Same Menu, Seperate Tables: The Institutionalist Turn in Political Science and the Study of European Integration

Recent research on European integration has largely profited from the institutionalist turn in political science. Theoretical progress has, however, been hampered by the diverse understandings of this new research tradition. This paper tries to tackle the conceptual diversity in a positive way. We first analyze the neo–institutionalist turn in political science and European studies and then move on to a detailed analysis and comparison of the three competing approaches — sociological, historical, and rational choice institutionalism. Next, we will show that the main differences are as much epistemological as theoretical. A convergence towards a unifying institutionalist approach can thus only be possible if some sort of a methodological convergence takes place. We sketch how a synthesis between the competing schools might appear.     

历史政治学的功能分析

历史政治学的提出引发了中国政治学界的广泛关注。作为一种新型研究路径的历史政治学不但具有客观的分析主义特征,而且和其它政治理论的研究路径一样,还具有鲜明的功能主义特征。历史政治学首先回答了政治理论的知识来源问题,从而为建构中国自主性政治学知识体系提供了可能。基于政治学取向的政治史研究有助于避免因“文化转向”而导致的历史研究的碎片化问题,这意味着历史政治学研究既追求“真相”也关怀“真理”。历史政治学的知识功能自然有其政治实践价值,那就是为治国理政提供历史解释与现实论述,并为认识合法性政治提供一套不同于理性人假设的历时性方案。     

Developments in European political science journal and electronic literature during 1997

Abstract. This article continues the annual review of developments in European political science periodical literature. The review covers not just traditional print media but also electronic publishing, and therefore begins with an overview of a pilot project in integrated electronic publishing, the lsquo;SuperJournal' project, which links a range of British–published political science journals in an electronic cluster that facilitates ease of access by individual users. We continue with a summary of developments in political science journal publishing in central and eastern Europe in the aftermath of the political upheavals after 1989. The article concludes with a listing of the contents of the 1997 issues of selected European political science journals from a range of European countries (normally, those published by national political science associations) and comments on their content.     

Theory and Methods in British Public Administration: the view from Political Science

This paper explores the contemporary history of that area of intellectual inquiry known as Public Administration. It focuses on developments in the 1980s and on the contribution of political science. It argues that the subject is diverse and characterized by competing theoretical frameworks. It evaluates organization theory, state theory, rational choice, public management and their associated methods. It concludes that Public Administration has reacted defensively to developments in the 1980s and that the distinctive contribution from political science lies in multi-theoretic research, methodological pluralism, setting one's own agenda, the avoidance of trivial organizations and the defence of public bureaucracies.     

Euro Area entry in east-central Europe: Paradoxical Europeanisation and clustered convergence

Economic and Monetary Union offers a useful case study for critically examining Europeanisation and conditionality as explanatory variables for the euro entry strategies of east-central European states. This article highlights the paradoxes of extreme and limited Europeanisation and of extreme ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ conditionality with multiple sources of uncertainty. These paradoxes have provided the context within which east-central European governments have evolved political strategies for the temporal management of euro entry. These strategies reflect in turn different ‘clusters’ of convergence in the Baltic States, the Visegrad states, and Slovenia. Euro Area accession in east-central Europe offers insights not just into how Europeanisation works in a central political issue area but also into the temporal management of EU policy and ‘clustered’ convergence.     

Political science,political ideas and rhetoric

The article reviews ‘ideational’ analysis and theory in political science. It argues that this is an important area of research limited by lack of a clear sense of what ideas in politics are and of how to analyse them as directly as possible. It is argued that political science should learn from the ‘rhetorical turn’ in various areas of the social sciences, developing ways, appropriate to political science, of analysing the language, rhetoric and argumentation of political and policy discourse in its governmental contexts. Such an approach rests on a strong sense of the dynamic, contested and creative nature of political activity.     

Early consolidation and performance crisis: The Majoritarian‐consensus democracy debate in hungary

The current period of early consolidation has been a turning point in East‐Central European democratisation. It has provoked, however, a majoritarian‐consensual debate, first of all in Hungary, as is discussed in this article in a shorter theoretical and in a longer ‘empirical’ part. The introduction deals with the conceptual framework, followed by its application as a Hungarian case study in an East‐Central European context. It is argued that Hungary may be the model for the competing conceptions of democracy in political practice, since (i) an extended version of consensual democracy was established in the early 1990s but opposed by the first government; (ii) there was an attempt by the second government to complete consensual democracy but it failed; (Hi) an abrupt turn was made towards majoritarian democracy in the late 1990s by the third government. In Hungary there has been a long debate on majoritarian versus consensual democracy, involving politicians, experts and the general public. Finally, some broad conclusions can be drawn about the troubles of the young democracies.     

