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The Vocations of Political Theory. Edited by Jason A. Frank and John Tambornino. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 400p. $57.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.
John G. Gunnell, State University of New York at Albany
A generation ago, Sheldon Wolin evoked an image of the vocation of political theory as an alternative to the behavioral program of theory and scientific inquiry that had come to dominate political science. His call also summoned those who believed that, in the midst of the political turmoil of the 1960s, the mainstream of the discipline had become politically quiescent and, at least by its inaction, even implicated in the political crises of the time. Intellectual and ideological choices were, indeed, involved, but Wolin was implicitly also giving voice to a professional identity for a large segment of the academic subfield of political theory that had been evolving for at least three decades. His articulation of the vocation was, however, as mythical as the method of science to which much of political science had subscribed, and these hegemonic legitimating myths ultimately could neither withstand critical scrutiny nor suppress the latent differences within each.
The editors of this volume ask what has become of this vocation, and they are sometimes ambivalent about whether they are referring to Wolin's epic image or to the character and condition of political theory as a professional university activity. Whatever their assumptions about the relationship between the two, their principal focus is on the latter. Although the editors state that the concerns "animating" the volume are "the character and status of contemporary political theory, its place in the academy and its role in public life," (p. x) these matters are not explored very fully, either analytically or empirically, and the essays have difficulty staying on message.
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