Political Analysis: Critical Introduction, A

Description:
'Political Analysis' provides an accessible introduction to the analysis of political structures, institutions, ideas and behaviours and, above all, to the political processes through which they are constantly made and remade. Following an innovative introduction to the main approaches and concepts in political analysis, the text focuses thematically on the key issues which currently concern and divide political analysts, including the boundaries of the political the question of structure, agency and power the dynamics of political change the relative significance of ideas and material factors and the challenge posed by postmodernism which the author argues the discipline can strengthen itself by addressing without allowing it to become a recipe for paralysis.

Review:
'A truly excellent and enormously useful volume which provides a remarkably coherent and powerful synthesis of an enormous body of literature. Political Analysis does more than simply summarize previous work in comparative politics and international relations, it genuinely moves the debate forward. Whether or not one accepts Professor Hay's call for a constructivist institutionalism (and he offers many good reasons why we should) this is a book that all students of politics must take seriously.' - Sven Steinmo, University of Colorado, Boulder

Table of Contents:
Analytical Perspectives, Analytical Controversies What's Political about Political Science? Beyond Structure versus Agency: Context versus Conduct Continuity and Discontinuity in the Analysis of Political Change Divided by a Common Language? Conceptualising Power The Discursive and the Ideational in Contemporary Political Analysis: Beyond Materialism and Idealism The Challenge of Postmodernism Conclusion: Critical-Political-Analytical

Author Biography:
COLIN HAY is Professor of Political Analysis, University of Birmingham and has been a visiting scholar at the Department of Political Science, MIT Center for European Studies, Harvard.