Oxford Handbook Of Contextual Political Analysis, The

Description:
The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis sets out to synthesize and critique for the first time those approaches to political science that offer a more fine-grained qualitative analysis of the political world.The work in the volume has a common aim in being sensitive to the thoughts of contextual nuances that disappear from large-scale quantitative modelling or explanations based on abstract, general, universal laws of human behavior. It shows that 'context matters' in a great many ways: philosophical context matters; psychological context matters; cultural and historical contexts matter; place, population, and technology all matter. By showcasing scholars who specialize in the analysis of all these contexts side-by-side, the Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis shows how political scientists can take those crucial contextual factors systematically into account.

Review:
Spanning all of the major substantive areas and approaches in modern political science, this blockbuster set is a must-have for scholars and students alike. Each volume is crafted by a distinguished set of editors who have assembled critical, comprehensive, essays to survey accumulated knowledge and emerging issues in the study of politics. These volumes will help to shape the discipline for many years to come. Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University Judging from the editors, contributors, and topics covered, the forthcoming Oxford Handbooks of Political Science will be a landmark series...This is a series that not only university libraries, but more specialized social science and political science libraries, will want to have on their shelves Robert O. Keohane, Professor of International Affairs, Princeton University This extraordinary series offers 'state of the art' assessments that instruct, engage, and provoke. Both synoptic and directive, the fine essays across these superbly edited volumes reflect the ambitions and diversity of political science. No one who is immersed in the discipline's controversies and possibilities should miss the intellectual stimulation and critical appraisal these works so powerfully provide. Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University Under the general editorship of Robert E. Goodin, a large group of intellectually attractive authors has charted the entire field of political science in an unbiased multi-paradigmatic way. Minerva's owl would make a nice logo for this monumental collective work of the Oxford Handbooks: what moves us forward is looking back at what we know. Claus Offe, Professor of Political Science, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin and Institute for Social Science, Humboldt University, Berlin. This volume is an invaluable intervention in the Metoden Streit agitating American social science. A detailed justification of context, it presents an array of expert witnesses who have confronted the methodological choices characteristic of different contextual fieldsplace, time, culture, ideas, etc. The intervention is judicious. While defending the particularity which context requires, it does not surrender the possibility of regularities. This methodological cornucopia, with its excellent, agenda setting introduction, will provide authoritative and stimulating guidance to the pathways of political science approaches. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, William Benton Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science Emerita, University of Chicago A paramount effort coordinated by Robert Goodin for Oxford University Press has produced an impressive set of ten volumes about the state of the discipline, the Oxford Handbook of Political Science, which has become an instant must. Josep Colomer's Weekly Blog Goodin and Tilly have arrayed an outstanding group of fifty-one authors...This is a marvellous handbook into which a researcher might dip and delve. Most of the chapters provide the background needed by the curious, and some are likely to be informative to those already well versed in the area. Taken together, they offer an extensive and well-reasoned check-list of all the dangers and adventures awaiting scholars bent on explanation. The best build on cutting edge work in which the authors themselves engage. Margaret Levi, Political Studies Review

Table of Contents:
PART I. INTRODUCTION; 1. It Depends; PART II. PHILOSOPHY MATTERS; 2. Why and How Philosophy Matters; 3. The Socialization of Epistemology; 4. Political Ontology; 5. Mind, Will, and Choice; 6. Theory, Fact, Logic; PART III. PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS; 7. Why and How Psychology Matters; 8. Motivation and Emotion; 9. Social Preferences, Homo Economicus, and Zoon Politikon; 10. Frames and Their Consequences; 11. Memory, Individual and Collective; PART IV. IDEAS MATTER; 12. Why and How Ideas Matter; 13. Detecting Ideas and Their Effects; 14. How Previous Ideas Affect Later Ideas; 15. How Ideas Affect Actions; 16. Mistaken Ideas and Their Effects; PART V. CULTURE MATTERS; 17. Why And How Culture Matters; 18. How to Detect Culture and its Effects; 19. Race, Ethnicity, Religion; 20. Language, Its Stakes and Its Effects; 21. The Idea of Political Culture; PART VI. HISTORY MATTERS; 22. Why and How History Matters; 23. Historical Knowledge and Evidence; 24. Historical Context and Path Dependence; 25. Does History Repeat?; 26. The Present as History; PART VII. PLACE MATTERS; 27. Why and How Place Matters; 28. Detecting the Significance of Place; 29. Space, Place, and Time; 30. Spaces and Places as Sites and Objects of Politics; 31. Uses of Local Knowledge; PART VIII. POPULATION MATTERS; 32. Why and How Population Matters; 33. The Politics of Demography; 34. Politics and Mass Immigration; 35. Population Change, Urbanization, and Political Consolidation; 36. Population Composition as an Object of Political Struggle; PART IX. TECHNOLOGY MATTERS; 37. Why and How Technology Matters; 38. The Gendered Politics of Technology; 39. Military Technologies and Politics; 40. Technology as a Site and Object of Politics; PART X. OLD AND NEW; 41. Duchamp's Urinal: Who Says What's Rational When Things Get Tough?; 42. The Behavioral Revolution and the Remaking of Comparative Politics