Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T19:51:41.178Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Rebels' Yell: Mr. Perestroika and the Causes of This Rebellion in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2010

Timothy W. Luke
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Patrick J. McGovern
Affiliation:
Buffalo State College–SUNY

Extract

Ten years ago this October, the members of the political science community might have heard a short, but quite fascinating, cri de coeur about the prevailing practices of the discipline in the United States at the turn of the century. Circulating as an e-mail message shortly after the 2000 APSA Annual Meeting, it popped up in the inboxes of a few political scientists and graduate students throughout the academy, who then quickly redirected its message to hundreds and then thousands of their colleagues. Signed “Mr. Perestroika,” the e-mail's short passages bemoaned the profession of political science as it was unfolding under the allegedly misguided aegis of an “Orwellian system” of methodological formalism. Portraying the discipline as trapped in this intellectual cul de sac, Mr. Perestroika depicted an essentially degraded social science discipline that favored the political views of a “coterie” of “East Coast Brahmins” by ratifying their narrow methodological practices (cited in Monroe 2005, 9–11). Such practices, based mostly on “statistics or game theory,” wrongly promoted a simplistic and, for far too many students of the state and society, discredited economic understanding of politics. This unenviable methodological parochialism in turn favored a style of “professional correctness” that froze out other political perspectives and analytical approaches (Luke 1999, 345–63) in the discipline's key journals, major organizations, and scholarly practices. For Mr. Perestroika, these distorted academic norms were also compromising the relevance, utility, and validity of political science as an applied social science.

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agger, Ben. 2000. Public Sociology: From Social Facts to Literary Acts. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Barrow, Clyde W. 2008. “The Intellectual Origins of New Political Science.” New Political Science 30 (2): 215–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John S. 2006. “Revolutions without Enemies: Key Transformations in Political Science.” American Political Science Review 100 (4): 487–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer. 2005. “Inventing Perspectives on Politics.” In Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, ed. Monroe, Kristen R., 330–41. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Luke, Timothy W. 1999. “The Discipline as Disciplinary Normalization: Networks of Research.” New Political Science 21 (3): 345–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luke, Timothy W. 2005. “Caught Between Confused Critics and Careerist Co-Conspirators: Perestroika in American Political Science.” In Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, ed. Monroe, Kristen R., 468–88. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McGovern, Patrick. 2005. “The Trial of Scopes: Perestroika, Political Theory, and the Dominance of Method.” New Political Science 27 (2): 199213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, Kristen R., ed. 2005. Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Perestroika. 2005. “The Idea: The Opening of the Debate.” In Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, ed. Monroe, Kristen R., 911. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Jorgen. 1972. “Once You've Made a Revolution, Everything's the Same.” In The Post-Behavioral Era: Perspective on Political Science, ed. Graham, George J. Jr. and Carey, George W., 7187. New York: David McKay.Google Scholar
Ruget, Vanessa. 2002. “Scientific Capital in American Political Science: Who Possesses What, When and How.” New Political Science 24 (3): 469–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Joanna Vecchiarelli. 2005. “Ironic Representation.” In Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science, ed. Monroe, Kristen R., 265–77. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sigelman, Lee. 2006. “The Coevolution of American Political Science and the American Political Science Review.” American Political Science Review 100 (4): 463–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar