This unique book explains the central role that research paradigms play in the design and conduct of social research. The authors argue that social research should not just describe or confirm a social problem but should seek to find an explanation for it and to do so requires research with eyes philosophically wide open. Important philosophical and practice elements of three widely recognized paradigms Neo-Positive, Interpretive and Critical Realist are carefully elaborated and their use in action illustrated with detailed examples. The authors show that the philosophical assumptions of a chosen paradigm must match those embedded in a characterization of a research problem and its context. This paradigm orientation is shown to be fundamental to appropriately framing a problem, formulating research questions, deciding on a logic of inquiry and selecting and using methods to investigate it. Ultimately, an appropriate paradigm orientation to social research provides a dispassionate, rigorous and effective basis for the production of new social scientific knowledge. Following on from Blaikies Approaches to Social Enquiry and Designing Social Research, this innovative book will be invaluable to upper-level and research students, their lecturers and supervisors, and researchers across the social sciences.

This new book by the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito addresses the profound crisis of contemporary politics and examines some of the philosophical approaches that have been used to try to understand and go beyond this crisis. Two approaches have been particularly influential – one indebted to the thought of Martin Heidegger, the other indebted to Gilles Deleuze. While opposed in their political thrust and orientation, both approaches remain trapped within the political ontology that has framed our conceptual language for some time. In order to move beyond this political ontology, Esposito turns to a third approach that he characterizes as ‘instituting thought’. Indebted to the work of the French political philosopher Claude Lefort, this third approach recognizes that the road to reconstructing a productive relation between ontology and politics, one that is both realistic and innovative, lies in instituting praxis. Building on this insight, Esposito conceptualizes social being as neither univocal nor plurivocal but as cross-cut by the dual semantics of political conflict. This new book by one of the most original European philosophers writing today will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, social and political theory and the humanities generally.

Recent economic and political developments in the Third World and in Communist and advanced industrial societies have challenged some of the most cherished assumptions of social science, forcing social scientists to rethink many of the categories of their discipline. In a concisely written and provocative book, the author traces this process of rethinking. He does so by going back to the nineteenth-century origins of political sociology and economy, and by exploring more recent attempts by American scholarship to fashion from the writings of Smith, Marx, Spencer, Weber, and Durkheim a new universal theory of modernization and political change. The author argues that these attempts led to a new intellectual crisis, which could be resolved only by a "paradigm shift," that is, by refocusing the discipline from the classical concept of social relations to a new global concept of the division of labor and systems of exchange. Overall, the volume may be read both as an intellectual history of modern political science, and as an attempt to fashion an analytical tool for empirical research. As such, it will be of interest to students of political philosophy as well as of comparative politics.

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

Social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of four key paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The four paradigms are founded upon different assumptions about the nature of social science and the nature of society. Each generates theories, concepts, and analytical tools which are different from those of other paradigms and together they provide a more balanced understanding of the phenomenon under consideration. This book demonstrates that an understanding of these different paradigms and how they can be applied leads to a better understanding of the multi-faceted nature of political economy. Any explanation of a given phenomenon is based on a worldview. The premise of this book is that any worldview can be associated with one of the four key paradigms. Each chapter of the book takes an important phenomenon (i.e., the state, justice, freedom, democracy, liberal democracy, media, and the great recession) and discusses it from the four different viewpoints. It emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative. They look at the phenomenon from their certain paradigmatic perspective and together provide a more balanced understanding of the phenomenon under consideration. The diversity of economics research possibilities referred to in this book is vast. While each paradigm advocates a research strategy that is logically coherent, in terms of underlying assumptions, these vary from paradigm to paradigm. The phenomenon to be researched can be conceptualized and studied in many different ways, each generating distinctive kinds of insight and understanding. This book is for those who study political economy as well as economic theory and philosophy.

In the wake of Malaysia’s 13th General Election some commentators speak of a sharpening of ethnic politics — with Prime Minister Najib blaming a “Chinese tsunami” for his government’s polling setbacks; others are optimistic about the arrival of a new “non-racialized form of politics” and the emergence of “transethnic solidarity”. This book, which engages with both the race paradigm and its opponents, warns that change is likely to come slowly — but is not impossible. Malaysia’s race paradigm is a man-made ideological construct — one that has been contested in the past, and could realistically be contested in the future. In confronting the continuing challenge of globalization, Malaysians should not neglect the history of ideas — and ideology — as they search for new options.

Since its initial publication, this highly respected text has provided students with a critical review of the major research paradigms in the social sciences and the logics or strategies of enquiry associated with them. This second edition has been revised and updated.

Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism, and Domestic Politics offers a variety of perspectives on the development of policy paradigms — the ideas that structure thinking about what can and should be done in a policy domain. In this collection, international experts examine how both transnational actors and domestic politics affect the structuring of these paradigms. As well as theoretical chapters, this volume includes six case studies showing ideas at work in a diverse range of policy domains from the recognition of same-sex unions to risk regulation of genetically modified organisms. These qualitative analyses show how transnational activities shape policy paradigms by building consensus on ideas about feasible and desirable public policies across authoritative decision-makers. Expertly researched and assembled, Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism, and Domestic Politics provides insight into the conditions under which different transnational actors can bring about changes in the core ideas that affect public policy development.

Peacebuilding is explained by combining interpretive frameworks (paradigms) that have evolved from the subfields of international relations and comparative politics.