II Political Science : Method and Theory / Science Politique : Méthodes et Théories
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208345231169342 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
195
II
POLITICAL SCIENCE : METHOD AND THEORY
SCIENCE POLITIQUE : MÉTHODES ET THÉORIES
73.1622 ACEMOGLU, Daron ; ROBINSON, James — Non-moderni-
zation: power-culture trajectories and the dynamics of
political institutions. Annual Review of Political Science 25,
2022 : 323-339.
Modernization theory is a cornerstone of much of political science, de-
spite the mounting evidence against its predictions. We outline a theory
in which the distribution of political power critically combines with political
culture. We call the basic components of culture “attributes” and argue
that these can be combined into larger cultural configurations. These con-
figurations interact with the distribution of power and lead to three distinct
self-reinforcing paths of political development, with very different state-
society relations, institutions, and economic structures. These are paths
to Despotic, Absent, and Shackled Leviathans. The role of cultural con-
figurations is critical in legitimizing the social arrangements in each path.
None of the three different paths we highlight support modernization the-
ory. We discuss how political equilibria can change in ways critically de-
pendent on cultural and political entrepreneurship in order to formulate
and popularize new cultural configurations and institutionalize political
changes. [R]
73.1623 AHMADOV, Anar ; HOLSTEGE, Floris — Does schooling
promote democracy? A meta-analysis. Democratization
30(1), 2023 : 57-77.
Worldwide democratic backsliding and surge of authoritarianism have re-
vived interest in the potential of schooling to support democracy. Yet,
while many intellectuals, donors, governments, and civil society organi-
zations continue acting on this belief, the empirical literature they rely on
is remarkably divided. We challenge this gridlock by offering a theoretical
and methodological framework to account for conflicting findings and to
facilitate resolving this debate. Our approach combines ideas on how dif-
ferent levels of schooling, ways of accounting for different contexts, and
epistemic community influences can affect the relationship between edu-
cation and political regime. To examine these ideas, we leverage statisti-
cal meta-analysis of synthesized empirical evidence base. Contrary to
mainstream views, we find that, while the overall education-political re-
gime relationship is positive, it is small and contingent. Pro-democratic
effects of education come mostly from primary schooling and are uncer-
tain beyond this level. [R, abr.]
73.1624 AKRAM, Sadiya — Police ça change? Cressida Dick, insti-
tutional racism and the Metropolitan Police. Political Quar-
terly 93(3), July-Sept. 2022 : 383-391.
This article considers the recent resignation of Metropolitan Police Com-
missioner, Cressida Dick, and places this event within the context of on-
going attempts to address institutional racism in the police. The article
argues that successive police commissioners have publicly supported
tackling institutional racism while maintaining serious reservations about
the concept and, in the case of Dick, ultimately rejecting it. It shows that
Dick's record on tackling institutional racism has been partial and contra-
dictory, focusing on recruitment of ethnic minorities whilst simultaneously
increasing use of stop and search tactics. Institutional racism is a useful,
but frequently misunderstood concept. Institutional reform, however, is
possible if we recognise that everyday individuals actively create and
maintain institutions, which is to be contrasted with the conventional ap-
proach to institutional reform where it is the institution that moulds or re-
forms the individual. [R, abr.]
73.1625 ALSTON, Eric, et al. — Blockchain networks as constitu-
tional and competitive polycentric orders. Journal of Insti-
tutional Economics 18(5), Oct. 2022 : 707-723.
Institutional economists have analyzed permissionless blockchains as a
novel institutional building block for voluntary economic exchange and
distributed governance, with their unique protocol features such as auto-
mated contract execution, high levels of network and process transpar-
ency, and uniquely distributed governance. But such institutional analysis
needs to be complemented by polycentric analysis of how blockchains
change. We characterize such change as resulting from internal sources
and external sources. Internal sources include constitutional (protocol)
design and collective-choice processes for updating protocols, which help
coordinate network participants and users. External sources include com-
petitive pressure from other cryptocurrency networks. By studying two
leading networks, Bitcoin and Ethereum, we illustrate how conceptualiz-
ing blockchains as competing and constitutional polycentric enterprises
clarifies their processes of change. [R]
73.1626 AMBERG, Stephen — How policy models change: insur-
gent narratives of policy authority since the Great Reces-
sion. Polity 54(4), Oct. 2022 : 684-708.
