1. Introduction: The Practical Import of Political Inquiry
Some Proposed Alternatives
2. The Practical Import of Political inquiry: Perestroika’s last Stand
Political Science Under Attack Post-Perestroika
The Perestroikan Movement and its Antecedents
Perestroika’s Legacy
Taking the participant’s perspective seriously
Toward a theory of the participant’s perspective
Participants and life worlds
The status of social inquiry
3. ON THE CONCEPT OF NON NORMATIVE CRITIQUE
The formation of Non-Normative critique
Precursors: Marxism and non-normative critique
Critique as problematization
Risky Business
An objective conception of norms?
Everyday Life
The normative content of practical reason.
Foucault problematization and normative critique
4. Conclusion: Toward a practical political theory
Post positivism and social inquiry
Causal Explanatory or singular causal analysis
Realism Reconsidered
Experts and laymen
Critical theory and the participant’s perspective
Phronesis revisited: Aristotle or Hegel (via Kant)
Mutual Accountability Communicative power and Ideology
Bibliography
INDEX
NOTES
Brian Caterino is an independent researcher who works in public media. He is the co-editor of Making Political Science Matter (2006) with Sanford Schram and has published in a variety of journals. His most recent article “Lowering the Basement Floor” appeared in New Political Science.
This book examines a basic problem in critical approaches to political and social inquiry: in what way is social inquiry animated by a practical intent? This practical intent is not external to inquiry as an add-on or a choice by the inquirer, but is inherent to the process of inquiry. The practical intent in inquiry derives from the connection between social inquiry and the participant’s perspective. The social inquirer, in order to grasp the sense of those who are the subject of inquiry, has to adopt the perspective of the participant in the social world. Caterino opposes the view that research is an autonomous activity distinct from or superior to a participant’s perspective. He argues that since the inquirer is on the same level as the participant, all inquiry should be considered mutual critique in which those who are addressed by inquiry have an equal right and an equal capacity to criticize addressors.
Brian Caterino is an independent researcher who works in public media. He is the co-editor of Making Political Science Matter (2006) with Sanford Schram and has published in a variety of journals. His most recent article “Lowering the Basement Floor” appeared in New Political Science.