| The dissertation focuses on the shift in contemporary political theory towards a more interpretive and literary perspective. It tries to show how this shift has consequences for the self-understanding of political science as a discipline and for the way we perceive both theory and political discourse in general.;The primary argument of the dissertation is that once we become aware of political inquiry as interpretive and committed in its very foundation, political discourse--including the most "descriptive" political science--should be viewed as forms of linguistic constructions that constitute political reality rather than describe it. It then becomes pertinent to understand how these constructions produce meaning, what normative commitments they adhere to, what kinds of interpretive and rhetorical strategies they use, and what tropes and models they are based on. To raise these types of problems is to move, I argue, towards an aesthetics of political interpretation--an aesthetics which is also a form of politics; a politics of interpretation.;I utilize and discuss some of the ideas that have emerged from the traditions of hermeneutics, critical theory, and post-structuralism. Although very different from each other, there is within these three general perspectives a common concern both with the style or aesthetics of discourse and with the presuppositions underlying social inquiry. I try to treat political theory as an ambiguous tradition, containing several different genres, and then analyze some of the interpretive commitments of these various styles of theorizing. |
