The Politics of Political Science

Re-Writing Latin American Experiences

Paulo Ravecca

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780815363071
• eBook ISBN: 9781351110532
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this thought-provoking book, Paulo Ravecca presents a series of interlocking studies on the politics of political science in the Americas.

Focusing mainly on the cases of Chile and Uruguay, Ravecca employs different strands of critical theory to challenge the mainstream narrative about the development of the discipline in the region, emphasizing its ideological aspects and demonstrating how the discipline itself has been shaped by power relations. Ravecca metaphorically charts the (non-linear) transit from "cold" to "warm" to "hot" intellectual temperatures to illustrate his—alternative—narrative. Beginning with a detailed quantitative study of three regional academic journals, moving to the analysis of the role of subjectivity (and political trauma) in academia and its discourse in relation to the dictatorships in Chile and Uruguay, and arriving finally at an intimate meditation on the experience of being a queer scholar in the Latin American academy of the 21st century, Ravecca guides his readers through differing explorations, languages, and methods.

The Politics of Political Science: Re-Writing Latin American Experiences offers an essential reflection on both the relationship between knowledges and politics and the political and ethical role of the scholar today, demonstrating how the study of the politics of knowledge deepens our understanding of the politics of our times.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Politics of Political Science in Latin America
• 1 Power, Knowledge, and Complex Relationality: Theory and Method
• 2 When Political Science Was Authoritarian: Chile, 1979–1989 (Cold)
• 3 From Revolution to Transition: The Making of a Conformist Academia in Uruguay and Beyond (?) (Warm)
• 4 Doing Research, from Fortress to Intimacy (Hot)
• 5 The Temperatures of Thinking and Politics: An Assemblage of Critical Theories and a Problematizing Re-Inscription of Political Science
• Appendix A: The Academic Articles Database
• Appendix B: The Interviews
• Appendix C: Situated Understanding(s) of the Terms “Quantitative” and “Quantification”
• Appendix D: An Example of the Acritical Relationship with the Elites? PS and Mining
• Index