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Political Theory

December 19, 2022

🦋 We must rethink our understanding of democratic trends

Alex Prior The ‘total texture’ of democracy exists, and we can observe it, argues Alex Prior. This is possible through a conceptualisation of this ‘texture’ as fractal: being complex and self-referential at every scale. Through this perspective, we can problematise long-standing – but nevertheless incomplete – analogies of democracy and democratisation Read more
December 15, 2022

♟️ Varieties of constitutional models and authoritarian political order

Julian G. Waller The lure of typology is irresistible for social scientists, yet commonly used schemas classifying authoritarian politics still miss key variation. Our frameworks often rely on organisational assumptions set one level of abstraction too high. Julian G. Waller demonstrates how a closer look at constitutional structure can confront this problem Read more
December 2, 2022

🦋 The need for critical democratic realism

Adrian Bua Adrian Bua argues that a critical democratic realism, grounding democratisation efforts upon critique of the capitalist social order, is the best way to navigate Jean-Paul Gagnon's ‘data mountain’ – and put it to work for democracy Read more
December 2, 2022

🦋 ‘Sporting Democracy’ – as illustrated by the Qatar World Cup

Thomas Bunting Inspired by Jean-Paul Gagnon’s call to build a data mountain on different democratic forms, Thomas Bunting emphasises the need to theorise sport as a crucial space for democratic spectatorship and action. He uses the Qatar World Cup as an example of how major sporting events can generate democratic insights and protest Read more
November 24, 2022

🦋 Democracy requires description, not explanation

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
November 16, 2022

🦋 Democracy as a problem

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
November 11, 2022

Against misinformation as method in political science

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
November 10, 2022

🦋 Making and keeping democracy visible

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

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Advancing Political Science
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