The Politics of Space and the Spatialisation of Politics: New Directions for Examining the Connections between Immigration and Contagion

Politics is thoroughly spatialised and space is thoroughly politicised. Whilst there has been a renewed interest in this contention, marked by the so-called “spatial turn” in political science and related sub-disciplinary fields, much of the literature continues to treat “space” as a mere empirical referent, rather than a product of prior political conflict(s) and competing political discourse(s). This article draws upon an emerging body of literature in political science that treats borders as sites where the inextricable links between space and politics crystallise most clearly, bringing their imbrications sharply into focus. It argues that this body of work underscores the constitutive role of the political in the construction of space and consequential notions of who is “inside” and “outside,” and suggests this is codified in the enactment and administration of immigration law(s). Drawing on examples from migration politics in the Australian context, pertaining to the ways in which HIV and tuberculosis are figured, it illustrates how the proximity of the supposedly “infectious” outsider, their perceived literal and moral “contagiousness” and the supposed “threat” they pose to the “wider community,” is constructed. This always involves the invocation of notions of space through the construction of frontiers delineating who is “inside” and “outside.” The article argues that this approach opens up promising avenues of inquiry that seek to explore the connections between immigration and contagion; two enduring tropes in the public and political imagination.     

Change in European Societies since the 1970s

Sociology lags considerably behind political science in its comparative research on European societies, but enough material now exists to enable us to talk broadly about the major changes that have taken place since the 1970s across western Europe, and also to some extent central and eastern Europe too. Attention is here concentrated on those social trends that seem particularly salient for the study of politics, with occupational structure as the starting point. Although this dominant theme of classical sociology has tended to be neglected by much recent research in favour of such areas as deviance, gender and the formation of identities, working life remains fundamental to social organisation and in particular to politics. In fact, the theme of gender is easily accessed through consideration of changes in occupations, and considerable attention will be devoted to it here. This leads in turn to consideration of the family, then on to other aspects of demography including immigration and cultural diversity. This relates clearly to the final theme that will be discussed: the state of religion in Europe. In the conclusions some of the political implications of these changes are brought together.     

Paradigm,School, or Sect? Some Reflections on the Status of Rational Choice Theory in Contemporary Scandinavian Political Science

There is a marked difference between American and Scandinavian political science when it comes to the position of rational choice theory within the discipline. In the US it is said to have become "probably the hottest thing going in political science today", whereas in Scandinavia it seems at present to linger on the borderline between a school and a sect. As part of a possible explanation for this difference, this article points, on the one hand, to some differences between the status of American and Scandinavian political science and on the other hand to some differences between dominant intellectual traditions. The intellectual differences may in turn be linked to differences between American and Scandinavian politics. Thus, in some respects rational choice theory appears to be more congenial to the American than to a Scandinavian political setting. The article concludes with a short discussion of how ongoing changes in Scandinavian and, more generally, European politics might affect the scientific status of rational choice theory in the future.     

United in diversity? The convergence of cultural values among EU member states and candidates

The European Union (EU) is considered to be a unique economic and political union that integrates most European countries. This article focuses on the cultural aspect of European integration, which has been increasingly debated over the course of deepening and widening integration and in the context of the legitimation crisis of the EU. Among the main goals of the EU is to promote certain values, which raises the question of whether it has been efficient in (or enabled) reducing cultural value gaps among the participating countries. World polity and institutional isomorphism theories suggest that cultural values may trickle down in a vertical manner from the institutions of the EU to its member states and candidates. Furthermore, hybridisation theory postulates that values diffuse horizontally through intensified interactions enabled by the EU. These two perspectives imply the possibility of cultural convergence among countries associated with the EU. By contrast, the culture clash thesis assumes that differences in cultural identity prevent value convergence across countries; growing awareness of such differences may even increase the pre-existing cultural value distances. To test these different scenarios, distances in emancipative and secular values are compared across pairs of countries using combined repeated cross-sectional data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey gathered between 1992 and 2011. This study finds that the longer a country has been part of the EU, the more closely its values approximate those of the EU founding countries, which in turn are the most homogenous. Initial cultural distance to the founders’ average values appears irrelevant to acquiring membership or candidacy status. However, new member states experienced substantial cultural convergence with old member states after 1992, as did current candidates between 2001 and 2008. Since 1992, nations not participating in the integration process have diverged substantially from EU members, essentially leading to cultural polarisation in Europe. The findings are independent of (changes in) economic disparities and suggest the importance of cultural diffusion as one of the fundamental mechanisms of cultural change. This empirical study contributes to the literature on European integration, political and sociological theories of globalisation, and cross-cultural theories of societal value change.     

