Political science in Italy: tradition and empiricism

The volume isn’t just an historical “summa” about the Italian experiences, by constrast it hopefully represents starting point for theoretical, methodological and fact-finding developements. This result is achieved by a historical and concettual dissertation of the discipline which, since its foundation, had to face three main challenges: the antiempirical culture, the so-thought “secondary” reputation of Politics and the accademic resistance. However, despite these difficulties, as the authors underline, the Italian Political Science was successful in its instituzionalization and integration with the other Social Sciences.

European Political Science, 2010

The article analyses the nature and prospects of political science in a country where a number of historical and cultural constraints have so far hampered a broad presence of the discipline. The article focuses in particular on the last twenty years, a period in which there has been a radical transformation of the Italian university system. After assessing the penetration of political science in recent academic programmes, the article provides an analysis of the internationalization of the products of Italian political science. The final section discusses the recent achievements and the persisting problems that continue to plague this academic discipline in Italy.

R. Rosicki, On the political dimension of political science – a few words about political dimension as the final judgment and reasoning, in: E. Jurga-Wosik, S. Paczos, R. Rosicki (eds.), W poszukiwaniu polityczności, WNPiDz UAM, Poznań 2014, pp. 71-81., 2014

The subject of the text is the issue of the "political", which is defined as the nature and level of the final judgment and ultimate reasoning. The issues of this kind of the "political" has been attempted to distinguish in political sciences. The text focuses on: (1) the scientist as an agent for the final judgment and reasoning, (2) the subject of study of political science, (3) "theoretical strategies" in the science of politics. The latter problem has been discussed mainly on the example of Polish political science. Discussed were among others: (1) "the dilemma of scale", (2) limited operational capacity (methodological and theoretical), (3) aesthetic imagery of political life, (4) structural ignorance in the field of ontology, epistemology and methodology.

Albergo dei Poveri, Genova, 14-15-16 settembre, 2023

"It is with great pleasure that I present the 36th congress of the Italian Political Science Association. Our annual event has tremendously grown after the pandemic break. In numbers as well as in qualitative terms. The adoption of international and selective standards for the preparation of our programme has yielded a positive outcome: the SISP conference is now among the five top political science events in Europe. A number of international scholars are expected in Genoa. We have super-interesting plenary sessions and round tables, touching very sensible problems and aiming to respond to the most crucial challenges for our discipline. After all, in order to keep playing its pivotal role in shaping our contemporary society, political science has to continuously redefine its ever-evolving boundaries and search for innovative approaches in methodology and communication. To fully understand political phenomena, we need to keep changing: this is our “fate”. I believe the Italian community of scholars is responding adequately to such a challenge, and our conference has become an essential venue to understand where we are, share our findings, exchange ideas, and engage in new and provoking discussions. The diversity of the topics covered by our conference sections serves as a testament to our commitment to the quest for change and improvement. In our effort to envisage our future work, we also have to pay a tribute to our founding fathers. Italian political science has a short but significant history. In Genoa we celebrate 50 years from the foundation of our first organisational project (the political science section of the Italian Association of Social Sciences) and, above all, we have a timely opportunity for some reflection on the long-term transformations of our mission. This is a big responsibility. Of course. But also a privilege. Contributing to the development of an inclusive, open-minded political analysis certainly responds to the compelling questions of our time, but also to the expectations of our founding fathers. Let us use this congress as a catalyst for our progress. Let us nurture critical thinking and disciplinary pluralism. Let us promote mutual exchange among our communities, here represented by sections and standing groups. And let us have fun in the gorgeous Genoa, where a group of enthusiastic colleagues have worked hard to make this great conference possible". The President Luca Verzichelli

Throughout history there was an agreement that the position of Political Science is at the peak of the hierarchy of social and human disciplines. In Aristotle's view, politics touches on all aspects of public life that the rulers should deal with. Therefore, Political Science, by nature, is different from all other fields of knowledge. The history of its development in the twentieth century is a manifestation of this thesis, or indeed a realistic embodiment of it. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1970s, Political Science has sought to become just 'a science', like other social and sometimes natural sciences. This study, however, seeks to develop a distinct approach for studying the evolution of Political Science in the twentieth century by employing three approaches: history of science, sociology of science, and epistemology of science. These approaches will be spun together to enhance our understanding of the emergence and development of Political Science, which can safely be divided into these three stages: the independence stage, the behaviorist stage, and the stage of revision, criticism and ' post-isms' .

European Journal of Political Research, 1991

The discipline of political science is " ill-defined, amorphous and heterogeneous. " With this diagnosis, editors Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby open their preface to the first Handbook of Political Science (1975: 1). Twenty years later, the main features of political sciences are: specialization, fragmentation and hybridization. Its frontiers are open and moving and need not be defined. The process of specialization has generated an increasing fragmentation in subfields, which are not " amorphous " but rather well-organized and creative. The " heterogeneity " has been greatly nourished by exchanges with neighbouring disciplines through the building of bridges between specialized fields of the various social sciences. This process of cross-fertilization is achieved by hybridization. The relations between political science and the other social sciences are in reality relations between sectors of different disciplines, not between whole disciplines. It is not an " interdisciplinary " endeavor. Since there is no progress without specialization, the creative interchanges occur between specialized subfields, most of the time at the margins of the formal disciplines. The current advancement of the social sciences can be explained in large part by the hybridization of segments of sciences. It would be impossible to conceive of a history of political science and of its current trends without reference to the other social sciences.

I propose to do four things: (1) to call attention to a seemingly trivial editorial choice made by Ingram Bywater in his influential edition of the Greek text of Aristotle's Ethics; (2) to show that this editorial choice has no basis in the manuscript tradition and is therefore misguided; (3) to show what is at stake for political practice; and (4) to show in what ways political science directs and uses the other sciences and in which ways it does not.

Academia Letters, 2021

Political philosophy has remained one of the most established subdisciplines in political science for over two millennia. In contrast, the situation of the subdiscipline of philosophy of political science is the complete opposite. The philosophical foundations of political science, the subject of the philosophy of political science, were already studied in antiquity, especially in the Aristotelian Organon; but today the philosophy of political science is probably the most neglected subdiscipline of political science. First, the current state of research is briefly explained in this paper. Second, the axiological, epistemic, methodological, and ontological foundations of political science are presented. Axiology, epistemology, methodology, and ontology provide, in my opinion, the four most important foundations of the subdiscipline. Thirdly, the significance of this subdiscipline for the subject of political science is outlined: the limits and possibilities of political science research can ideally be discussed on the basis of these four philosophical foundations. The bibliography provides hints for further research. Furthermore, a prolegomena is also expected to discuss at least the most important theses. This cannot be done in a letter but will instead be done in book form. So far, I have only published on the methodological dimension of the philosophy of political science (Lauer 2017, 2021).