The Perestroika Movement is a loose-knit intellectual tendency in academic
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
which seeks to expand
methodological pluralism in order to make the discipline more accessible and relevant to laypeople and non-specialist academics. Established in 2000, the movement was organized in response to the perceived hegemony of quantitative and mathematical methodology in the field. Such dominance breeds academic isolation and poor scholarship, the movement's leaders contend.
Origins
The Perestroika Movement began in 2000 with an anonymous e-mail message sent by one “Mr.
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
” to the editors of the ''
American Political Science Review
The ''American Political Science Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf by Cambri ...
'' calling for "a dismantling of the
Orwellian system
"Orwellian" is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by pro ...
that we have in
APSA."
E-mail from Mr. Perestroika, October 17, 2000.
/ref> The message went to seventeen recipients who quickly forwarded it to others, and within weeks the Perestroika Movement became a force calling for change in the American political science community (Monroe 2005).
See also
*Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
*Post-autistic economics
The post-autistic economics movement (french: autisme-économie), or movement of students for the reform of economics teaching (french: mouvement des étudiants pour une réforme de l'enseignement de l'économie), is a political movement that cri ...
Footnotes
Sources and further reading
*Dryzek, John S. "Revolutions without Enemies: Key Transformations in Political Science," ''American Political Science Review'' 100 (2006), 487-92.
Flyvbjerg, Bent, "A Perestroikan Straw Man Answers Back: David Laitin and Phronetic Political Science," ''Politics & Society'' 32 (2004), 389-416
Laitin, David D., "The Perestroikan Challenge to Social Science" (''Politics & Society'' 31 (2003), 163).Monroe, Kristen Renwick, ed., ''Perestroika!: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
*Rigger, Shelley. "The Perestroika Movement in American Political Science and Its Lessons for Chinese Political Studies," ''Journal of Chinese Political Science'' 14 (2009), 369-82.
Schram, Sanford F., and Brian Caterino, eds., ''Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method'' (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perestroika Movement (Political Science)
Political science
Political science terminology