Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory

Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory PDF Author: Martin Beckstein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351368265
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
Political theory offers a great variety of interpretive traditions and models. Today, pluralism is the paradigm. But are all approaches equally useful? What are their limits and possibilities? Can we practice them in isolation, or can we combine them? Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory addresses these questions in a refreshing and hands- on manner. It not only models in the abstract, but also tests in practice eight basic schemes of interpretation with which any ambitious reader of political texts should already be familiar. Comprehensive and engaging, the book includes: A straightforward typology of interpretation in political theory. Chapters on the analytical Oxford model, biographical and oeuvre- based interpretation, Skinner’s Cambridge School, the esoteric model, reflexive hermeneutics, reception analysis and conceptual history. Original readings of Federalist Paper No. 10 , Plato’s Statesman, de Gouges’s The Three Urns, Rivera’s wall painting The History of Mexico and Strauss’s Persecution and the Art of Writing; with further chapters on Machiavelli, Huang Zongxi and a Hittite loyalty oath. An Epilogue proposing pragmatist eclecticism as the way forward in interpretation. An inspiring, hands- on textbook suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as experienced scholars of political theory, intellectual history and philosophy interested in learning more about types and models of interpretation, and the challenge of combining them in interpretive practice.

Development Policies and Policy Processes in Africa

Development Policies and Policy Processes in Africa PDF Author: Christian Henning
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319607146
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. The book examines the methodological challenges in analyzing the effectiveness of development policies. It presents a selection of tools and methodologies that can help tackle the complexities of which policies work best and why, and how they can be implemented effectively given the political and economic framework conditions of a country. The contributions in this book offer a continuation of the ongoing evidence-based debate on the role of agriculture and participatory policy processes in reducing poverty. They develop and apply quantitative political economy approaches by integrating quantitative models of political decision-making into existing economic modeling tools, allowing a more comprehensive growth-poverty analysis. The book addresses not only scholars who use quantitative policy modeling and evaluation techniques in their empirical or theoretical research, but also technical experts, including policy makers and analysts from stakeholder organizations, involved in formulating and implementing policies to reduce poverty and to increase economic and social well-being in African countries.

Introduction to the Policy Process

Introduction to the Policy Process PDF Author: Birkland
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 0765627310
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
Thoroughly revised, reorganized, updated, and expanded, this widely-used text sets the balance and fills the gap between theory and practice in public policy studies. In a clear, conversational style, the author conveys the best current thinking on the policy process with an emphasis on accessibility and synthesis rather than novelty or abstraction. A newly added chapter surveys the social, economic, and demographic trends that are transforming the policy environment.

Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models in Political Science

Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models in Political Science PDF Author: Jim Granato
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521193869
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Book Description
Provides a framework to demonstrate how to unify formal, theoretical and empirical analysis through various interdisciplinary examples.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology PDF Author: Herman Cappelen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199668779
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 769

Book Description
This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology (including logical empiricism, phenomenology, and ordinary language philosophy). The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience.

A Political Theory Primer

A Political Theory Primer PDF Author: Peter C. Ordeshook
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415902410
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
A Positive Political Theory Primer is designed to introduce students to the application of game theory to modeling political processes.

Methods in Analytical Political Theory

Methods in Analytical Political Theory PDF Author: Adrian Blau
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107098793
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Book Description
A guide to methods in analytical political theory, offering concrete advice and clear examples of good and bad practice.

Political Bargaining

Political Bargaining PDF Author: Gideon Doron
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446234312
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
This book brings an exciting and innovative new approach to the study of politics today. It introduces political bargaining, a process at the heart of all political and economic exchanges in contemporary society and the very essence of politics itself, to provide a new framework and fresh insights to modern political science. The authors trace the prevalence of bargaining processes in politics from the abstract level of individual human interaction and the `state of nature′ to the more concrete political or institutionalized level. They introduce students to theory -- the basic models of game theory, rational choice theory and positivist approaches; practice -- the practical manifestations of political bargaining in everyday national and international political life; and process -- its setting, the interests of the players involved, the conditions and properties that affect their calculations and, consequently, their ability to obtain desired outcomes. Political Bargaining provides students with the basic tools for learning about and participating in politics today by richly illustrating how the authoritative allocation of scarce resources is arrived at through a complex bargaining process between competing interests in society. It will be essential reading for student and lecturer alike across political science and the social sciences more widely.

The Scandal of Reason

The Scandal of Reason PDF Author: Albena Azmanova
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231527284
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
Theories of justice are haunted by a paradox: the more ambitious the theory of justice, the less applicable and useful the model is to political practice; yet the more politically realistic the theory, the weaker its moral ambition, rendering it unsound and equally useless. Brokering a resolution to this "judgment paradox," Albena Azmanova advances a "critical consensus model" of judgment that serves the normative ideals of a just society without the help of ideal theory. Tracing the evolution of two major traditions in political philosophy—critical theory and philosophical liberalism—and the way they confront the judgment paradox, Azmanova critiques prevailing models of deliberative democracy and their preference for ideal theory over political applicability. Instead, she replaces the reliance on normative models of democracy with an account of the dynamics of reasoned judgment produced in democratic practices of open dialogues. Combining Hannah Arendt's study of judgment with Pierre Bourdieu's social critique of power relations, and incorporating elements of political epistemology from Kant, Wittgenstein, H. L. A. Hart, Max Weber, and American philosophical pragmatism, Azmanova centers her inquiry on the way participants in moral conflicts attribute meaning to their grievances of injustice. She then demonstrates the emancipatory potential of the model of critical deliberative judgment she forges and its capacity to guide policy making. This model's critical force yields from its capacity to disclose the common structural sources of injustice behind conflicting claims to justice. Moving beyond the conflict between universalist and pluralist positions, Azmanova grounds the question of "what is justice?" in the empirical reality of "who suffers?" in order to discern attainable possibilities for a less unjust world.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology

The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology PDF Author: Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks of Political
ISBN: 019928654X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 895

Book Description
Political methodology has changed dramatically over the past thirty years, and many new methods and techniques have been developed. Both the Political Methodology Society and the Qualitative/Multi-Methods Section of the American Political Science Association have engaged in ongoing research and training programs that have advanced quantitative and qualitative methodology. The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology presents and synthesizes these developments. The Handbook provides comprehensive overviews of diverse methodological approaches, with an emphasis on three major themes. First, specific methodological tools should be at the service of improved conceptualization, comprehension of meaning, measurement, and data collection. They should increase analysts' leverage in reasoning about causal relationships and evaluating them empirically by contributing to powerful research designs. Second, the authors explore the many different ways of addressing these tasks: through case-studies and large-n designs, with both quantitative and qualitative data, and via techniques ranging from statistical modelling to process tracing. Finally, techniques can cut across traditional methodological boundaries and can be useful for many different kinds of researchers. Many of the authors thus explore how their methods can inform, and be used by, scholars engaged in diverse branches of methodology.