The Meaning of Politics

This Section aims to improve our understanding of politics in a variety of contexts in the contemporary society. While the outputs of the ‘science about politics’ have proliferated in recent decades with a great deal of conceptual and methodological innovations, defining what politics is and how its understanding influences the results and limitations of political research has been a rather neglected enterprise. The Section aims at filling this gap by bringing to the forefront of the academic discussion a spectrum of ideas and interpretations that address the meaning(s) of politics and their implications on results of research in political science and related disciplines. The three proposed Panels are designed to move from the general challenge of the meaning of politics (defining politics in the context of tendencies towards depoliticization) to two more specific issue areas (understanding the political elements of contemporary political institutions and a new set of political interactions emerging through links between international organizations, specifically in a crisis-affected environment). Innovative theoretical and methodological approaches that aim at explaining interrelated aspects of ‘the political’ are welcome. This Section would be promoted and chaired by members of the International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS) with substantial experience in organizing and managing academic conferences, including the annual IAPSS World Congress. It carries the title of the 2017 IAPSS Annual Theme and includes three Section chair-proposed Panels, while being open to Panel proposals from ECPR members. The design of the Panels intends to stimulate dialogue and academic exchange between senior scholars and young academics (post-docs, postgraduate and experienced graduate students). Proposed Panels (3): (Re)defining ‘Politics’ in the 21st Century Through the Lens of Depoliticization Does Harold Lasswell’s seminal definition of politics as ‘Who Gets What, When and How’ still hold in the new millennium? Is it at odds with the reality of political relationships, based much more on notions of individual agency and freedoms? Or does it remain the guiding principle of politics, perhaps stimulating tendencies for public discontent and opposition to everything ‘political’?[1] This Panel collects contributions elucidating the differences between various historical and contemporary definitions of ‘politics’ and the implications of these differences on the conceptualization and operationalization of political phenomena for academic research purposes. It adopts the perspective that ‘each definition [of politics] is value laden’ and has an impact on political practice.[2] Works from (1) political theory, critically re-examining definitions offered by various schools and proposing their syntheses, (2) formal logic that could help measure the boundaries between the political and non-political, and (3) critical reviews of the existing usage of the term in empirical research are suitable. The Panel also aims to examine the possible linkages between the definition of politics as the basis of its understanding, and the tendencies towards depoliticization – moving away from anything political in favor of non-political (such as bureaucratic) ways of decision making. Where is ‘the Political’ in Political Institutions? Since ‘old institutionalisms’[3] have been pushed back in political science by its three ‘new’ counterparts,[4] the definition of political institutions seems to have been widening in order to encompass supranational decision-making rule-based systems, as well as bodies formerly often perceived as being ‘outside’ of the political realm (such as courts, bureaucratic agencies of state administration or associations of experts). This shift towards ‘everything is political’ in some strands of institutionalist research requires critical attention and discussion, as it has consequences for properly capturing the influence of various sets of factors on functioning of contemporary political institutions at domestic and international levels. Within the ‘institutionalisms’ debate, this Panel is particularly interested in assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the set of approaches loosely connected as the ‘fourth’ new institutionalism.[5] It intends to do so through comparative case studies applying some of these approaches with various research methods The Meaning of Politics in International Organizations The international system has grown more complex, encompassing a wide range of actors apart from states. This has arguably increased the number and strength of relations of these actors not only with states but also with each other. However, how these relations (such as between the UN, NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe and other inter- and non-governmental organizations) look like, how they work in practice/in concrete situations, to what extent they can be called ‘political’ and how effective they are in solving global issues, remains largely unexplored. The goal of this Panel is to bring together contributions that address the nature of these relations. An important contextual variable to be taken into consideration in each analysis in the Panel is the emerging discourse about crises, political and other, that are highlighted specifically in global media.[6] The main question is whether the discourse about ‘crises’ has changed something in the decision-making practices at the level of international organizations, particularly the interactions between them. Endnotes: [1] Colin Hay, Why We Hate Politics, (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 90–152. [2] Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), 41. [3] R. A. W. Rhodes, “Old Institutionalisms,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, ed. Sarah A. Binder, R. A. W. Rhodes, and Bert A. Rockman, (OUP, 2008), 90–108. [4] Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C. R. Taylor, “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms,” Political Studies 44, no. 5 (1996): 936–57. [5] Vivien A. Schmidt, “Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse,” Annual Review of Political Science 11, no. 1 (2008): 303–26; Jeremy Rayner, “Is There a Fourth Institutionalism? Ideas, Institutions and the Explanation of Policy Change,” in Policy Paradigms in Theory and Practice: Discourses, Ideas and Anomalies in Public Policy Dynamics, ed. John Hogan and Michael Howlett (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 61–80; Colin Hay, “Constructivist Institutionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, op. cit., 56–74. [6] Brian McNair, Communication and Political Crisis: Media, Politics and Governance in a Globalized Public Sphere (Peter Lang, 2016); Virginie Guiraudon, Carlo Ruzza, and Hans-Jörg Trenz, Europe’s Prolonged Crisis: The Making or the Unmaking of a Political Union (Springer, 2016).