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THE IMPACT OF THE WORKS OF MICHAEL FOUCALT ON POLITICAL SCIENCE ESPECIALLY IN THE US HAS BEEN NEGLIGIBLE. THE PAPER AIMS AT POSSIBLY BROADENING HIS APPEAL TO CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL SCIENCE BY ILLUSTRATING THE WORTH OF FOUCAULT'S THINKING FOR FORMULATING A REFLEXIVE UNDERSTANDING OF POLITICS AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS. IN PARTICULAR, IT EXPLORES HOW THE PROBLEMATIC NOTIONS OF "POLITICAL CULTURE" AND "INDIVIDUAL SUBJECTIVITY" MIGHT BE UNDERSTOOD MORE CRITICALLY IN LIGHT OF FOUCAULT'S STYLE OF INTERPRETIVE ANALYSIS.

THE AUTHOR ARGUES THAT NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ARE AN IMPORTANT FORM OF ORGANIZED BUT WEAK OPPOSITION IN INFORMATIONALIZING POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES, WITH THEIR "NEWNESS" FOLLOWING FROM CHALLENGES BEING MADE AGAINST THE CULTURAL CODES THROUGH RESISTANCE TO THE INSTRUMENTAL COLONIZATION OF THE EVERYDAY LIFEWORLD AND THROUGH THE PRESENTATION OF ALTERNATIVE CODES OF BEHAVIOR. GROUPS WHICH ARE GIVEN CONSIDERATION IN THIS ARGUMENT INCLUDE FEMINIST, SANCTUARY, CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE, ECOLOGY, ANTI-NUCLEAR, ANTI-ABORTION, AND COMMUNITY POWER GROUPS; THE SPECTRUM INCLUDES CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL MOVEMENTS CATEGORIES ARE CREATED FOR UNDERSTANDING THE NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ON A DEVELOPMENTAL LEVEL.

IN THE ADVANCED CAPITALIST SOCIETIES OF NORTH AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE, THE CONDITIONS OF MODERN INFORMATIONAL PRODUCTION PRESENT IDEOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE "AS AN IMMENSE ACCUMULATION OF SPECTACLES" FABRICATED CONTINUOUSLY FROM THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE MASS MEDIA. "THE SPECTACLE," AS DEBORD AFFIRMS, "IS NOT A COLLECTION OF IMAGES, BUT A SOCIAL RELATION AMONG PEOPLE, MEDIATED BY IMAGES."2 AS IDEOLOGIES, THESE SOCIAL RELATIONS CONTINUOUSLY ARE CODED AND RECODED IN MEDIATIONAL STREAMS OF IMAGES, CREATING A PECULIAR POLITICAL DISCOURSE WITHIN AND ABOUT THE REGIME OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE SOCIETY. THESE SPECTACLES ARE DIFFICULT TO DISCUSS INASMUCH AS THEIR MODES OF PRESENTATION CONTINUOUSLY REVISE OR ERASE MAJOR SEGMENTS OF THEIR CONFIGURATIONS. AS THIS STUDY WILL ILLUSTRATE, NOTHING IS PERMANENT IN THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE. YET, TO UNDERSTAND FULLY HOW THESE IDEOLOGIES OPERATE, ONE MUST TAKE A CASE IN POINT, LIKE THE 1984 D-DAY SPECTACLE, AND DISMANTLE ITS IMAGE CLUSTERS TO REVEAL HOW SOCIAL MEANING, POLITICAL PURPOSE, AND COLLECTIVE LEGITIMACY ARE MANUFACTURED. IN TURN, THIS MODE OF IDEOLOGY CRITIQUE ALLOWS ONE TO JUDGE WHO DOMINATES WHOM AND HOW THAT DOMINATION IS CREATED UNDER THE PRESENT REGIME OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE CAPITALISM.

ROUSSEAU DISCUSSES THE SOCIAL CONFLICTS INHERENT IN A SOCIETY DIVIDED BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR. ROUSSEAU UNDERSCORES THE 'PRIMACY OF POLITICS' IN PREFIGURING AN EMANCIPATORY SOCIETY TO RECONSTITUTE SOCIAL RELATIONS WITHOUT ARTIFICIAL DIVISIONS BETWEEN RICH/POOR, RULER/RULED, AND STRONG/WEAK. THIS ANALYSIS, THEN, REVEALS A NUMBER OF IMPORTANT BUT LARGELY IGNORED RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE BODY OF ROSSEAU'S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THEORY, INDICATING HOW USEFUL ROSSEAU'S 'SAD AND GREAT SYSTEM' REMAINS IN BOTH HIS OWN TIME AND THE PRESENT-DAY.

In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked serious concern within qualitative research communities and raised fundamental questions about the meaning, value, costs, and intellectual relevance of transparency for qualitative inquiry. In this Perspectives Reflection, we crystallize the central findings of a three-year deliberative process—the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (QTD)—involving hundreds of political scientists in a broad discussion of these issues. Following an overview of the process and the key insights that emerged, we present summaries of the QTD Working Groups' final reports. Drawing on a series of public, online conversations that unfolded at www.qualtd.net, the reports unpack transparency's promise, practicalities, risks, and limitations in relation to different qualitative methodologies, forms of evidence, and research contexts. Taken as a whole, these reports—the full versions of which can be found in the Supplementary Materials—offer practical guidance to scholars designing and implementing qualitative research, and to editors, reviewers, and funders seeking to develop criteria of evaluation that are appropriate—as understood by relevant research communities—to the forms of inquiry being assessed. We dedicate this Reflection to the memory of our coauthor and QTD working group leader Kendra Koivu.