New challenges for political science

This article deals with some new theoretical and methodological challenges for contemporary political science to wait for consideration. These challenges are ontological and epistemological; on the one hand, they derive from the objective dynamics the political, economic and social reality and, on the other hand, from the emerging dilemmas of political science itself. The first type of challenges comprises the following ones: the collapse of the post-Cold war world order, the absence of the new theory of political development, the new conservative wave and its consequences. The question of key drivers of political development – socio-economic vs. cultural and value-based – is among academic issues to be addressed. The significant variability of both authoritarianism and democracy is also a essential challenge. In relation to democracies, there is now almost a crosscutting topic of more or less gradual and smooth erosion of democracies “from within” (in contrast to undermining of democracies “from the outside” in the 20th century). The issues of capacity and resilience of modern states are also actively discussed by researchers; there is a possibility that these discussions will help to overcome the long-established focus on regime characteristics in the assessment of modern states. Among epistemological challenges, it is worth mentioning the balance of quantitative and qualitative methods, the problem of multidisciplinary approach, etc. This article concentrates on the first type of challenges.

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