95 Theses on Politics, Culture and Method

Political scientist Anne Norton proposes 95 theses that launch a polemic against the reigning orthodoxies in her own field, and offers practical advice for students of politics, culture and method.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he offered a challenge to the dominant establishment of which he was a member. In this provocative book, political scientist Anne Norton proposes 95 theses that launch a polemic against the reigning orthodoxies in her own field. Rejecting the antiquated and stultifying models encountered in textbooks and in courses on methodology and championed by the self-appointed gatekeepers of a narrow and parochial political science, Norton opens the gates to new practices, new principles, new questions, more methods and more demanding ethical and scientific criteria. Practice, she argues, has outstripped old models and conventional standards. Drawing on the most daring and rigorous work in structuralism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, cultural studies, literary theory, institutional analysis and the philosophy of science, she offers practical advice for students of politics, culture and method.