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Interpretivism and practice in governance studies: The critique of methodological institutionalism

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Notes

  1. My thanks go to Jonathan Davies for organizing the roundtable on Mark Bevir's Democratic Governance at the Critical Governance Conference, University of Warwick, 13–14 December 2010.

  2. For an in-depth analysis of this work, see the special issue of Intellectual History Review, ‘Post-Analytic Hermeneutics: Themes from Mark Bevir's Philosophy of History’, 21(1) (2011).

  3. For their various responses to critics, see Bevir (2006); Bevir and Rhodes (2006a); Bevir and Rhodes (2006b); Bevir and Rhodes (2008a); Bevir and Rhodes (2008b). And alternatively, a systematic argument in favour of the continued relevance of the state-centric approach to governance is provided by Bell and Hindmoor (2009).

  4. This critical contrast between political irrationality and scientific rationality is also found in broad critiques of the social sciences’ common cause with the modern state and the goal of a science of policy making; see, for example, Fay (1975) and Wolin (1961).

  5. For a defence of aspects of institutionalism, see McAnulla (2007).

  6. Elsewhere, in The Logic of the History of Ideas, Bevir states that sociology might contribute to the study of how traditions develop and decline, postulating that ‘open traditions, which recognize our capacity for agency and actively encourage innovation, are likely to develop more rapidly than those that do not do so’ (Bevir, 1999, p. 317).

  7. For an overview, see Schatzki et al (2001).

  8. Bourdieu's example is of a tennis player who, in response to rapid movements of the ball, positions himself instinctively on the court without making rational calculations regarding the alternatives (Bourdieu, 1998).

  9. For a strident critique of Beck's claim that methodological nationalism is endemic in social theory, see Chernilo (2007).

  10. See also the alternative edition (Bourdieu, 1999).

  11. Bale (2006) argues that the influence of new institutionalists on New Labour policy is far less clear than argued by Bevir.

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Turnbull, N. Interpretivism and practice in governance studies: The critique of methodological institutionalism. Br Polit 6, 252–264 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2011.8

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