Suchergebnisse

Teoria polityczna i badania w tej dziedzinie nie są zwykle pod każdym względem jednoznaczne, ale podlegają wpływom ukrytych teorii wyjściowych i światopoglądów naukowych, obejmujących na przykład założenia i paradygmaty. Przykładami są idealizm, materializm czy instytucjonalizm. Stosunkowo nowe podejście stanowi w tym względzie relacjonalizm. W ramach tej orientacji ontologicznej świat pojmowany jest wyłącznie w kategoriach relacji. Programy badawcze utrzymane w duchu relacjonizmu realizują tę ideę w praktyce za pomocą metod analizy sieci społecznych, które w coraz większym stopniu wchodzą w użycie także w naukach politycznych. Niniejszy artykuł prezentuje krytyczny ogląd kilku odmian tego nowego "izmu" i rodzajów myślenia sieciowego. Relacjonalizm jest ostatecznie postrzegany jako perspektywa pożyteczna, ale o ograniczonej mocy eksplanacyjnej. Dlatego powinien być zawsze stosowany w połączeniu z innymi podejściami i perspektywami. ; Political theory and research approaches are in most cases not explicit in all respects, but are usually shaped by implicit background theories and scientific worldviews, e.g. presuppositions and paradigms. Examples are idealism, materialism or institutionalism. A fairly new perspective in this regard is relationalism. This way of thinking, in its ontological orientation, conceives the world only in terms of relations. Research programmes with a relationalist orientation put this idea into practice with methods of social network analysis which are more and more used also in political science. Several variants of this new -ism and type of network thinking are presented in this paper in a critical perspective. Relationalism is ultimately seen as fruitful perspective, but is seen as limited in its explanatory power, though. It should therefore always be combined with other approaches and perspectives.

Political theory and research approaches are in most cases not explicit in all respects, but are usually shaped by implicit background theories and scientific worldviews, e.g. presuppositions and paradigms. Examples are idealism, materialism or institutionalism. A fairly new perspective in this regard is relationalism. This way of thinking, in its ontological orientation, conceives the world only in terms of relations. Research programmes with a relationalist orientation put this idea into practice with methods of social network analysis which are more and more used also in political science. Several variants of this new -ism and type of network thinking are presented in this paper in a critical perspective. Relationalism is ultimately seen as fruitful perspective, but is seen as limited in its explanatory power, though. It should therefore always be combined with other approaches and perspectives. ; Teoria polityczna i badania w tej dziedzinie nie są zwykle pod każdym względem jednoznaczne, ale podlegają wpływom ukrytych teorii wyjściowych i światopoglądów naukowych, obejmujących na przykład założenia i paradygmaty. Przykładami są idealizm, materializm czy instytucjonalizm. Stosunkowo nowe podejście stanowi w tym względzie relacjonalizm. W ramach tej orientacji ontologicznej świat pojmowany jest wyłącznie w kategoriach relacji. Programy badawcze utrzymane w duchu relacjonizmu realizują tę ideę w praktyce za pomocą metod analizy sieci społecznych, które w coraz większym stopniu wchodzą w użycie także w naukach politycznych. Niniejszy artykuł prezentuje krytyczny ogląd kilku odmian tego nowego "izmu" i rodzajów myślenia sieciowego. Relacjonalizm jest ostatecznie postrzegany jako perspektywa pożyteczna, ale o ograniczonej mocy eksplanacyjnej. Dlatego powinien być zawsze stosowany w połączeniu z innymi podejściami i perspektywami.

This book presents a state-of-the art collection of original contributions on democracy, addressing three related themes: the complexity of modern democracies and their structural diversity; coping strategies of democracies in times of crises; and current and potential trajectories and transformations of democracy. The first part of the book maps the democratic landscape by revealing the diversity of democratic political systems, through either comparative analysis or case studies on the specific nature of political and administrative systems in interest intermediation and identity constructi

This book presents a state-of-the art collection of original contributions on democracy, addressing three related themes: the complexity of modern democracies and their structural diversity; coping strategies of democracies in times of crises; and current and potential trajectories and transformations of democracy. The first part of the book maps the democratic landscape by revealing the diversity of democratic political systems, through either comparative analysis or case studies on the specific nature of political and administrative systems in interest intermediation and identity construction. The second part presents articles that investigate the response of democracies to times of crisis, with an emphasis on political economies and policy processes within the European Union. The third part offers studies on democracies that explore their adaptive potential in the context of globalization, and in that of broader technical, institutional or cultural changes.

AbstractWhy do junctures become critical in some cases but not in others? Building on the critical juncture framework and perspectives on the formation and diffusion of beliefs, we develop a theoretically parsimonious and empirically traceable account of divergence in institutional outcomes. By illuminating the role of agency and joint belief shifts we further open the "black box" of critical junctures. In particular, we develop the argument that the role agents play is conditioned by conflict lines that structure an institutional field before a juncture sets in. Empirically, we trace political discourses around the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Canada, Germany, and Japan using discourse network analysis. Through comparative investigation, we empirically show that discursive interactions during potential critical junctures indicate institutional outcomes that are shaped by causally relevant historical legacies.

Why do some countries enact more ambitious climate change policies than others? Macro level economic and political structures, such as the economic weight of fossil fuel industries, play an important role in shaping these policies. So do the national science community and the national culture of science. But the process by which such macro-structural factors translate into political power and national climate change policies can be analyzed through focussing on meso level policy networks. The Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (COMPON) research project has studied climate change policy networks in twenty countries since 2007. Along with some findings, this paper presents some methodological challenges faced and the solutions developed in the course of the project. After a presentation of the project, we first outline some practical challenges related to conducting cross-national network surveys and solutions to overcome them, and present the solutions adopted during the project. We then turn to challenges related to causal explanation of the national policy differences, and propose Qualitative Comparative Analysis as one solution for combining different levels of analysis (macro and meso) and different data types (quantitative, network and qualitative). ; Peer reviewed