-
creased disciplinary recognition from major gatekeepers in political sci-
ence. But while consolidation comes with specific opportunities, it also pre-
sents some key challenges. We identify five such challenges: (1) the po-
tential fragmentation of the field; (2) persisting hierarchies in knowledge
production; (3) the continued marginalization of feminist political analysis
in “mainstream” political science; (4) the changing link between academia
and society; and (5) growing opposition to gender studies in parts of Eu-
rope and beyond. [R, abr.]
71.4993 AITKEN, Rob — The sovereignty of finance? Distress and
the financialization of sovereign debt. Perspectives on
Global Development and Technology 18(5-6), 2019 : 493-526.
This article argues that the relationship between finance and state sover-
eignty is neither automatic nor understandable in some generalized man-
ner. To develop this argument, I pay particular attention to the financiali-
zation of distressed sovereign debt, especially sovereign debt defaults in
the Global South with particular reference to Argentina’s default in 2001
and the string of legal cases it triggered. These legal processes breathed
a strange after-life into Argentina’s defaulted debt by converting that debt
into fully commodified financial contracts. I argue that the finan cialization
of sovereign debt is enabled by a long and complex evolution in the appli-
cation of the doctrine of restrictive sovereign immunity. This financializa-
tion, moreover, is indicative of ways in which forms of financial distress are
reworked as renewed sources of financial value. [R, abr.]
71.4994 ALEJANDRO, Audrey — Reflexive discourse analysis: a
methodology for the practice of reflexivity. European Jour-
nal of International Relations 27(1), March 2021 : 150-174.
Critical IR scholars have successfully put reflexivity on the agenda based
on the theoretical premise that discourse and knowledge play a socio-po-
litical role. However, academics often find themselves at a loss when it
comes to implementing reflexivity due to the lack of adapted methodolog-
ical and pedagogical material. This article shifts reflexivity from meta-re-
flections on the situatedness of research into a distinctive practice of re-
search and writing that can be learned and taught alongside other re-
search practices. I develop a methodology based on discourse: reflexive
discourse analysis (RDA). To illustrate this methodology, I used this very
article as a recursive performance. I show how RDA enabled me to identify
implicit discriminative mechanisms within my discourse and transform
them into an alternative based on love, to produce an article more in line
with my socio-political objectives. [R, abr.]
71.4995 ALLEN, John — Power’s quiet reach and why it should ex-
ercise us. Space and Polity 24(3), Dec. 2020 : 408-413.
On a number of fronts, quieter registers of power — manipulation, dissim-
ulation, inducement and displaced forms of authority — have assumed
greater significance today, made possible by the topological reach into
peoples’ everyday lives. This should exercise us, not least because you
can miss these kinds of powerful practices as they do not always appear
as such. When the ‘power to’ secure or influence outcomes may just as
easily turn into the ‘power over’ others, we should at the very least be
troubled, if not straightforwardly provoked. [R]
71.4996 ARAN, Amnon ; BRUMMER, Klaus ; SMITH, Karen E. — New
directions in foreign policy analysis. International Affairs
97(2), March 2021 : 261-265.
In recent years the international order, which seemed both liberal and se-
cure in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, has been challenged by
ethno-populist forces and increasing global and domestic inequality. Mas-
culine discourses and practices continue to inform foreign policy even
though a number of states and foreign policy leaders are advocating the
promotion of gender equality as part of their foreign policies. The context
of foreign policy-making has shifted considerably, with the increasing in-
fluence of non-western actors, transnational actors, non-state actors and
new technologies. [R] [First of a series of articles of the same title, edited
by the authors. See also Abstr. 71.5022, 5098, 5099, 5317, 5402, 5489,
5495, 5687, 5890]
71.4997 ARBATLI, Ekim ; ROSENBERG, Dina — United we stand,
divided we rule: how political polarization erodes democ-
racy. Democratization 28(2), 2021 : 285-307.
Although there is a broad consensus among political scientists that polar-
ization is detrimental to democracy, very few empirically investigate the
links between political polarization and democratic erosion. Most studies
use diversity measures that fail to capture contemporary polarization,
where the society is divided into two large hostile camps. Theoretically, we
argue that polarization increases animosity between “enemy camps,”
making voters more willing to accept anti-democratic measures against
the rival group. This tacit approval becomes even more pronounced during
election periods, where political controversy reigns and the stakes are
higher. Focusing on a specific type of electoral manipulation, we hypothe-
size that ceteris paribus, political polarization is strongly associated with
higher levels of government intimidation of the opposition. We expect this
relationship to be stronger in democracies than in autocracies. [R, abr.]
71.4998 ARIS, Stephen — Fragmenting and connecting? The di-
verging geometries and extents of IR’s interdisciplinary
knowledge-relations. European Journal of International Re-
lations 27(1), March 2021 : 175-203.
