The Handbook

Just published, the Oxford Handbook of Political Science, a heavy volume of 1,291 pages, pretends to give “a glimpse of the breadth, the depth, and the excitement of political science”. The single volume synopsis “mines” the previous ten volumes of the Oxford Handbooks which were celebrated in this Blog in due time (10/08/06). The General Editor, Bob Goodin, has “consolidated” the 500 chapters in the ten volume series into a set of only 50 chapters in the hope it “makes organic sense as a collection in its own right, from the point of view of a general political science readership”. As he confesses, the entire venture feels like “a once-in-a-generation undertaking, unlikely to be replicated anytime soon”.

In addition to the selected chapters, Goodin offers a new general introduction where he discusses “the state of the discipline”; presents “a canon of political science” formed of a set of about 100 books with which “any competent professional must have at least a passing acquaintance”; lists the “subdisciplinary leaders” as the 1 percent of people whose names appear most frequently in the index of the volumes in the series; identifies the “core” of the discipline consisting in Comparative Politics and Political Institutions; and bets on a few candidates to “the next big thing”.


Table of Contents

Preface
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. The State of the Discipline, the Discipline of the State, Robert E. Goodin

PART II: POLITICAL THEORY
2. Overview of Political Theory, John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips
3. Normative Methodology, Russell Hardin
4. Theory in History: Problems with Context and Narrative, J.G.A. Pocock
5. Justice After Rawls, Richard J. Arneson
6. Modernity and its Critics, Jane Bennett

PART III: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
7. Old Institutionalisms: An Overview, R.A.W. Rhodes
8. Elaborating the "New Institutionalism", James G. March and Johan P. Olsen
9. Comparative Constitutions, Josep M. Colomer
10. Political Parties In and Out of Legislatures, John H. Aldrich
11. The Regulatory State?, John Braithwaite

PART IV: LAW & POLITICS
12. Overview of Law and Politics: The Study of Law and Politics, Keith E. Whittington, R. Daniel Kelemen and Gregory A. Caldeira
13. The Judicialization of Politics, Ran Hirschl
14. Judicial Behavior, Jeffrey A. Segal
15. Law and Society, Lynn Mather
16. Feminist Theory and the Law, Judith A. Baer

PART V: POLITICAL BEHAVIORS
17. Overview of Political Behavior: Political Behavior and Citizen Politics, Russell J. Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann
18. Political Psychology and Choice, Diana C. Mutz
19. Votes and Parties, Anne Wren and Kenneth M. Mcelwain
20. Comparative Legislative Behavior, Eric M. Uslaner and Thomas Zittel
21. Political Intolerance in the Context of Democratic Theory, James L. Gibson

PART VI: CONTEXTUAL POLITICAL ANALYSIS
22. Overview of Contextual Political Analysis: It Depends, Charles Tilly and Robert E. Goodin
23. Political Ontology, Colin Hay
24. The Logic of Appropriateness, James G. March and Johan P. Olsen
25. Why and How Place Matters, Goran Therborn
26. Why and How History Matters, Charles Tilly

PART VII: COMPARATIVE POLITICS
27. Overview of Comparative Politics, Carles Boix and Susan C. Stokes
28. War, Trade and State Formation, Hendrik Spruyt
29. What Causes Democratization?, Barbara Geddes
30. Party Systems, Herbert Kitschelt
31. Political Clientelism, Susan C. Stokes

PART VIII: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
32. Overview of International Relations: Between Utopia and Reality, Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal
33. The New Liberalism, Andrew Moravcsik
34. The English School, Tim Dunne
35. From International Relations to Global Society, Michael Barnett and Kathryn Sikkink
36. Big Questions in the Study of World Politics, Robert O. Keohane
37. Six Wishes for a More Relevant Discipline of International Relations, Steve Smith

PART IX: POLITICAL ECONOMY
38. Overview of Political Economy: The Reach of Political Economy, Barry R. Weingast and Donald A. Wittman
39. Economic Methods in Positive Political Theory, David Austen-Smith
40. Capitalism and Democracy, Torben Iversen
41. Politics, Delegation and Bureaucracy, John D. Huber and Charles R. Shipan
42. The Evolutionary Basis of Collective Action, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis

PART X: PUBLIC POLICY
43. Overview of Public Policy: The Public and Its Policies, Robert E. Goodin, Michael Moran and Martin Rein
44. Social and Cultural Factors: Constraining and Enabling, Davis B. Bobrow
45. Policy Dynamics, Eugene Bardach
46. Reframing Problematic Policies, Martin Rein
47. Reflections on Policy Analysis: Putting it Together Again, Rudolf Klein and Theodore R. Marmor

PART XI: POLITICAL METHODOLOGY
48. Overview of Political Methodology: Post-behavioral Movements and Trends, Henry E. Brady, David Collier and Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier
49. Causation and Explanation in Social Science, Henry E. Brady
50. Field Experiments and Natural Experiments, Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green
51. The Case Study: What It Is and What It Does, John Gerring
52. Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, David D. Laitin and James D. Fearon

REFERENCE:
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COMMENTS

Manuel Hidalgo said...

¡Gracias, Josep! Por el Índice y la pequeña descripción que das tiene muy buena pinta.

Salud,
MH
Madrid


Salvador Giner said...

Dear Josep,
I look forward to reading your comparative pols. chapter in the Handbook.
Also Russell Hardin's, Pocock, et al.
Un clàssic. Felicitats.

Yours,
Salvador
Barcelona