95 Theses on Politics, Culture, and Method

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ISBN: 9780300100112 | 0300100116
Cover: Trade Book
Copyright: 12/11/2003

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In this book, distinguished political scientist Anne Norton proposes 95 theses that launch a brilliant, witty polemic against the orthodoxy in her own field.
Rejecting the antiquated and stultifying models in textbooks on method, in courses on methodology, championed by the self-appointed gatekeepers of a narrow and parochial political science, Norton opens the gates to more 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, institutional analysis, and the philosophy of science, she offers practical advice for students of politics, cultures, and method.

Culture is a matrix	p. 1
Culture is not a variable	p. 2
Politics is in culture	p. 7
Culture is political	p. 9
Culture is in language	p. 12
Language is political	p. 13
There is no neutral language	p. 15
We are in language	p. 16
Authority is political and literary	p. 17
Culture can be considered as a text	p. 22
Literary devices have direct counterparts in political strategies	p. 23
Culture constitutes the body and makes it readable	p. 26
Gender, race, and sexuality are cultural constructs	p. 27
Commodities serve as semiotic lexicons	p. 31
The natural is a cultural category	p. 33
Culture is an observable concept	p. 34
Culture is made in practice	p. 36
Culture, as practice, is continually changing	p. 37
The formal is always accompanied by an informal counterpart, the structural by the antistructural and the unstructured	p. 39
Change comes from the liminal	p. 41
All cultures are syncretic	p. 42
All cultures are exceptional. No culture is exceptional	p. 44
Culture is wild and various	p. 45
Subjects have multiple identities	p. 47
Identities are performed	p. 49
Identities have multiple expressions	p. 51
Every identity is in reference to a collective	p. 52
Identity and community are coeval	p. 54
Identity and alienation are coeval	p. 55
Every political institution calls for identities	p. 55
Identities make interests. Interests make identities	p. 57
There are no "interests." There are "interests of" and "interests as."	p. 58
Every identity is partial	p. 59
Community entails alienation	p. 60
Belonging may be expressed as affirmation or rebellion	p. 61
Each institution calls for its own resistance	p. 62
There is no culture without resistance	p. 63
There is no culture without internal critique	p. 65
Meaning is made out of difference	p. 65
Power is productive	p. 67
Opposition is productive	p. 68
Lack impels. Lack is productive	p. 69
Power comes from the absence of power	p. 70
The most effective domination is internal	p. 71
The most effective rule is invisible and appears as inevitable	p. 73
Domination is through and of the senses	p. 74
Prohibitions produce institutions and resistances. Prohibitions interpellate identities	p. 76
Ruling structures constrain the rulers as well as the ruled, the advantaged as well as the disadvantaged	p. 77
That which is overcome, remains	p. 78
Nothing runs ahead of its time. Many things run ahead of their time	p. 79
Facts do not speak for themselves	p. 80
Facts are made	p. 80
Facts are artifacts of the methods that produce them	p. 81
There are no neutral methods	p. 82
There are no neutral scientists	p. 83
Work speaks simultaneously of its ostensible object and of its author and context	p. 84
There are no general laws	p. 86
There is no evidence. Evidence is always of and for something	p. 87
Nothing is noncontributory	p. 88
That which is omitted, absent, and silent is as important as that which is committed, present, and conspicuous	p. 89
Description entails analysis	p. 90
No account can be comprehensive	p. 91
Representation alters the represented	p. 93
Quantification is distortion	p. 95
Formality obscures more than it clarifies	p. 98
Every method has an evaluative hierarchy	p. 98
Every method has an aesthetic	p. 99
Parsimony is an aesthetic criterion	p. 101
The form in which something is expressed determines its meaning. The signifier constitutes the meaning of the sign	p. 102
Surfaces are as meaningful as that which lies beneath them	p. 103
Name constitute. Categories constitute	p. 104
All categories are subject to an interior articulation and to an articulation of their relations with others. No category is internally homogenous, or independent	p. 106
Correlation does not establish causality	p. 107
Accurate prediction is not proof of correct reasoning	p. 107
Replication is not proof	p. 108
Repetitions alter what they repeat	p. 109
Falsifiability does not establish validity. Falsifiability is not a necessary attribute of a theory, nor an index of superiority	p. 110
Subjective satisfaction is not an index of the truth or the merit of a theory	p. 111
Systems of knowledge are systems of power	p. 113
Truth is a cultural category. Truth is in culture	p. 115
Experience confers only a limited understanding	p. 116
Lies and errors are meaningful	p. 117
Time is an attribute of the observer, not of the observed	p. 119
A statement of a causal relation is not a theory. Theory does not require causality	p. 122
Schemes of causality are narrative fictions driven by illusory personifications	p. 123
Culture has dimensions in time and space	p. 126
Cultures have tempi	p. 127
If one can ask where, then one can also ask when. If one can ask when, one can ask where	p. 129
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95 Theses on Politics, Culture, and Method

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