Synopses & Reviews
History is replete with instances of what might, or might not, have been. By calling something contingent, at a minimum we are saying that it did not have to be as it is. Things could have been otherwise, and they would have been otherwise if something had happened differently. This collection of original essays examines the significance of contingency in the study of politics. That is, how to study unexpected, accidental, or unknowable political phenomena in a systematic fashion. Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans. How might history be different had these events not happened? How should social scientists interpret the significance of these events and can such unexpected outcomes be accounted for in a systematic way or by theoretical models? Can these unpredictable events be predicted for?
Political Contingency addresses these and other related questions, providing theoretical and historical perspectives on the topic, empirical case studies, and the methodological challenges that the fact of contingency poses for the study of politics.
Contributors: Sonu Bedi, Traci Burch, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Gregory A. Huber, Courtney Jung, David R. Mayhew, Philip Pettit, Andreas Schedler, Mark R. Shulman, Robert G. Shulman, Ian Shapiro, Susan Stokes, Elisabeth Jean Wood, and David Wootton
Review
"Such consideration of what the volume edited by Shapiro and Bedi calls 'the unexpected, the accidental, and the unforeseen' provides a much-needed overview of the challenging conceptual and methodological issues facing the study and the practice of political science. In this respect, it is expected that this collection of essays will benefit the explorations of both advanced undergraduate students and established scholars of political science."-Forum (Deakin University Australia),
Review
“Clear, jargon-free writing prevails throughout the volume. The authors are leaders in their respective fields of inquiry, yet each of them writes not to a narrow group of specialists but to the intelligent reading public.”
-Elisabeth Ellis,author of Kants Politics: Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World
Synopsis
"Days and Nights succeeds not only because of its socio-political authenticity and lyrical style but because of its interweaving of anger and tenderness, elation and sorrow."
--The Nation
Days and Nights of Love and War is the personal testimony of one of Latin America's foremost contemporary political writers. In this fascinating journal and eloquent history, Eduardo Galeano movingly records the lives of struggles of the Latin American people, under two decades of unimaginable violence and extreme repression. Alternating between reportage, personal vignettes, interviews, travelogues, and folklore, and richly conveyed with anger, sadness, irony, and occasional humor, Galeano pays loving tribute to the courage and determination of those who continued to believe in, and fight for, a more human existence. The Lannan Foundation awarded the 1999 Cultural Prize for Freedom to Eduardo Galeano, in recognition of those "whose extraordinary and courageous work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry and expression."
Originally published in Cuba, Days and Nights of Love and War won the Casa de las Américas prize in 1978.
About the Author
Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also serves as Henry R. Luce Director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. He is the editor or author of numerous books, most recently
Political Contingency (NYU Press) and
Rethinking Political Institutions (NYU Press).
Sonu Bedi is Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.