Intradisciplinary fragmentation cannot be considered as detached from a
discipline’s relations to other disciplines — and, by extension, the differen-
tiated knowledge relationships held by distinct intradisciplinary fragments
to other disciplines. This article uses bibliometric analysis of journals as a
proxy for analysing the relationship between IR’s intradisciplinary make-
up and its interdisciplinary relations to eight cognate disciplines between
2013 and 2017. Three distinct modes of bibliometric analysis are opera-
tionalised to map three different aspects of interdisciplinary knowledge
practice: (inter)disciplinary debates (direct citation), multidisciplinary
knowledge bases (bibliographic coupling) and interdisciplinary knowledge
production (co-citation). The article asks whether and how differences in
the interdisciplinary knowledge relations practised by IR scholarship cor-
relate with intra-IR lines of fragmentation. And what are the implications
for how IR’s socio-intellectual composition is understood and its discipli-
nary status evaluated? [R, abr.]
71.4999 ARNEIL, Barbara — Origins: colonies and statistics. Cana-
dian Journal of Political Science 53(4), Dec. 2020 : 735-754.
I examine the lexical, geographic, temporal and philosophical origins of
two key concepts in modern political thought: colonies and statistics. Be-
ginning with the Latin word colonia, I argue that the modern ideology of
settler colonialism is anchored in the claim of “improvement” of both peo-
ple and land via agrarian labour in J. Locke's labour theory of property in
seventeenth-century America, through which he sought to provide an ide-
ological justification for both the assimilation and dispossession of Indige-
nous peoples. This same ideology of colonialism was turned inward a cen-
tury later by Sir John Sinclair to justify domestic colonies on “waste” land
in Scotland — specifically Caithness (the county within which my own
grandparents were tenant farmers). [R, abr.]
Political science : method and theory
508
71.5000 ASAL, Victor ; MILLER, Inga ; WILLIS, Charmaine N. — Sys-
tem, state, or individual: gaming levels of analysis in In-
ternational Relations . International Studies Perspectives
21(1), 2020 : 97-107.
Students often struggle to grasp how examining international phenomena
at the systemic, state, or international level of analysis can yield different
understandings or perspectives. To help students understand the dynam-
ics at the different levels of analysis, we suggest the use of several short
games that make students be “lab rats in their own experiments.” We
discuss the mechanics of three short games we play with our students.
We offer our qualitative impressions of the impact of these games on the
understanding of the students. [R]
71.5001 BADARIN, Emile — Politics and economy of resilience: EU
resilience-building in Palestine and Jordan and its disci-
plinary governance. European Security 30(1), March 2021 :
65-84.
This article examines empirical resilience interventions to demonstrate
how resilience-building is utilised to govern in non-liberal settings and how
its political and economic positionality shapes concrete resilience projects,
processes of inclusion and exclusion and the hierarchies between them. It
argues that the politics and economy that undergird resilience, coupled
with the lack of freedom, render empirical resilience less fit for the purpose
of governmentality in non-liberal and authoritarian conditions. In these cir-
cumstances, resilience-building governs through discipline. Resilience is
structurally oriented towards pinpointed interventions directed at specific
targets, subjects and fields. It unfolds as a hierarchal and top-down pro-
cess, which positions local actors and concerns at the bottom. The inclu-
sion or exclusion of subjects, objects and goals and the hierarchies that
underpin empirical resilience derive from unfixed and contingent foreign
policy rationalities and instruments. [R, abr.]
71.5002 BAGG, Samuel — Beyond the search for the subject: an
anti-essentialist ontology for liberal democracy. European
Journal of Political Theory 20(2), Apr. 2021 : 208-231.
Reading Foucault’s work on power and subjectivity alongside “develop-
mentalist” approaches to evolutionary biology, this article endorses post-
structuralist critiques of political ideals grounded in the value of subjective
agency. Many political theorists embrace such critiques, of course, but
those who do are often skeptical of liberal democracy, and even of norma-
tive theory itself. By contrast, those who are left to theorize liberal democ-
racy tend to reject or ignore poststructuralist insights, and have continued
to employ dubious ontological assumptions regarding human agents.
Against both groups, I argue that Foucault’s poststructuralism must be
taken seriously, but that it is ultimately consistent with normative theory
and liberal democracy. [R, abr.]
71.5003 BAK Daehee — Autocratic political cycle and international
conflict. Conflict Management and Peace Science 37(3), May
2020 : 259-279.
This article reveals a temporal pattern of conflict behavior over the course
of autocratic leaders’ tenure. By identifying a commonly observed domes-
tic political cycle in autocracies, I discuss how the level of domestic con-
straints on autocrats’ conflict behavior changes over time in three distinct
periods: (1) power struggle in the early period of tenure; (2) power consol-
idation; and (3) power dissipation in the later period of power transition.
The empirical analysis on autocratic conflict cycle reveals that the likeli-
hood of autocratic crisis initiation significantly increases during the early
years of autocratic leadership tenure, after which it moderately decreases
over time. This finding suggests that autocrats’ tenure is a substantively
important predictor of autocratic leaders’ conflict behavior. [R]
71.5004 BALDWIN, David A. — The faces of power revisited. Journal
of Political Power 14(1), 2021 : 85-96.