Economic governance typically deploys policy frameworks linked to a
model of the economy, but how a policy model is established and
changes are questions that continue to puzzle analysts. The authority of
the neoliberal model has been explained by the durability of the policy
ecology of professional economists and policymakers, but this paper
shows that a wider lens on agents and a longer time horizon reveals the
emergence of an alternative policy model since the Great Recession that
has influenced the new administration in Washington. This paper adapts
arguments from the sociology of fields and movements and from pragma-
tist theories of action to show how the institutional redoubts of policymak-
ing can be breached. Individuals and groups that institutions frame as
passive takers of rules and fillers of roles in fact innovate in their daily
lives. [R, abr.]
73.1627 ANDRÄ, Christine — Problematising war: towards a recon-
structive critique of war as a problem of deviance. Review
of International Studies 48(4), Oct. 2022 : 705-724.
This article redirects extant critiques of the modern problem of war at this
problem's underlying logic of deviance. According to this logic, war con-
stitutes a kind of international conduct that contravenes behavioural
norms and that can be corrected through diagnostic and didactic means.
Thereby, war is rendered into a problem falling within the scope of human
agency. However, this agency rests on and reproduces this logic's con-
stitutive blind spots. Therefore, it seems imperative to develop ways of
problematising war otherwise. The article provides two starting points for
(critical) IR scholarship seeking to undertake such a project. Firstly, it
combines two Foucaultian tools, the concept of problematisation and the
method of genealogy, to direct critique at the logics underlying our evalu-
ative — analytical, ethical, and political – judgements. Secondly, it uses
these tools to trace the contingent emergence of the logic of deviance in
a crucial example within the wider genealogy of the problem of war: the
Carnegie Endowment's commission of inquiry into the Balkan Wars of
1912 and 1913. [R, abr.]
73.1628 ANTONIO, Robert J. — Democracy and capitalism in the
interregnum: Trump’s failed self-coup and after. Critical
Sociology 48(6), Sept. 2022 : 937-965.
This paper addresses Trump’s failed self-coup, its authoritarian back-
wash, and threats to democracy. It analyzes his handling of the corona-
virus pandemic, which contributed to his 2020 election loss and deepened
the political polarization that led to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The
essay also discusses how the forty-year acceleration of economic ine-
quality and sociopolitical de-democratization generated a legitimacy crisis
of the hegemonic, neoliberal regime that opened way for Trumpist eth-
noracial nationalism. The Trump presidency and pandemic increased the
intensity of the political-economic contradictions and transparency of the
attenuated relationship of democracy and capitalism. In the consequent
“interregnum,” fundamental threats to democratic electoral institutions
persist, yet a clear, realistic vision of an alternative democratic regime
and the political bloc to bring it into being have yet to be forged. The fate
of American democracy rides on overcoming the remarkable denial and
normalization of the Trump coup attempt and on forging new safeguards
for electoral institutions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.2228]
73.1629 ANTUNES DE OLIVEIRA, Felipe — Democracy in the
prison of political science. International Political Science
Review 43(5), Nov. 2022 : 648-661.
After the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, a widespread per-
ception emerged that the world was witnessing a crisis of liberal democ-
racy. Not surprisingly, said crisis is at the core of a new batch of political
science literature. This review article takes stock of some key contribu-
tions to the literature, namely Albright (2018), Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018),
Norris and Inglehart (2018), Runciman (2018a) and Eatwell and Goodwin
(2018). My key argument is that the reviewed books are fundamentally
limited by problematic ontological assumptions stemming from artificial
disciplinary boundaries. Privileging either individual traits of authoritarian
leaders or the very specific experience of the USA or the UK, they fail to
capture varied, yet deeply interconnected international expressions of
contemporary authoritarianism. [R, abr.]
Political science : method and theory
196
73.1630 ARMINGEON, Klaus ; WEISSTANNER, David — Objective
conditions count, political beliefs decide: the conditional
effects of self-interest and ideology on redistribution
preferences. Political Studies 70(4), Nov. 2022 : 887-900.
