This book is the first comprehensive study to respond to the ongoing debates on political sciences’ fragmentation, doubtful relevance, and disconnect with the larger public. It explores the implications of the argument that political science ought to become more topic-driven, more relevant and more comprehensible for ‘lay’ audiences. Consequences would include evolving a culture of public engagement, challenging tendencies toward liars’ rule, and emphasizing the role of “large” themes in academic education and research, the latter being identified as those areas where severe democratic erosion is occurring – such as escalating income and wealth disparities pushing democracy towards plutocracy, ubiquitous change triggering insecurity and aggression, racist prejudice polarizing societies, and counter-terrorism strategies subverting civil liberties.
Political science needs to address these pressing problems ahead of other issues by in-depth research andbroadly accessible public narratives, including solution-orientated normative notions. This need provides the final justification for evolving a discipline where problems would take priority over methods and public relevance over sophisticated specialization.
Table of Content
1. Improving the Human Condition.- 2. What Is the Current Human Condition?.- 3. Coming to Grips with Change.- 4. Serving Citizens.- 5. The Civics of Friendly Persuasion.- 6. A Determination to Blow the Whistle.- 7. Affirming Ethno-Cultural Diversity, Avoiding Tribalized
Segmentation.- 8. Low Income, Inferior Education.- 9. Robust Regulatory Policies for Capitalism.- 10. Global Warming, Power Structures, and Living Conditions.- 11. Radicalization, Terrorism, Subversion of Civil Liberties.- 12. Twenty-First-Century Political Science: Politicization of a Discipline?
About the author
Rainer Eisfeld, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Osnabrück University, Germany, taught at UCLA as a Visiting Professor. He has represented IPSA’s research committees on the IPSA Executive Committee, and has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Buchenwald/Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial.
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