Special Issue: Fiftieth Anniversary

Contributors

Contents

• Introduction
• Articles

Introduction

Bienen, Henry S.
• Introduction

Articles

Betts, Richard K., 1947-.
• Should Strategic Studies Survive?
  Subjects:
  • Military education.
  • War -- Study and teaching (Higher).
  • Sociology, Military -- Study and teaching (Higher).

  Abstract:

  Political science attends to causes and consequences of war but only fitfully welcomes study of its conduct, because few grasp how much the dynamics of combat shape politics. Bernard Brodie called for development of strategic studies on the model of the discipline of economics, because neither the military nor academia treated the subject rigorously. His call was answered in the early cold war, with mixed results. Theories about nuclear deterrence burgeoned while empirical studies of war lagged. The late-cold war impasse in nuclear strategy, rooted in nato doctrine, shifted attention to conventional military operations and empirically grounded theory. Since the cold war, research on general theoretical questions about war and peace has been prospering, but education in military matters has been eroding. Interdisciplinary strategic studies integrate political and military elements of international conflict, but there is no recognized discipline of military science; military analysis is smuggled into political science and history departments, where it is resisted by calls to conceptualize security broadly or focus on purely theoretical work. If serious military studies are squeezed out of universities, there will be no qualified civilian analysts to provide independent expertise in policy and budget debates, and decisions on war and peace will be made irresponsibly by uninformed civilians or by the professional military alone.

Remmer, Karen L.
• Theoretical Decay and Theoretical Development: The Resurgence of Institutional Analysis
  Subjects:
  • Political science -- Philosophy.
  • Huntington, Samuel P. Political development and political decay.
  • Institutions (Philosophy) -- Political aspects.

  Abstract:

  Research on the less industrialized regions of the world has undergone major changes in terms of theoretical rigor, methodological sophistication, and the diversification of analytical approaches since the publication of Samuel P. Huntington's essay, "Political Development and Political Decay," in World Politics in 1965. Yet more than three decades later, comparativists are rediscovering political institutions, highlighting the originality of Huntington's scholarly contribution. The resurgence of institutional analysis has redirected attention to the potential variability of political outcomes in the face of sweeping global currents, generated important theoretical insights, and created new bases for dialogue across disparate research traditions. Nevertheless, the horizons of institutional research need to be broadened to address the challenges posed by international influences, two-way interactions between politics and society, and institutional fluidity.

Evans, Peter B., 1944-.
• The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization
  Subjects:
  • State, The.
  • International economic integration.
  • Public institutions.

  Abstract:

  The economic logic of the current international economy does not predict the "eclipse of the state." Economic globalization does restrict state power, but transnational capital needs capable states as much or more than does domestically oriented business. National success in the current global political economy has been associated not with minimal states but with states that are capable, active, and engaged. Pressure for eclipse flows from the conjunction between transnational economic forces and the political hegemony of an Anglo-American ideology that, in J. P. Nettl's words, "simply leaves no room for any valid notion of the state." Even this combination of economic and political pressure is unlikely to eclipse the state, but it is likely to put public institutions on the defensive, eclipsing any possibility of the "embedded liberalism" described by John Ruggie. A "leaner, meaner" state is the likely outcome. The possibility of a more progressive alternative outcome would depend in part on whether current zero-sum visions of the relation between the state and civil society can be replaced by a more synergistic view.

Lustick, Ian, 1949-.
• Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism: Almond and Lijphart: Competing Research Programs in an Early-Lakatosian Mode
  Subjects:
  • Lijphart, Arend -- Contributions in political science.
  • Lakatos, Imre -- Contributions in political science.
  • Political science -- Research.

  Abstract:

  Arend Lijphart's 1969 article on consociational democracy was a compelling critique of prevailing theories of democratic stability and the launching pad for one of the most widely regarded research programs in contemporary comparative politics. However, Lijphart and others who adopted consociational approaches encountered severe logical, theoretical, and empirical criticisms of their work. The success of the program and its apparent imperviousness to many of these attacks has been remarkable. Lijphart's primary response was to abandon standard norms of social science in favor of an "impressionistic" approach that protected the attractiveness and wide applicability of the theory at the cost of precision and scholarly rigor. The overall trajectory of the consociationalist research program is explained with reference to a shift from early- to late-Lakatosian commitments--from insisting on corroboration for one's theories through repeated encounters with evidence to a late-Lakatosian stance that expects the political and rhetorical skills of scholars operating on behalf of their research program to be more significant than evidence or theoretical coherence.

Janos, Andrew C.
• Paradigms Revisited: Productionism, Globality, and Postmodernity in Comparative Politics
  Subjects:
  • Kuhn, Thomas S. -- Contributions in political science.
  • Comparative government.
  • Technology and state.

  Abstract:

  Inspired by a seminal essay of Albert O. Hirschman, as well as by the ongoing debate on the empirical foundations of social science, this article "revisits" (1) the paradigm concept popularized by T. S. Kuhn in the 1960s and (2) the relationship between probabilistic and "possibilistic" modes of theorizing that has acquired renewed relevance in comparative politics mainly with respect to recent theories of democratization and development. It does so by reviewing three major paradigm crises in modern political science: the shift from the Aristotelian polis to the social "system," the refocusing of political explanations from the social to the global environment, and the contemporary attempts to reevaluate the role of technology in political change. The review takes stock of the record of the discipline of comparative politics, of opportunities provided by paradigm shifts, seized upon or missed by the discipline. It also allows one to seek a more even balance between the potential utility and limitations of the paradigm concept, while at the same time pointing to the perils of divorcing the art of the possible from the laws of probability.

Keohane, Robert O. (Robert Owen), 1941-.
• Problematic Lucidity: Stephen Krasner's "State Power and the Structure of International Trade"
  Subjects:
  • International trade.
  • Krasner, Stephen D., 1942-. State power and the structure of international trade.
  • World politics.

  Abstract:

  Stephen D. Krasner's article in this journal in 1976, "State Power and the Structure of International Trade," defined the agenda for years of scholarship by being both lucid and problematic. Krasner presented a clear puzzle but manifestly failed adequately to answer the questions that he raised. His key proposition, that strong international economic regimes depend on hegemonic power, was supported by only half of the six cases that he discussed. Yet the cogency of Krasner's formulation of the argument, and the pungency of his rhetoric, led "State Power" to serve as a focal point in a coordination game among three major constituencies in the international political economy field. Liberal transnationalists, statist realists, and their audiences all benefited from Krasner's lucid specification of the issues. As a result of research prompted by Krasner's article, we understand the relationship between international political structure and economic openness much better than we did before it appeared.

Glaser, Charles L. (Charles Louis), 1954-.
• The Security Dilemma Revisited
  Subjects:
  • Jervis, Robert, 1940-. Cooperation under the security dilemma.
  • National security.
  • International relations.

  Abstract:

  Robert Jervis's article "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma" is among the most important in international relations in the past few decades. Nevertheless, relatively little effort has been devoted to examining its core logic, some of which was left incomplete by Jervis. The most important gaps concern whether and how the security dilemma operates between rational actors. The first section of this article closes some of these gaps. The second section argues that two nonstructural variables--the extent of the adversary's greed and the extent of the adversary's unit-level knowledge of the state's motives--influence the magnitude of the security dilemma. The final section addresses basic criticisms of the security dilemma, including the empirical claim that greedy states are the key source of international conflict, that the security dilemma does not really exist, and that offense-defense theory is flawed. I conclude that only the greedy-states criticism poses a serious challenge.