How can we explain variation in demand for redistribution among cross-
pressured voters? We argue that redistributive preferences reflect an in-
teraction between material self-interest and political ideology. The self-
interest argument predicts growing opposition to redistribution as income
increases, while the argument of ideologically driven preferences sug-
gests that left-leaning citizens are more supportive of redistribution than
right-leaning citizens. Focusing on cross-pressured voters, we expect that
the difference in redistribution preferences between left- and right-leaning
citizens is smaller at the bottom of the income hierarchy than at the top.
Among the group of left-leaning citizens, the role of material self-interest
is expected to be smaller than among right-leaning citizens. We provide
evidence in line with our argument analysing data from the European So-
cial Survey in 25 European democracies between 2008 and 2018. [R]
73.1631 ARMSTRONG, Chris — Domestic institutions, growth and
global justice. European Journal of Political Theory 22(1),
Jan. 2023 : 4-25.
According to one prominent theory of development, a country’s wealth is
primarily explained by the quality of its institutions. Leaning on that view,
several political theorists have defended two normative conclusions. The
first is that we have no reason for concern, from the point of view of jus-
tice, if some countries have greater natural resource endowments than
others. The second is that proposals for redistribution across borders are
likely to be superfluous. Advocates of global redistribution have not yet
grappled with these momentous arguments, or shown whether, and how,
they might be rebuffed. This article does just that. [R]
73.1632 ASENBAUM, Hans — Rethinking democratic innovations:
a look through the kaleidoscope of democratic theory.
Political Studies Review 20(4), Nov. 2022 : 680-690.
The study of democratic innovations has long been situated in the delib-
erative paradigm. Today, however, a new scholarly generation conceptu-
alizes democratic innovations from various theoretical angles. This article
reviews participatory, agonistic and transformative accounts of demo-
cratic innovations. This multiperspectival analysis presents democratic in-
novations in a new light. The term changes its meaning, going beyond
institutions designed by experts to include the remaking of the structures
that govern our everyday lives. Democratic innovations interrupt estab-
lished modes of governance and create spaces for systemic transfor-
mations. [R]
73.1633 AULD, Graeme, et al. — Governing AI through ethical
standards: learning from the experiences of other private
governance initiatives. Journal of European Public Policy
29(11), 2022 : 1822-1844.
A range of private actors are positioning varied public and private policy
venues as appropriate for defining standards governing the ethical impli-
cations of artificial intelligence (AI). Three ideal-type pathways — oppose
and fend off; engage and push; and lead and inspire — describe distinct
sets of corporate and civil society motivations and actions that lead to
distinct roles for, and relations between, private actors and states in AI
governance. Currently, public-private governance interactions around AI
ethical standards align with an engage and push pathway, potentially
benefitting certain first-mover AI standards through path-dependent pro-
cesses. However, three sources of instability — shifting governance de-
mands, focusing events, and localisation effects — are likely to drive con-
tinued proliferation of private AI governance that aim to oppose and fend
off state interventions or inspire and lead redefinitions of how AI ethics
are understood. A pathways perspective uniquely uncovers these critical
dynamics for the future of AI governance. [R] [See Abstr. 73.1648]
73.1634 BARNETT, Carolyn, et al. — Gender research in political
science journals: a dataset. PS 55(3), July 2022 : 511-518.
Research on gender and politics is becoming increasingly mainstreamed
within political science. To document this process, we introduce a com-
prehensive dataset of articles published in 37 political science journals
through 2019 that can be considered “gender and politics” research.
Whereas recent related literature has explored the descriptive represen-
tation of women in political science by examining authorship and citation
patterns, we argue that the identification of publications substantively fo-
cused on gender and politics not only illuminates trends but also can con-
tribute to broader conversations about substantive representation and
methodological diversity in the discipline. This article highlights the theo-
retical challenges of identifying gender and politics research and analyzes
major trends in the substantive representation of gender in the journals
over time. [R, abr.]
73.1635 BARON, Hannah ; YOUNG, Lauren E. — From principles to
practice: methods to increase the transparency of
research ethics in violent contexts. Political Science Re-
search and Methods 10(4), Oct. 2022 : 840-847.