The Dating Preferences of Liberals and Conservatives

American politics has become more polarized. The source of the phenomena is debated. We posit that human mate choice may play a role in the process. Spouses are highly correlated in their political preferences, and research in behavioral genetics, neuroscience, and endocrinology shows that political preferences develop through a complex interaction of social upbringing, life experience, immediate circumstance, and genes and hormones, operating through one’s psychological architecture by Hatemi et al. (J Theor Politics, 24:305–327, 2012). Consequently, if people with similar political values produce children, there will be more individuals at the ideological extremes over generations. This said, we are left with a mystery: spousal concordance on political attitudes does not result from convergence over the course of the relationship, nor are spouses initially selecting one another on political preferences. We examine whether positive mate assortation—like seeks like—on non-political factors such as lifestyle and demographics could lead to inadvertent assortation on political preferences. Using a sample of Internet dating profiles we find that both liberals and conservatives seek to date individuals who are like themselves. This result suggests a pathway by which long-term couples come to share political preferences, which in turn could be fueling the widening ideological gap in the United States.     

Political Science Research in Sweden 1960–1975: An Overvie

Swedish research on politics during the fifteen year period 1960–1975 has not been confined to the departments of political science in Sweden. Research of this kind has also occurred in other university departments as well as outside the universities. However, the major portion of the country's political research has taken place within the framework of political science.     

Stalinism as a Civilization: New Perspectives on Communist Regimes

A new line of inquiry into the history of communist regimes and the cold war has emerged. Pioneered by Stephen Kotkin and other American historians, it views Stalinism as the defining era of socialism, building a specific anti-capitalist and illiberal modernity that mustered voluntary participation and international legitimacy. This model of Stalinism as a rival civilization, held together by participatory totalitarianism, challenges older research on communist regimes – both revisionist and totalitarian studies. However, the degree of originality of this perspective is questioned here, citing precursors, parallels and contrasts within European research and political science.     

Countries in comparative European politics

Abstract. This article reviews the place which the comparative study of European countries has occupied in the development of political science as an academic discipline, and discusses how single country studies can contribute towards the construction of new models for cross-national research. Particular attention is paid to the contribution made by the late Stein Rokkan to this development.     

Agenda responsiveness in the European Council: public priorities,policy problems and political attention

The existence of political responsiveness in multi-level systems like the EU remains an open question despite significant recent research on the topic. This article studies whether the European Council responds to the shifting policy priorities of European citizens. More specifically, it explores the synchronic and diachronic associations between what people consider to be the most important problems and the political attention devoted to these issues from 2003 to 2014. The economic crisis after 2008 appears to have made the ranking of public concerns and the European Council agenda more alike. However, a detailed examination of the shifts in prioritisation of single issues over time reveals little evidence for dynamic issue responsiveness. Recently the European Council has paid more attention to the issues that the public considered the most pressing problems but the convergence could possibly be driven by the intensity of the underlying policy problems.     

Romanian political science since 1989

Abstract. In a relatively short period of time, Romanian political science has made considerable progress, moving from virtual obscurity to unchallenged local prominence. This article examines the efforts to date to institutionalize political science as a separate teaching and research discipline by presenting recently established political science university–level programs, the major groups of authors carrying out research on political phenomena and the recurrent themes emerging from relevant literature. Though the present article is concerned mainly with current developments, occasional references to the political science's position during the communist period are also made.     

Who Owns Education? Cleavage Structures in the Partisan Competition over Educational Expansion

This article addresses the issue of how to explain institutional change in national political economies. Within an actor-centred institutionalist theoretical framework, it explores the utility of a coalitional explanation for changes in the financial and corporate governance systems of Italy. Finance and corporate governance are useful foci for understanding change and the evolutionary direction of national political economies as a whole because, first, national and European reformers have focused a great deal of their energy on transforming financial market structures and corporate governance and, second, the regulation of finance and corporate governance is increasingly important as a means for states to exert influence over their economies. The paper finds considerable change in Italian capitalism as a result of successful elite reformers, party system changes, and the emergence of a reform coalition. However, change is limited and Italy retains a distinctive model of capitalism.     

Scaling up Utopias: E.O. Wright and the Search for Economic Alternatives

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of political science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect political science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public sociology and public anthropology as well as dissonant movements in economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic social science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge, 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences, while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing. Today, phronetic social science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This article provides a genealogy of efforts to connect political science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed-methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The article concludes with implications for realizing a more political political science by way of taking a phronetic approach.