The Study of Political Actors and their Environments: The Lessons of Biogeography

Zusammenfassung

In recent decades, the study of politics has undergone crucial changes and become increasingly professionalized and internationalized, but it cannot be denied that a range of unfortunate developments has accompanied this process. Today, there is a growing risk that theories, approaches and concepts attuned to observe and analyze the very diverse communities of national actors and institutions involved in politics are sidelined, and increasingly replaced by research that either claims or takes for granted some kind of generic value. On closer inspection, however, many of these latter theories, approaches and concepts in research tend to build on experiences from the cultures and countries in which they were originally fostered, and, consequently, they are not sufficiently sensitive to analyzing conditions elsewhere and appreciate national and local phenomena (Schmitter 2002).