There has been a proliferation of research with human participants in vi-
olent contexts over the past ten years. Adhering to commonly held ethical
principles such as beneficence, justice, and respect for persons is partic-
ularly important and challenging in research on violence. This letter ar-
gues that practices around research ethics in violent contexts should be
reported more transparently in research outputs, and should be seen as
a subset of research methods. We offer practical suggestions and empir-
ical evidence from both within and outside of political science around risk
assessments, mitigating the risk of distress and negative psychological
outcomes, informed consent, and m onitoring the incidence of potential
harms. An analysis of published research on violence involving human
participants from 2008 to 2019 shows that only a small proportion of cur-
rent publications include any mention of these important dimensions of
research ethics. [R]
73.1636 BARRERA-VILERT, Maria — “If you see [blank], say
[blank]”: from something to /something/. Journal of Lan-
guage and Politics 21(4), 2022 : 613-635.
The September 11 terrorist attacks emerged as a turning point on security
standards, contouring many aspects of public life ever after. Two decades
later, the see something, say something campaign stands as one of the
New York City trademarks. Its ubiquity across subway platforms intends
to raise public awareness by transferring security responsibilities to the
general public. Language is neither innocent nor merely instrumental, any
more than is not neutral. This paper disentangles the construction
of something in the current context, where the elusive definition of terror-
ism has enabled distorted perceptions of risk and certainty. The paper
adopts a multimodal critical discourse analysis, focusing on the cam-
paign’s use of ambiguity and its lexical and semiotic choices. Ultimately,
it intends to crystallize how language resonates with a broader preemp-
tive and never-ending War on Terror rhetoric while paving the way to fur-
ther analyze the activation of the target of this campaign: you. [R]
73.1637 BARTYS, Serena, et al. — Empathy is key: addressing ob-
stacles to policy progress of “work-focused healthcare”.
Evidence and Policy 18(3), Aug. 2022 : 524-542.
In 2019, Public Health England commissioned the authors of this paper
to conduct research examining healthcare professionals’ conversations
about work with their patients to inform policy aimed at reducing work loss
due to ill health. The purpose of this paper is to show how the commission
provided a unique opportunity for the authors to collaborate with the fun-
ders to address obstacles to policy progress. A steering group was es-
tablished to revise the original remit of research. In outlining that process
here, qualitative data collected from a wide range of healthcare profes-
sionals as part of the commission are presented for the first time. We are
able to further illuminate and expand on the previously published report
findings and policy recommendations, revealing novel insights on re-
searcher-policy engagement. Robust implementation of ‘work-focused
healthcare’ policy has been limited, resulting in an overwhelming lack of
empirical data and misguided directives. However, the existing evidence
did provide important information about obstacles to policy progress and
how to overcome them. [R, abr.]
73.1638 BAYER, Reşat ; TURPER, Sedef ; WOODS, Judy — Team-
work within a senior capstone course: implementation
and assessment. PS 55(4), Dec. 2022 : 828-833.
Although senior capstone courses and projects globally are growing in
popularity for undergraduate students in political science, with the poten-
tial to integrate prior curriculum and assess student learning, students
generally undertake this milestone as individuals. In contrast, we present
a teamwork-based capstone course wherein key student submissions —
including the final project — are created in teams. Having conducted this
course for several years, we describe in this article how we incorporated
teamwork and demonstrate how students evaluate teamwork in in-per-
son, online, and hybrid course formats. [R]
73.1639 BELL, Emily V. ; OLIVIER, Tomás — Following the paper
trail: systematically analyzing outputs to understand col-
laborative governance evolution. Journal of Public Admin-
istration Research and Theory 32(4), Oct. 2022 : 671-684.
Collaborative governance has emerged as a popular approach to address
complex governance problems. In recent years, research within this tra-
dition has studied the linkage between outputs — agreed upon courses
of action and outcomes — and the impacts of those actions. Yet, collab-
orative arrangements (“collaboratives”) are likely to vary depending on
their context and polic y domain, making it difficult to draw generalizable
insights about the linkage between outputs and outcomes. Furthermore,
as collaboratives change over time (e.g., by building capacities, gathering
resources, and fostering participant engagement), the nature of their re-
spective processes — and outputs — also evolves. We argue that the
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