The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (Oxford Handbooks of Political Science) [Paperback]

Robert E. Goodin (Editor), Charles Tilly (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0199548447 | ISBN-13: 978-0199548446

The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis sets out to synthesize and critique for the first time those approaches to political science that offer a more fine-grained qualitative analysis of the political world. The work in the volume has a common aim in being sensitive to the thoughts of contextual nuances that disappear from large-scale quantitative modeling or explanations based on abstract, general, universal laws of human behavior. It shows that 'context matters' in a great many ways: philosophical context matters; psychological context matters; cultural and historical contexts matter; place, population, and technology all matter. By showcasing scholars who specialize in the analysis of all these contexts side-by-side, The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis shows how political scientists can take those crucial contextual factors systematically into account.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Taken as a whole, the volume captures both the excitement and the considerable challenges of all the cumulative turns in political analysis: cultural, historical, linguistic, and spatial with hints at new directions that beckon. While a few chapters function as guides to confronting the methods police, most function as invitations to diverse kinds of thoughtfulness and openness to the multi dimensional character of politics as it unfolds in space, time, and mind."--Contemporary Sociology

"Goodin and Tilly have arrayed an outstanding group of fifty-one authors...This is a marvellous handbook into which a researcher might dip and delve. Most of the chapters provide the background needed by the curious, and some are likely to be informative to those already well versed in the area. Taken together, they offer an extensive and well-reasoned check-list of all the dangers and adventures awaiting scholars bent on explanation. The best build on cutting edge work in which the authors themselves engage."-- Political Studies Review

"This volume is an invaluable intervention in the Metoden Streit agitating American social science. A detailed justification of context, it presents an array of expert witnesses who have confronted the methodological choices characteristic of different contextual fieldsplace, time, culture, ideas, etc. The intervention is judicious. While defending the particularity which context requires, it does not surrender the possibility of regularities. This methodological cornucopia, with its excellent, agenda setting introduction, will provide authoritative and stimulating guidance to the pathways of political science approaches."--Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, William Benton Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science Emerita, University of Chicago

"Spanning all of the major substantive areas and approaches in modern political science, this blockbuster set is a must-have for scholars and students alike. Each volume is crafted by a distinguished set of editors who have assembled critical, comprehensive, essays to survey accumulated knowledge and emerging issues in the study of politics. These volumes will help to shape the discipline for many years to come."--Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

About the Author

Robert E. Goodin is Distinguished Professor of Social and Political Theory and Philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University.

Charles Tilly was Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Sciences at Columbia University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199548447
• ISBN-13: 978-0199548446
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars [Mostly] Required Reading, May 30, 2010

By 

A. D. Knapp (Nampa, ID USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (Oxford Handbooks of Political Science) (Paperback)

I would highly recommend this text to anyone pursuing an degree in the social sciences, as well as to anyone who is philosophically inclined with their politics. Firstly, as an Oxford Handbook the text is both generally organized and discursive; 3-6 essays are offered on each topic, and each differs in its angle (multifaceted perspectives for a multifaceted topic). Secondly, the text is a cross-section of non-"rational choice" scholarship; the economic model typically dominates political science textbooks, but "Contextual Political Analysis" allows just what its title advertises: a framework for formalizing the mechanisms of context. The "rational choice" school is great, but confronts huge hurdles when it comes to quantifying aesthetic values that play into political behavior (public understandings of justice, traditions of rhetoric, identity, etc.)

Though I might not read this to my kids as a bedtime story (which I am sure would put them to sleep quickly), it is a great piece of literature to gradually expand one's understanding of the field from.