Hojjatollah Sadeqi
Hojjatollah Sadeqi reads Jean-Paul Gagnon’s 'definitions of democracy' project through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical methods. The result? Gagnon has, by necessity, placed us in a dark and complex city of 'democracy'. The only way to understand this city is to do all we can to describe it Read more
Michael Hanchard
Michael Hanchard argues that there is no singular scientific method that is the property of democracy. Instead, we should, as WEB Dubois suggests, treat democracy as a problem replete with many possibilities for expansion and contraction, regardless of its normative and conceptual status as an aspiration and ideal type Read more
Matthew Barnfield
Political scientists use experimental methods to study cause-and-effect relationships in politics. Sometimes these approaches involve exposing people to false information about their political reality. Matthew Barnfield argues that this practice of misinformation is not only unethical, but also an ineffective way of learning about the political world Read more
Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach
One aim of the sciences of the democracies is to find different ways of making and keeping democracy visible, argues Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach. Practitioners and imaginers of democracies are doing this job. They help to understand and transform the realities of democracies – step by step – for the sake of democracy Read more
Marius Ghincea
As we enter a new period of great power competition, small powers across the world are presented with novel opportunities. However, small states also face crises that will test their resilience. Marius Ghincea argues that only those states which can build resilience and cross-group cohesion will reap the spoils of emerging power competition Read more
Dawud Ansari
De-orientalising the scholarship on the Arab Gulf states is crucial, argues Dawud Ansari. Commentaries and datasets generalise them as ‘monarchies’, erasing vital differences between these countries. New terms are a starting point for transforming research on the wider region – an urgent objective given new crises and freshened global interest Read more
Reginald Oduor
Reginald M.J. Oduor encourages more political theorists to disentangle themselves from the idea that democracy and elections are inextricably bound. Through this he seeks to promote the pursuit of genuine citizen participation in post-colonial states in Africa and elsewhere Read more
Avery Reyna
Social scientists are increasingly using quantitative interdisciplinary research methods in the hope of obtaining more nuanced, concrete findings. However, Avery Reyna argues that without proper foresight, relying on these approaches to describe interactions between people, countries, and more complex sociopolitical systems may be harmful to the field overall Read more
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