Methods in Political Philosophy

Debates about ‘method’ in political theory/philosophy have become ever more central to the field in recent years. The ideal/nonideal theory debate (O’Neill, Stemplowska, Valentini), the moralism/realism debate (Williams, Geuss, Sleat & Rossi), the facts/principles debate (Cohen, Miller, Ronzoni), and the practice dependence/independence debate (James, Sangiovanni) are among the most-discussed topics in the field’s top journals. It is therefore not surprising that Methods in Political Philosophy Sections, previously organised by Keith Dowding (Australian National University), Adrian Blau (King’s College) and Jonathan Floyd (University of Bristol), have been so well attended at the ECPR conferences in Prague (2016), Oslo (2017), Hamburg (2018), and Wroclaw (2019). With the help of the previous organisers, we are holding another year of this Section in 2020, with an eye on the possibility of establishing a permanent Standing Group in the future. Panels Competing Approaches to Political Philosophy Chair: Efthymia Charalampaki, Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, Institute of International Relations, Athens Discussant: Brian Milstein, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt The last decade or so has seen several attempts to propose new and wide-reaching methods of doing political philosophy. These include comparative political theory, contextualism, practice-dependence, avant-garde political theory, normative behaviourism, and various forms of both ideal and non-ideal theory. The aim of this panel is to bring together several accounts of a variety of competing approaches to the subject in order to pick apart their differences and evaluate their merits. Doing so will, amongst other things, help us work out how many methods our subject might have, how compatible they are with each other, and how much we even need such broad accounts in order to pursue our core business of justifying political principles. Political Philosophy and Political Practice Chair: Lisa Herzog (Groningen) Discussant: Nahshon Perez (Bar-Ilan) There are many ways political philosophers connect with the ‘real world.’ Sometimes we teach students who go on to change the world. Sometimes we act as advisors to politicians. Sometimes our work is read by those with influence. Sometimes we work as public intellectuals. Yet the question of how abstract principles really connect with concrete policy decisions remains a difficult one, even for those with experience of trying to do both philosophical and policy work, and who have tried to reflect on that connection themselves. This panel will gather several papers on this topic, including those dealing with examples of where ‘theory meets practice.’ Political Philosophy across Disciplines Chair: Eva Erman (Stockholm) Discussant: Michael Frazer (University of East Anglia) Political philosophy and political theory have long been interdisciplinary, housed in both philosophy and political science departments. They have had a tempestuous relationship with the other specialties in both disciplines, at times drawing on them productively, at others finding themselves in conflict over academic resources and prestige. Similar productive tensions exist with adjacent disciplines such as legal studies and the history of political thought. Now, political philosophers are increasingly developing relationships with other disciplines. Ethnographic methods have been of newfound interest, taking their place alongside literary and other humanistic approaches as well as psychological and other social-scientific approaches. The aim of this panel will be to elucidate the relationship of political philosophy with a variety of disciplines, both advancing existing interdisciplinary exchanges and launching new ones. Realism versus Moralism and Related Dichotomies Chair: Sune Lægaard (Roskilde) Discussant: Adrian Blau (KCL) Despite a vibrant and growing literature on the contrast between realism and moralism in normative political philosophy, the precise nature of this dichotomy remains unclear, as does its relationship to adjacent dichotomies such as feasibility versus infeasibility and ideal versus non-ideal theory. Is one of these dichotomies more fundamental than the others in some important sense? How do they relate to older dichotomies, such as traditional versus critical theory? Which, if any, depend on a distinctively political form of normativity? What can scholars working on each of these dichotomies contribute to the rest of the field? These and other questions will be addressed by both defenders and critics of our current realist turn.