Politics As A Science: A Prolegomenon

159 Pages·2021·3.342 MB·English

by  Philippe C. Schmitter, Marc Blecher

“Insight and parsimony permeate this analytic road map. Schmitter and Blecher
provide readers with a bold and ambitious tour d’horizon showing essential
linkages among dozens of concepts integral to comparative politics and inter-
national relations. Readers will return to it regularly for insights and examples.”
T.J. Pempel, Jack M. Forcey Professor, Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley
“Schmitter and Blecher provide a great overview of bringing politics back into
political science, with a high-level overview of the main building blocks for
a science of politics that is sensitive to the uncertain and dynamic nature of
the contemporary world while remaining attentive to the enduring features of
what makes politics political.”
Todd Landman, Professor of Political Science,
University of Nottingham
“This book offers a compelling reflection on the essence of the study of politics,
or politology, and on its importance. It puts power and its exercise squarely in
the center and, in jargon-free language, develops a comprehensive view of their
foundations and consequences.”
Evelyne Huber, Distinguished Professor of Political Science,
University North Carolina

POLITICS AS A SCIENCE
A Prolegomenon
In Politics as a Science, two of the world’s leading authorities on comparative
politics, Philippe C. Schmitter and Marc Blecher, provide a lively introduction
to the concepts and framework to study and analyze politics.
Written with dexterity, concision and clarity, this short text makes no claim
to being scientific. It contains no disprovable hypotheses, no original collection
of evidence and no search for patterns of association. Instead, Schmitter and
Blecher keep the text broadly conceptual and theoretical to convey their vision
of the sprawling subject of politics. They map the process in which researchers
try to specify the goal of the trip, some of the landmarks likely to be encoun-
tered en route and the boundaries that will circumscribe the effort. Examples,
implications and elaborations are included in footnotes throughout the book.
Politics as a Science is an ideal introduction for anyone interested in, or study-
ing, comparative politics.
Philippe C. Schmitter is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political
and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. Since 1967 he has
been successively assistant professor, associate professor and professor of po-
litical science at the University of Chicago, then at the European University
Institute (1982–1986 and 1997–2005) and at Stanford (1986–1996). He has pub-
lished widely on comparative politics, European and Latin America regional
integration, transitions from authoritarian rule and democratization processes
and the intermediation of class, sectoral and professional interests. Schmitter
won the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 2009, the ECPR Lifetime
Achievement Award by the European Consortium for Political Research in
2007, the EUSA Award for Lifetime Achievement in European Studies by
the European Union Studies Association in 2009 and the Mattei Dogan Prize
awarded by the International Political Science Association (IPSA) to a scholar
of high international reputation in recognition of their contribution to political
science in 2009.
Marc Blecher is James Monroe Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies
at Oberlin College. He has also served as a Senior Research Fellow at the UC
Berkeley Center for Chinese Studies, Visiting Professor of Political Science at
the University of Chicago and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development
Studies of the University of Sussex (UK). His specialty is Chinese politics,
on which he has published five books and dozens of articles on local politics,
popular participation and political economy. His research has been supported
by the American Philosophical Society, the Ford Foundation and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Blecher teaches about Chinese and Asian pol-
itics and political economy, Marxian theory, the politics of class, and politics
and theatre. His ongoing research focuses on workers’ politics in contemporary
China.

Conceptualising Comparative Politics: Polities,
Peoples, and Markets
Edited by Anthony Spanakos (Montclair State University) and
Francisco Panizza (London School of Economics)
Conceptualising Comparative Politics seeks to bring a distinctive approach to com-
parative politics by rediscovering the discipline’s rich conceptual tradition and
inter-disciplinary foundations. It aims to fill out the conceptual framework
on which the rest of the subfield draws but to which books only sporadically
contribute, and to complement theoretical and conceptual analysis by applying
it to deeply explored case studies. The series publishes books that make serious
inquiry into fundamental concepts in comparative politics (crisis, legitimacy,
credibility, representation, institutions, civil society, reconciliation) through
theoretically engaging and empirically deep analysis.
8 Manipulating Political Decentralisation
Africa’s Inclusive Autocrats
Lovise Aalen and Ragnhild L. Muriaas
9 Shaping Citizenship
A Political Concept in Theory, Debate and Practice
Edited by Claudia Wiesner, Anna Björk, Hanna-Mari Kivistö
and Katja Mäkinen
10 The End of Communist Rule in Albania
Political Change and The Role of The Student Movement
Shinasi A. Rama
11 Authoritarian Gravity Centers
A Cross-Regional Study of Authoritarian Promotion and Diffusion
Thomas Demmelhuber and Marianne Kneuer
12 Politics as a Science
A Prolegomenon
Philippe C. Schmitter and Marc Blecher
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge .com
POLITICS AS A SCIENCE
A Prolegomenon
Philippe C. Schmitter and Marc Blecher
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Philippe C. Schmitter & Marc Blecher
The right of Philippe C. Schmitter & Marc Blecher to be identified
as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.
com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-46949-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-46469-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03214-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
To Terry who not only understands politics, but also practices it.
—PCS
For Hannah,
and for Jacob, Aria, Naomi and Solomon, who carry her brilliant torch.
—MJB