Constituents of Political Theory (2)

Introduction

This second volume presents the body of work and school of thought of the University of Warsaw’s employees, first associated with the Department of Philosophy and Political Theory and currently working at the Department of Political Theory and Political Thought at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw. The composition of the contributing authors has changed slightly since the previous volume. This publication focuses on ways of thinking about political theory, its status, and methodological profile as well as, by implication, the nature of politics, aspects considered as politics, and aspects that are, or rather become or cease to be political.

When a group of researchers adopts a shared set of conceptual categories and assumptions that is typical only for this group, let alone a particular paradigm, as a key to analyzing and interpreting phenomena, we are dealing with a theoretical school. Such a definition is even more justified when this group is able to codify its cognitive optics and express them in a synthetic theoretical model of the area of study and the type of phenomena under analysis. Without false modesty, we acknowledge our research and findings as an expression of the emergence of our own theoretical school of political science.

In the first place, the aforementioned first collection of our work analyzed the object of research in political science as seen from the position of our discipline in the systematics of social sciences and the humanities as well as the importance of the chosen methodological orientation for defining that object of research. In particular, we considered the characteristic features of the interests of political scientists against the background of the knowledge of the norms of social life in general, compared to the scope and aspects of research conducted by sociologists, economists, psychologists, and lawyers.

These metatheoretical assumptions place emphasis on several individual issues. The first point of emphasis is the aspectuality of cognition. Here, the “political matter” is an aspectual and conceptual construct rather than a reflection of a specific domain that is substantively separate. The second point of focus is the syndromatic rather than homogeneous nature of the set of phenomena considered political science. The third focal point is the importance of conceptualization in line with the maxim stating that “it is not the object that constitutes the theory, but the theory its object.” We illustrated this assumption in the last part of the first volume by means of articles containing an explication of the concepts that we take as our point of departure: social needs, interests, and political subjects understood as causative forces rather than simply as political actors in the sense: actors of the political scene. Already the first volume featured a polemical article discussing the stereotypical framing of politics in terms of power, namely power struggles, the art of governing, and power relations. The article reminds us of our inability to understand the sources and functions of power in isolation from ownership.

Both in the previous and current volume, we propose a deliberate advancement of political theory as, first and foremost, an exploratory theory, which serves to explain political phenomena, the functioning mechanisms of politics as such, which we could define as “pure politics,” as well as its domain-specific applications in the form of “public policies.” This profile of studying politics uses an intentionally objectivized analysis of factors, determinants, sociopolitical dependencies, and attempts to identify regularities. As such, it is different from the dominant profile, which is especially prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon circle. This particular pattern of “political theory” has a distinctly axiological and normative character, and its frame of reference comprises specific ideas and their evolution, moral and political values, imperatives, and political models. A better definition of this explanatory profile would be the “theory of politics,” but this term is almost nonexistent in the established tradition.

This current collection of articles offers a demonstration of our assumed paradigm:

1. (1) the object of political theory is not only politics but, on the whole, that which is political in social life, customs, ethoses, aesthetic orientations, religious notions and emotions, as well as technological innovations and their implementations. Politics customarily means a state-, diplomatic- and party-affiliated form of activity, which society erroneously understands as a sphere separate from the sphere of economy and culture. In the analysis of political life, we must constantly update and revise the center of gravity due to civilizational, technological, cultural, and ideological changes, as well as due to the politicization of an increasing number of areas and forms of human activity resulting from the numerous manifestations of diverse phenomena’s politicalness;
2. (2) what we call politics is the product and expression of a configuration of what is political in a given era or even situation;
3. (3) we must not equate the essence of politics and the criterion relating to the political nature of phenomena with power relations, the struggle for power in the state, or the art of governing. Instead, we should equate these concepts with conditions of social equilibrium, the continuity of the existence of large communities, the determinants of integration, disintegration or reintegration of these communities, including, above all, the contradictions of particular and shared interests, the balance of power, as well as the degree and scope of representativeness of social movements and public institutions;
4. (4) the conventional and, unfortunately, formalistic, stereotypical, and anachronistic understanding of politics through the prism of power in the state or, more recently, according to the marketing strategies of the “political market” is a reduction of the concept of politics that, if absolutized, makes it impossible for us to understand the background of political tendencies and changes, explain political crises, and anticipate transformations;
5. (5) the immobility and the “immortalization” of patterns that the transgression factor and successive disruptions in the established political and ideological order render obsolete contaminate this conventional view of political life, which is entrenched by the force of inertia. Such an approach focuses on what seems a priori permanent rather than on perceiving aspects that influence political life “seismically.” This permanence seems predetermined regardless of genuine instances of dissonance and upheaval attempting a contradiction.

With reference to these assumptions, the four parts of this collection discuss in turn: