Is political science in crisis?

Abstract

At first sight, political science seems to be on a good way in most countries. If this discipline, as a look at its beginnings in Athens may suggest, will flourish particularly well in times of political crises, then political science should be intellectually well fed in our period of regime collapse, geopolitical restructuration, and growing international tensions. At second sight, however, some disturbing features of «normal political science» become evident. They include the attractiveness of doing academic «routine science» instead of coping with actual practical problems; attempts at «pleasing the public» instead of taking a critical stance towards established political thought and behavior; comfortable limitation of research interests to contemporary issues instead of attempts at drawing lessons from the whole span of history; and practicing «occidental ethnocentrism» instead of striving at «analytic cosmopolitism». The article challenges these characteristics of today’s political science, thereby inviting a new generation of political scientists to new thematic and theoretical openness.