Political analysis

Cover
Contents
List of tables and figures
Notes on the editors and contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
	Tensions over relevance
	Relevance: the standard lines of defence
	Three lines of vulnerability
	The developing argument of the book
PART I: PERSPECTIVES ON RELEVANCE
	1 Challenging three blockages to relevance and political science: the obvious, the avoidable and the thorny
		Politics and evidence: a difficult relationship
		Incentive structures in academia limit the pursuit of relevance
		Doubts about the intellectual case for relevance undermine its practice
		Designing a solution
		Conclusions
	2 The relevance of relevance
		Causal and descriptive knowledge
		The science of social science
		Engagement and objectivity
		Are there other possible foundations for social science?
		A pragmatic inquiry
	3 Relevant to whom? Relevant for what? The role and public responsibility of the political analyst
		Introduction: relevance – divided by a common language?
		The private language of political science
		Relevance and rationality: between perestroika and glasnost?
		Relevance: deserved or attained?
		Diagnosing and resolving the crisis
	4 The rediscovery of the political imagination
		The road(s) to irrelevance
		The political imagination
		A rallying cry to the university professors of politics
	5 Guilty as charged? Human well-being and the unsung relevance of political science
		Variations of relevance
		Does democracy produce human well-being?
		State capacity, quality of government and human well-being
		Poverty, state capacity and quality of government
		Does democracy generate political legitimacy?
		What does political science want to explain?
		Political theory, state capacity and quality of government
		Empirical measures of the relevance problem in political science
		Theory: why state capacity and quality of government generate human well-being
		Quality of government, social trust and human well-being
		Conclusions: the seven sins depriving political science of its potential for being relevant to human well-being
	6 Why did nobody warn us? Political science and the crisis
		Ideas
		Institutions
		Interests
		What did political science get right?
		Conclusion
PART II: RELEVANCE: THE CONTRIBUTION OF SUB-DISCIPLINES AND DIVERSE APPROACHES
	7 The relevance of the academic study of public policy
		Introduction: linking policy research to policy practice
		The contribution of political science: reconciling knowledge and power in public policy-making
		Concerns for relevance and the two-communities metaphor of policy knowledge utilization
		Moving beyond the two-communities model: knowledge brokerage
		Conclusion: research relevance in policy studies – an ongoing research agenda in political science
	8 Why political theory matters
		Introduction
		A chequered past?
		Political thought: creating an impact
		The challenge of demonstrating an impact
		Bright future
	9 Constructivism and interpretive approaches: especially relevant or especially not?
		Of gadflies and journalists: problems with postmodern and interpretivist claims to specific and direct relevance
		Constructivism as eye-opener for policy-makers and especially students
		Conclusion
	10 Is comparative politics useful? If so, for what?
		Varieties of relevance
		The contributions of comparative politics
		Challenges to the relevance of comparative politics
		The limits of relevance in comparative politics
		Conclusion
	11 Can political science address the puzzles of global governance?
		Towards global governance?
		Enter the scholar: The political science contribution
		Discussion
		Conclusions
	12 Maximizing the relevance of political science for public policy in the era of big data
		Citizens, social media and big data
		Governments, digital technologies and the promise of big data for policy-making
		Big data challenges
		Maintaining relevance
		Public policy pay-offs
	Conclusion
		The case for relevance
		Why is relevance difficult to deliver?
		A manifesto for relevance
Bibliography
Index