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What Should Political Theory Be Now?
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30 June 1984

Confronted with the alienation of political theory from the practice of politics, prominent theorists respond in this book to the growing question: What should political theory be now? New and original contributions by such thinkers as Charles Anderson, John Gunnell, Terence Ball, Paul Kress, Ira Strauber, and William Connolly analyze the current malaise in the field and offer remedies for it. Each contribution is at once an argument about what is to be done in political theory and an exemplar of how to do it.
Spurred by the Shambaugh Conference on Political Theory, this cross-disciplinary effort addresses two major issues: What is the proper stance for theorizing about politics? What are the priority projects for current political theory? The contributions encompass many of the major themes concerning political theorists today, including criticism as a project for current political theory, dangers in the latter-day disengagement of political theory from politics, theorists' perplexity within and about history, issues of reason, and the relationships among science, theory, and politics. The viewpoints presented are diverse, yet the contributors to this volume are typical of political theorists generally. Almost all share inklings of actual or incipient disasters reaching from politics into theory and vice versa.
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE: METHOD AND MYTH
1. Natures and Futures for Political Theory
John S. Nelson
2. In Search of the Political Object: Beyond Methodology and Transcendentalism
John G. Gunnell
PART TWO: ALIENATION AND ACTION
3. Political Philosophy and Political Action
Ira L. Strauber
4. Philosophy and Democracy
Michael Walzer
PART THREE: CRITICISM AND CONTRADICTION
5. Political Theorizing in the Late Twentieth Century: Foci, Loci, and Agendas
Paul F. Kress
6. Contradiction and Critique in Political Theory
Terence Ball
PART FOUR: PERSONS AND PUBLICS
7. What Should Political Theory Be Now?
Glenn Tinder
8. Political Theory as Political Rhetoric
John S. Nelson
PART FIVE: HIATUS AND HISTORY
9. Nihilism and Political Theory
Tracey B. Strong
10. Martin Heidegger and the Metapolitics of Crisis
Allan Megill
PART SIX: CONCEALMENT AND CONTROL
11. The Dilemma of Legitimacy
William E. Connolly
12. Political Theory and the Internal Structures of the Self: Reflections on Where Political Theory Should Be Now
James M. Glass
PART SEVEN: POWER AND PRAGMATISM
13. Questions of Power in Political Theory
Richard W. Miller
14. Political Theory and Political Science: The Rediscovery and Reinterpretation of the Pragmatic Tradition
Charles W. Anderson
PART EIGHT: PRACTICES AND PRINCIPLES
15. Education for Politics: Rethinking Research on Political Socialization
John S. Nelson
16. What Does It Take to Have a Theory? Principles in Political Science
William H. Panning
PART NINE: SUMMARY AND SUMMONS
17. One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward: Reflections upon Contemporary Political Theory
Richard Ashcraft
18. Does Political Theory Have a Future?
Robert Booth Fowler
Index