The Case for Methodological Conversation: Between Political Theory and Political Science.

In recent years many political theorists have demonstrated a great deal of interest in political institutions and behavior as they are. Decisively moving away from hypothetical contract devices, scholars such as Waldron, Miller and others insist that political theorists should study actual political institutions, such as political parties, electoral systems, taxation systems, voters’ ignorance, judicial review, and the list goes on. Importantly, this worldly, institutional or contextual turn, does not mean that political theory would submerge itself wholly into the social sciences, as political theory maintains an evaluative or a normative perspective. The goal of gaining a proper understanding of the ways a given political institution functions is to evaluate its desirability. This explicit evaluative function would separate even the new worldly political theory from the more descriptive, or causal social science. This new institutional or worldly political theory demonstrates much interest in political institutions. This interest is obviously shared by political science. And as is well known, political scientists have developed a rich and diverse methodological literature aimed at improving the ways in which political institutions are studied. A natural question would arise therefore, what can political theorists learn from this literature, that would contribute to, advance and improve, the aim of political theorists to better evaluate political institutions? As the methods literature in political science is large, it is suggested here to advance gradually, by pointing to three political science methods that can be adopted by political theorists: the study and usage of case studies; selecting negative cases in comparative studies; and avoiding sampling by the dependent variable. These three techniques or methods were chosen for two reasons: first, they are widely applicable and used techniques or instruments; second, it can be indicated how integration of such political science methods would have challenged, changed, qualified or improved well-known studies in contemporary political theory. Put differently, these methods are relevant to common research in political theory. In order to demonstrate the relevance and usefulness of these methods, it is suggested to re-read the following sources, in light of the noted methodological imports from political science: J. Spinner Halev’s usage of the case study of Shah-Bano intended to critically examine M. Nussbaum's view of gender equality; the lack of selection of negative cases in Walzer’s the Company of Critics; and Bernard Williams' argument that liberal toleration must be supported by skepticism in which he sampled by the dependent variable.