Mihin politiikan tutkimuksen meta-analyysin tulisi nyt johtaa?

Legitimoinnista, illusionismista ja sousrealismista transrealismiin, disillusionismiin ja delegitimaatioon

Kirjoittajat

• Ilkka Heiskanen

Abstrakti

The visibility of political science, as well as other related social sciences (especially sosiology) has steadily decreased in Western industrialized societies during the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time meta-analyses assessing the state and direction of research haveTncreased. One can conclude that meta-analysis has not fulfilled its aim in two respects: iLhas not »sold» political science to future generations of researchers nor legitimized its role in Western society. In post-industrial societies research and knowledge is legitimized and made more »glamorous» by two new »supernarratives»: 1) that of the advent of an information society and 2) thehrew^predicament of researchers in the post-modern conditions of their activities. Political science has failed to participate in the formation of these two modes of legitimation and, consequently, has lost some of its visibility. It is suggested that political science should seriously reconsider its strategies of meta-analyses and research. These should not contribute to making politics and political science more petrified and »taken- for-granted», but should direct research towards finding new means of penetrating the apparent taken-for-granted surface of modern politics — and also such political science research which contributes to the petrification of this surface.