Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics

by Ian Shapiro (Editor), Rogers M. Smith (Editor), Tarek E. Masoud (Editor)

In this volume some of the world's most prominent scholars of politics offer original discussions exploring what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work. Although beset by constant debate about method, at the core of the study of politics is the unifying concern as to whether political scientists should view themselves primarily as scientists, or, instead, try to focus their knowledge on resolving the many complex world crises currently happening.

Genres: Politics

432 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2004

About the author

Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. He is known primarily for interventions in debates on democracy and on methods of conducting social science research. In democratic theory, he has argued that democracy's value comes primarily from its potential to limit domination rather than, as is conventionally assumed, from its operation as a system of participation, representation, or preference aggregation. In debates about social scientific methods, he is chiefly known for rejecting prevalent theory-driven and method-driven approaches in favor of starting with a problem and then devising suitable methods to study it.

Reviews

[Jas · Rating 1 out of 5]

The last piece in the book by Mearsheimer points out that barely any of the contributors addressed the question raised by the contributors and it led me to wonder what the point of assigning the entire book for a course was. Moreover, the book spends tonnes of time talking about rational choice theory, which to me seemed useless.