ArgumentThe Comparative Survey of Freedom, first published by Freedom House in 1973, is now the most widely used indicator of democracy by both academics and the U.S. government alike. However, literature examining the Survey’s origins is virtually nonexistent. In this article, I use archival records to challenge Freedom House’s retrospective account of the indicator’s creation. Rather than the outcome of a scientific methodology by multiple social scientists, the Survey was produced by a single political scientist, Raymond Gastil, according to his (...) own hunches and impressions. How, then, did this indicator rise to such prominence? I argue that the Survey’s notoriety can be attributed to its early promotion in both political science and American foreign policy decision-making, as well as the fact that it fit the dominant scientific and political paradigms of the time. (shrink)

During the 1960s and 1970s, institutionalists and behavioralists in the discipline of political science argued over the legitimacy of the institutional approach to political inquiry. In the discipline of philosophy, a similar debate concerning institutions has never taken place. Yet, a growing number of philosophers are now working out the institutional implications of political ideas in what has become known as “non-ideal theory.” My thesis is two-fold: (1) pragmatism and institutionalism are compatible and (2) non-ideal theorists, following the example of (...) pragmatists, can avoid a similar debate as took place between institutionalists and behavioralists by divulging their assumptions about institutions. (shrink)

Compared to other philosophies of special sciences, the scope, object, and definition of the philosophy of political science remain vague. This article traces this vagueness to the changing subject matter of political science throughout its history, but argues that all social sciences are subject to radical changes in what count as their defining characteristics. Accordingly, the only legitimate definition of “philosophy of political science” is “the philosophical study of whatever happens to conventionally fall within the scope of political science at (...) a given moment.” Moving from this assumption, this article makes the case for a unified philosophy of social science. (shrink)

Abstract This paper explores the role of symbolic languages within and between positivist disciplines. Symbolic languages, of which mathematics is the most important example, consist of tautologically true statements, such as 2 + 2 = 4. These must be operationalized before being useful for positivist research agendas (i.e. two apples and two oranges make four fruit). Disciplines may borrow either the symbolic languages of another discipline or the symbolic language and the accompanying operationalizations. The choice has important theoretical effects, and (...) affects the kind of interdisciplinary community created. The game theory community is an example of a community based on the interdisciplinary exchange of symbolic language only, while the ? political economy? community exchanges both symbolic languages and operationalizations. (shrink)

The emergence of conflicts between environmental safety incidents and protection rights generates sizeable political costs, which endangers the legitimacy of the government as well as political security and stability. This article further examines the role of political costs in environmental issues. First, political costs in relation to environmental issues are defined. An equilibrium strategic analysis is then presented using an evolutionary game model in which the strategic behavioral choices of government, enterprises, and citizens are investigated by embedding political costs in (...) the environmental governance system. Furthermore, the small-signal model was innovatively applied to simulate and analyze the stability of political costs under different equilibrium strategies in the system. The results show the following. Pubic behavior and government are the dominant factors that impact stability and instability, respectively. Public behavior is the core element that affects political cost consumption. When political costs are extremely depleted, the public will neglect economic interests, turn toward environmental interests, and choose the negative participation strategy, which destabilizes the system. The political cost signal at the optimal equilibrium point not only warns the government not to take the desperate action of concealing information asymmetry but also allows the government to let go of its hands to deal with the environmental issues. Corresponding policy recommendations are proposed. (shrink)

Contemporary political theory is fractured in its account of ontology and methods. One prominent fault line is between empirical and normative theory – the former usually called ‘philosophy of social science’, or ‘social-science methodology’, and not ‘theory’ at all. A second fault line exists between analytical and post-modern political theory. These fractures prevent political researchers who engage with the same substantive issues, such as the right of same-sex couples to marry, from speaking to one another in a common language. This (...) paper's first section discusses the history of the fact-value divide in political studies: a history that led to the contemporary state of the discipline. The second section argues that Searle's philosophy provides tools that can bridge this divide. The third section raises normative objections that limit the extent to which one can accept Searle's theory as a fully general account of social and political reality. Although limited in scope, Searle's argument should be welcomed as an attempt to provide a common set of important tools for political researchers on all sides of these debates. (shrink)

This article questions the current vogue of Carl Schmitt among political theorists who read him as an antidote to the depoliticizing force of economics and technology in the age of neoliberalism and its algorithmic rationalities. It takes Schmitt’s sparse reflections about cybernetics and game theory as paradigmatic of the theoretical and political problems raised by any theory positing the autonomy of the political. It suggests that this ultimately misunderstands the role of cybernetic representations of political decision-making in shoring up in (...) the 1960s and 1970s the autonomy of the political that Schmitt so vehemently defended. (shrink)

The article brings Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory into the empirical context of contemporary Russia to analyse the complex relationships between the state and alternative media. In contrast to the mainstream narrative that paints the picture of a strong authoritarian state with a grip over democratic liberties and civil society, we suggest a more nuanced perspective on the subject that focuses on the struggle over the articulation of the identity of the state. Through an ethnography (combined with interviews and textual (...) analysis) of three Russian alternative media outlets – Avtonom, Discours and DOXA – this article demonstrates how they critique the hegemonic state discourse, how they evade it through their practices, and how they perform counter-hegemonic alternatives. Even if their resistance is severely countered by the state, their practices are seen to de-naturalise the nodal points of centrality and unity which constitute the hegemonic state discourse. As these practices contain alternative articulations of the state discourse, the importance of alternative media for rethinking the state (and resisting it) should not be underestimated. (shrink)

Reviewing the literature on political participation and civic engagement, the article offers a critical examination of different conceptual frameworks. Drawing on previous definitions and operationalisations, a new typology for political participation and civic engagement is developed, highlighting the multidimensionality of both concepts. In particular, it makes a clear distinction between manifest “political participation” and less direct or “latent” forms of participation, conceptualized here as “civic engagement” and “social involvement”. The article argues that the notion of “latent” forms of participation is (...) crucial to understand new forms of political behaviour and the prospects for political participation in different countries. Due to these innovations it contributes to a much-needed theoretical development within the literature on political participation and citizen engagement. (shrink)

Recent interest in the alleged rationality and fatalism of Russian peasants illustrates persistent tendencies to objectify certain social actors—and to assign normative labels to their vexing behavior. Sometimes those labels are demeaning. I call attention to this unpleasant tendency, and ask why some social actors attract our analytical interest, while other social actors escape such scrutiny. This disparity is particularly interesting when the two social actors are engaged in a setting where extractive power is present yet unnoticed.

This article is a response to recent revealing political attempts to set a political and social function for the Arts through the establishment of performance criteria. A long-standing feature of the historical development of government policy in the UK has been attempts to judge the effectiveness and efficiency of public activity by invidious comparison to effectiveness and efficiency in so-called ‘private’ industry. This tendency requires continuous critical scrutiny.

In this article, I examine the relationship between engagement and political institutions by using the example of the creation and development of the ombudsman institution. The article starts with the short introduction to key theoretical views about institutions, political institutions and institutionalization. Then, I concentrate on how political institutions change, i.e. whether they can be changed through social engagement and whether and when we can actually say that they are originally created by an engagement. By using the case of ombudsman, (...) I explore if political institutions can engage themselves and under what conditions, that is, whether are institutions characterized by in-built permanent reflexivity possible. (shrink)