Rainer Eisfeld, Radical Approaches to Political Science: Roads Less Traveled.

Romaniuk, Scott Nicholas

Rainer Eisfeld, Radical Approaches to Political Science: Roads Less Traveled (Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2012)

As suggested in the title of this volume, Rainer Eisfeld, Professor emeritus of Political Science at Osnabruck University, pursues paths that others rarely have; in so doing, he uproots conventional thinking in areas involving salient contemporary issues and their proximal orbits within the political science constellation. Serving as an unorthodox agent of this field, Eisfeldcovers a wide range of conceptions and attitudes throughout the book. His work on the nature of political science and its function as an academic discipline is one of the most recent and most unique contributions to this budding collection of work within the field.

Eisfeld's ambitious engagement with the subject matter casts light upon new and alternative approaches in terms of reshaping political science with 21st century relevance, the creation of a discipline with a heightened regional scope, and the adoption of flexible new frameworks that are of service to pluralism and the changing nature of democratic governance. Inherent within the chapters are chords of critical political theory, factors of diversity and convergence, private and public interest amid an environment of anti-democratic thought, ideological dimensions of violence within culture, frontier myth, as well as transitions toward democracy within the Western Europe sphere. As such, the volume features a rich blend of traditional practices and perceptions, radical interpretation, historical dynamism, societal conflict, and power relations that cut across conventional boundaries from being both interdisciplinary and anti-disciplinary in critical thought and expression.

Among the five chapters that comprise this volume, the first is a critical assessment of the potential corrosion that has taken place within the field, highlighting the view that political science has recently been seen as a "largely useless science that does not supply knowledge" (p. 13). Responding to the sentiment, Eisfeldcalls attention to the idea that bringing "pressing regional and global challenges closer to their solution is a political project that involves many years (history), levels (structure), and players (agency)" (p. 15). That is, a democratic environment is absolutely vital to the breeding of a discipline that is equipped with the emancipated acuities to support and strengthen that environment, and one must question the environment for which the discipline has evolved and come to indulge. "Political science," it is therefore contended in this opening section, should " (re-) define itself as a science of democracy, as it did with particular emphasis subsequent to the Great Depression and World War II, to Fascism and Stalinism" (p. 15).

Eisfeld shifts the level of analysis to East-Central Europe, where he addresses the impact of politics, factors of diversity, and forces of convergence. Embracing hybrid regimes amid the backdrop of political science traditionally being viewed as a "moral" discipline fulfills operational and qualitative requirements to present a powerful narrative, which the author states that, "political scientists may find helpful in cases where the discipline's institutionalization meets with resistance" (p. 75). Research within this chapter intersects with democracy and democratization, and what is referred to as "authoritarian temptations" so as to flesh out the "gray zone" in which we find functioning hybrid regimes. Eisfeld uses cases found within East-Central Europe, and Eastern Europe more generally, to properly explore regime hybridization and ideological continuities within political science. The cases presented assist in the establishment of a hypothesized relationship between external factors as political events and the impingement upon the evolution of political science as an academic discipline.

Narrowing his analytical focus, Eisfeld examines Germany as a case in which events of the 20th century have "repeatedly produced drastic changes in social structure, ideological orientation, political behavior, and governmental set-up" (p. 105). The essence of Eisfeld's exploration within the third chapter is the idea that a lack of institutional immunity to authoritarianism existed during the course of the transitional period between the end of the First World War and the ascendance of National Socialism in Germany in 1933. Forging the argument that political science was reduced to an instrument of Nazism, Eisfeld subsequently explores a host of factors behind the political science communities' heterogeneity and the manner in which various branches of the discipline differed in their resistance to or "immunity" to antidemocratic temptations of the era. Whereas the discipline appeared inherently subservient to the forces of authoritarianism within Hitlerite Germany, following the catastrophic downfall of the Third Reich, the paradigmatic reorientation of political education took place so as to effectively provide new and positive democratic structures and processes of democratization (p. 107).

A natural progression follows as resistance and collusion of the academic discipline and institution presented in the third chapter bleed into the strange relationship between political science and ideology found within the penultimate chapter. What Eisfeld refers to as the "myths and realities of the frontier of violence," provides the groundwork for delving into the landscapes of human imagination and "frontier experience" (p. 169). Here, the author utilizes the myth as well as the factual life of an archetypical gunfighter as found in America's formative years of development throughout the Wild West. This critical analysis contributes to understanding stages of national development in the American context for its linking of the legitimization of violence to historical narratives. Attaching historical "sense" to the ideology of violence produces a powerful epic narrative, the "fatal continuity," of which, "indeed permits, as suggested by Richard Slotkin, to speak of a 'gunfighter nation' with regard to patterns of attitude and behavior unchangingly extolled by books, film, even encyclopediae" (p. 182).

The final chapter interrogates and problematizes the relationship that Portugal shares with Western Europe, and explains a critical period in the European Union's (EU) formation and history. According to Eisfeld, the "constraints of Portugal's persisting political and economic imbalances might overwhelm the advantages of EC [European Community] entry" (p. 207). Despite an overwhelming wave of effort within Portuguese society, the advent of what is referred to as a rash of development, which in turn fostered new transnational and traditional international agents, has funneled total diplomacy. Permeating domestic politics, these forces are shown to become acceptable instruments of local governments influencing domestic and foreign policies that might not have otherwise been observed. The idea of penetration and manipulation are central themes within the Portugal case, and are applicable to other reaches across the European map and further abroad.

The Frankfurt tradition is everywhere evident in Eisfeld's writing, and the marked pluralism applied to the variety of cases and scenarios included throughout this book may act as instruments with which additional analyses elsewhere in the social sciences may be launched. Indeed, the multidisciplinary approach featured in this work is a praiseworthy application of many years' experience, interest, and expertise within the field of comparative history and the popular arts, among others. Reinforcing the value of a multidisciplinary methodology in the social sciences, Eisfeld's writing is festooned with a valuable qualitative and context-specific approach. Drawing upon the foundational logic of competing and complimentary rationalities and synthesizing their various strands aptly supports the notion that Eisfeld's highly-liberal work in political science may well be the incarnation of the Habermasian, Adornoian, and Horkheimer foundations associated with social inter subjectivity and emancipation for audiences and actors of political science of the contemporary period.

Scott Nicholas Romaniuk

Central European University