Introduction

This chapter imagines a conversation among three different communities of scholarship on democracy. One approach, what we might call scientific studies of political economy, tends to explore the relationship between economic development and democracy (or sometimes more broadly, regime type); it uses formal theoretical models combined with statistical ones for empirical testing in an effort to come up with law-like rules or patterns governing political behavior. Another approach, framed by an interpretive, philosophical commitment to understanding the relationship between words and politics, examines the conceptual conundrums and meanings associated with words such as democracy. Still another approach, also termed “interpretive,” investigates the substantive activities undertaken by individuals and/or groups comprising the political order – the everyday practices and systems of signification associated with democracy in particular places. Each is dedicated to solving problems of abiding relevance to empirical politics, and each employs one or more methods to do so. Yet the kinds of questions, the terms of debate, the definition of democracy, the importance of science, the role methods play, and the underlying epistemological commitments animating each differ in critical and recognizable ways. This chapter considers the questions that are enabled or foreclosed in opting for one approach over the other. It asks: what are the scholarly and political stakes involved in thinking about democracy in ways that emphasize scientific methods or that tackle long-standing theoretical confusions?