The phrase ‘faces of power’ grows out of the ‘community power debate’
several decades ago. This essay focuses on aspects of the debate that
have been overlooked, misinterpreted, forgotten, and/or which deserve
further discussion. Since one of the principal participants in the debate has
recently revised his thinking significantly, the debate is re-examined from
this perspective. [R] [See Abstr. 71.5052]
71.5005 BANDOLA-GILL, Justyna ; FLINDERS, Matthew ; ANDER-
SON, Alexandra — Co-option, control and criticality: the
politics of relevance regimes for the future of political sci-
ence. European Political Science 20(1), March 2021 : 218-
236.
Over the last 20 years, the notion of relevance vis-à-vis political science
became not only a subject of academic debates but also a domain of prac-
tice, largely due to the developments in the research funding, increasingly
referred to as the 'impact agenda'. We explore how the growing focus on
socio-economic impact as the assessm ent criterion of research funding
shapes the discipline of political science itself — its knowledge production,
dissemination and the emergent forms of accountability of political scien-
tists. The article presents the results of a major international study that has
examined the emergence of ‘impact agendas’ across 33 countries. We
report on the changing idea of relevance of political science through the
lens of its strategic ambiguity and historical evolution. [R, abr.]
71.5006 BANERJEE, Vasabjit ; HOLMES, Carolyn E. — Checking
trust: observing social capital at the individual level. Jour-
nal of Modern African Studies 58(2), June 2020 : 213-234.
Social capital research has measured the concept in two distinct ways:
through direct reporting by participants in cross-national surveys and the
presence of associative organisations. Both strategies raise difficulties:
the former restricts comparability and assumes group stability; the latter
relies on literal translation and uses direct questioning. We problematise
these approaches and argue that the ratio of ‘check-points’ where individ-
uals are asked to demonstrate adherence to rules, and ‘trust-points’ where
such proofs are not required, can better measure social capital. Moreover,
the unevenness of social capital between groups is perceptible by ‘fast-
lanes’ that differentially treat individuals based on identity. Evidence from
a field survey and observational evidence in South Africa is presented. [R]
71.5007 BEAUSOLEIL, Emily — Listening obliquely: listening as
norm and strategy for structural justice. Contemporary Po-
litical Theory 20(1), March 2021 : 23-47.
Long histories and entrenched habits of inattention among advantaged
groups mean that even minor challenge and concession can provoke sub-
jective perceptions of victimization. How, in such conditions, might claims
of structural injustice break through? Drawing on field work with practition-
ers across conflict mediation, therapy, education, and performance — four
sectors that facilitate listening in fraught contexts yet are undertheorized
in politics — this article makes the case that among the most overlooked
and powerful resources for cultivating receptivity and responsiveness
among advantaged groups are the arts of listening. Practices of engage-
ment across these sectors establish listening as potent rather than pas-
sive, given the extent to which it constitutes the field of encounter and
shapes what emerges within it, both in terms of expression and, more sig-
nificantly in this context, receptivity of those to whom one listens. [R, abr.]
71.5008 BECKER, Manuel ; LINDER, Simon — The unintended con-
sequences of regulatory import: the Basel Accord’s fail-
ure during the financial crisis. Journal of European Public
Policy 28(2), 2021 : 248-267.
This article examines to what extent regulatory import (RI), a common, but
understudied mode of governance in regime complexes, was a separate
factor of the global financial crisis in 2008. RI describes a specific mode of
governance that occurs when regulators explicitly incorporate functionally
important governance from an external forum to their own regulations, thus
making their own performance dependent on external agency. While RI is
associated with benefits, such as specialisation, it could cause unintended
consequences. The one-sided dependence on external authority could re-
sult in the import of non-complementary governance or regulatory failures
and undermine the regulator’s performance. We illustrate our argument
with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision that imported govern-
ance authority from the International Accounting Standards Board and
credit rating agencies. [R, abr.]
71.5009 BELMONTE, Rosalba ; CERNY, Philip G. — Heterarchy: to-
ward paradigm shift in world politics. Journal of Political
Power 14(1), 2021 : 235-257.
IR theory has been dominated since the study of IR formally began at the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1919 by the presumption that world
politics is at its core a system of states. We argue that this way of conceiv-
ing world politics was (1) always problematic and challengeable, and (2)
time-bound and increasingly anachronistic. In the 21st c. world politics is
becoming increasingly multi-nodal and characterised by heterarchy — the
predominance of cross-cutting sectoral mini- and meso-hierarchies above,
below and cutting across states. These heterarchical institutions and pro-
cesses are characterized by increasing autonomy and special interest
capture. States today are no longer primarily ‘guardian states’ but more
and more ‘reactive states’; state capacity is not simply eroded but entan-
gled in hybrid structures and processes. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 71.5052]
71.5010 BENDER, Felix — Enfranchising the disenfranchised:
should refugees receive political rights in liberal democ-
racies? Citizenship Studies 25(1), Feb. 2021 : 56-71.
Should refugees receive political rights in liberal democracies? I argue that
they should. Refugees are special — at least when it comes to claims to-
wards democratic inclusion. They lack exit options and are significantly
impacted by decisions made in liberal democracies. Enfranchisement is a
matter of urgency to them and should occur on a national level. But what
justifies the democratic inclusion of refu gees? I draw on the all-subjected
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