Search results

This book seeks to build bridges between neuroscience and social science empirical researchers and theorists working around the world, integrating perspectives from both fields, separating real from spurious divides between them and delineating new challenges for future investigation. Since its inception in the early 2000s, multilevel social neuroscience has dramatically reshaped our understanding of the affective and cultural dimensions of neurocognition. Thanks to its explanatory pluralism, this field has moved beyond long standing dichotomies and reductionisms, offering a neurobiological perspective on topics classically monopolized by non-scientific traditions, such as consciousness, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. Moreover, it has forged new paths for dialogue with disciplines which directly address societal dynamics, such as economics, law, education, public policy making and sociology. At the same time, beyond internal changes in the field of neuroscience, new problems emerge in the dialogue with other disciplines. Neuroscience and Social Science - The Missing Link puts together contributions by experts interested in the convergences, divergences, and controversies across these fields. The volume presents empirical studies on the interplay between relevant levels of inquiry (neural, psychological, social), chapters rooted in specific scholarly traditions (neuroscience, sociology, philosophy of science, public policy making), as well as proposals of new theoretical foundations to enhance the rapprochement in question. By putting neuroscientists and social scientists face to face, the book promotes new reflections on this much needed marriage while opening opportunities for social neuroscience to plunge from the laboratory into the core of social life. This transdisciplinary approach makes Neuroscience and Social Science - The Missing Link an important resource for students, teachers, and researchers interested in the social dimension of human mind working in different fields, such as social neuroscience, social sciences, cognitive science, psychology, behavioral science, linguistics, and philosophy.

Political campaigns are orchestrated attempts by political organizations to garner public support through persuasive communication in order to influence public policy in their favor. This broad definition encapsulates all forms of campaigns from those of neighborhood organizations seeking to influence local politicians to the campaigns of political parties and candidates who seek election to office in order to shape policy themselves. In pluralist democracies, campaigns are crucial for representation. Campaigns are a means by which groups of individuals with a common cause can communicate their stance and enable others with similar concerns to join their campaign; thus, campaigns give voice to those individuals and the supporters of their cause. The majority of academic research has focused on the campaigns orchestrated by those seeking election, in particular political parties or candidates seeking to be elected as national president. Due to the levels of resources, the campaigns run by candidates for the U.S. presidency are the most sophisticated and gain most attention. The campaign environment is more complex, however. This entry explores that complex environment, discusses the evolution of political campaigns to their current professionalized form, and concludes with research around campaign effects.

Describes the current state of genetic and biological research, and views it as the "growth industry" among the life sciences; argues that Germany lags behind the US, primarily due to an initial reluctance to participate in research of such ethical complexity, but is now positioned, along with Switzerland, France, and Great Britain, to become a leader in the field.

AbstractAlthough the study of human values is excluded by classical science, it is a major area of interest in systems science. Its difficulties challenge much of the field's creative force. This manifests itself in a strong tendency to propose what is 'new': directions of research, methodologies, paradigms. This variety poses problems of evaluation. A tool is described to solve these problems. It simplifies the process of comparing studies, and suggests how to improve on them.

We study political dynasties in the United States Congress since its inception in 1789. We document historic and geographic patterns in the evolution and profile of political dynasties, study the extent of dynastic bias in legislative politics versus other occupations, and analyze the connection between political dynasties and political competition. We also study the self-perpetuation of political elites. We find that legislators who enjoy longer tenures are significantly more likely to have relatives entering Congress later. Using instrumental variables methods, we establish that this relationship is causal: a longer period in power increases the chance that a person may start (or continue) a political dynasty. Therefore, dynastic political power is self-perpetuating in that a positive exogenous shock to a person's political power has persistent effects through posterior dynastic attainment. In politics, power begets power.

Research on social networks has become a significant area of investigation in the social sciences, and social network concepts and tools are widely employed across many subfields within the field. This volume introduces political theorists and researchers to new theoretical, methodological, and substantive tools for extending political network research into new realms and revitalizing established domains. The authors synthesize new understandings of multimodal political networks, consisting of two or more types of social entities - voters, politicians, parties, events, organizations, nations - and the complex relations between them. They discuss ways to theorize about multimodal connections, methods for measuring and analyzing multimodal datasets, and how the results can reveal new insights into political structures and action. Several empirical applications demonstrate in great detail how multimodal analysts can detect and visualize political communities consisting of diverse social entities.

Politics and its science are determined by the current gender system. This not only reflects the exclusion of women and dissident sexualities from the real political process, but also in scientific production. When the gender perspective enters the discipline, it provides an epistemological change that consists in recognizing the theoretical and political significance of sexual difference. In this paper we analyze the production of Argentine political science that incorporates this gender perspective focusing on the national congresses and relevant journals of the discipline in the period 1993–2018. ; La política y su ciencia están determinadas por el sistema de género vigente. Ello no sólo refleja la exclusión de las mujeres y de las sexualidades disidentes del proceso político real, sino también en la producción científica. Cuando la perspectiva de género ingresa a la disciplina, aporta un cambio epistemológico que consiste en reconocer la significación teórica y política de la diferencia sexual. En este trabajo analizamos la producción de la ciencia política argentina que incorpora esta perspectiva de género a partir de los congresos nacionales y de revistas relevantes de la disciplina en el período 1993–2018.

"Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794), the innovating founder of mathematical thinking in politics, was the last great philosophe of the French Enlightenment and a central figure in the early years of the French Revolution. His political writings give a compelling vision of human progress across world history and express the hopes of that time in the future perfectibility of man. This volume contains a revised translation of 'The Sketch', written while in hiding from the Jacobin Terror, together with lesser-known writings on the emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, the meanings of freedom and despotism and reflections on revolutionary violence. The introduction by Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati sets these works in context and shows why Condorcet is of real interest today as we reinterpret the meaning of Enlightenment, the very idea of progress and the founding ideas of social democracy"--