Beyond the veil of knowledge / Piki Ish-Shalom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ish-Shalom, Piki, author.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constructivism (Philosophy).

Political science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (257 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, [2018]

Summary:

Is there a need to remodel constructivism to be more politically attuned? Author Piki Ish-Shalom calls for an activist academy that engages society and the polity to prevent the watering down of democracy, while helping to create a space for criticism. In this book, he suggests several concrete measures for this engagement within three spheres: individual theoretical work, the academic community as a whole, and within society and the polity. Beyond the Veil of Knowledge suggests that essentially contested concepts are a key medium that politicians use to try to minimize public resistance to their political goals. For constructivists, this means that the social construction of both social knowledge and the social world can be understood as the sociopolitical construction of knowledge and the sociopolitical world.

Contents:

Concepts and politics

Theoretical framework

Essentially contested concepts: democracy and security

The essential contestedness of concepts and politics

Engaged academia

The responsibility to engage

The individual level : zooming in, zooming out

The second level : the community of communities

The third level : structural problems

Traveling forward in time : forecasting and realizing the spread of democracy

Moving away from the heart of darkness : advising the security sectors.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472124664

0472124668