Dear List Members,
I've had some discussions with the co-chair of the list (Veronique Mottier, Lausanne/Cambridge) and we think it might be useful to start circulation of the 'publicity' material for 'theory' or 'theory-friendly' workshops well in advance of the usual ECPR deadlines and channels.  Some of the topics are perhaps rather unusual and you might like some time to think about them.  The deadline for paper proposals is 1 December 2004 but it's not too early to do some thinking!  Any workshop directors who would like to have their 'official' ECPR publicity circulated in advance this way are welcome to email me the files ([log in to unmask]).  I thought I would kick off with the details that Jernej Pikalo (Ljubljana) have done for our workshop on metaphor, so these are pasted in below.  Many thanks, Terrell

ECPR Granada Workshop

Metaphor in Political Science

Directors:
Professor Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, UK
Dr Jernej Pikalo, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Contact details for Terrell Carver are correct on the coversheet previously submitted.

Jernej Pikalo has a new e-mail address: [log in to unmask]


250 word summary:

Political scientists are already aware of the importance of metaphors in electoral and policy-related politics. In their studies and research, they come across metaphors that are, knowingly or unknowingly, influencing our perception of politics. ‘Body politic’, ‘branches of government’, ‘head of the state’, ‘ship of state’ etc. are all metaphors commonly in use for describing political situations and processes. There are of course more colourful ones used by politicians and political advisors. These include contemporary examples such as ‘spin’, ‘surgical strike’, ‘sex up’ and ‘blowback’ etc. Moreover, political science itself progresses through metaphors of structure, behaviour, influence, efficiency, competition and causation derived from physical and biological sciences alike.

The aim of the workshop is twofold:
(1) to advance substantive work in political science that focuses on metaphor, and to expand the range of empirical studies that employ this category descriptively and also in explanatory logic. Contemporary case-studies using existing discourse methodologies will be particularly welcome here.
(2) to advance methodological work in political science that investigates the role of metaphor in empirical and discourse-based methodologies. Papers that are able to examine and evaluate work done in other disciplines and in inter-disciplinary frameworks will be particularly welcome here.

All papers will be required:
(1) to clarify the scope and definition of ‘metaphor’ as employed in the paper;
(2) to evaluate the utility of ‘metaphor’ as a descriptive and explanatory category in political science.



Longer summary:

Context and Aims
Political scientists are already aware of the importance of metaphors in electoral and policy-related politics. In their studies and research, they come across metaphors that are, knowingly or unknowingly, influencing our perception of politics. ‘Body politic’, ‘branches of government’, ‘head of the state’, ‘ship of state’ etc. are all metaphors commonly in use for describing political situations and processes. There are of course more colourful ones used by politicians and political advisors. These include contemporary examples such as ‘spin’, ‘surgical strike’, ‘sex up’ and ‘blowback’ etc. Moreover, political science itself progresses through metaphors of structure, behaviour, influence, efficiency, competition and causation derived from physical and biological sciences alike (Fox Keller 1995).
Until a century ago a metaphor was just a rhetorical device, a mere figure of speech. Turning to etymology, we find that metaphor is a ‘carrying over’ or, more colloquially, a kind of ‘standing for’ relationship between one concept and another (Miller 2003:4). Since the development of language-based methodologies (discourse analysis) it seems that metaphor is now more than merely incidental to the content of the arguments or findings, and so just a ‘figure of speech’. Technical analysis has distinguished between descriptive and constitutive functions of metaphor in language. Recently this constitutive function has acquired a premium, in comparison with the descriptive function. In Black’s (1962) influential but controversial view:

… a metaphor functions almost like a pair of glasses through which the metaphoric object is observed, i.e. reorganised. Those metaphors which turn out to be successful establish a privileged perspective on an object or constitute ‘the’ object and by doing so, disappear as metaphors (Maasen 1995:14-15).

While discourse analysis in political science has recently focused attention on language, communication and meaning, this work does not as yet reach the technical level of linguistic analysis already pioneered in other disciplines (Grant and Oswick 1996:6-10; compare Marsh and Stoker 2002:131-52). In particular there are overlapping and competing definitions of metaphor in the technical literature outside political science, and disagreement there on the descriptive and explanatory status that can be assigned to it in the social sciences.
These issues have begun to surface in works of political science and policy studies by Hajer (1995), Torfing (1999), Howarth (2000) and Howarth et al. (2000), but the methodology has its origin elsewhere, notably Yuval-Davis (1997) in Post-Colonial Studies, Ortony (1993) in Education, Haraway (1991) in Feminism, Shanks and Tilly (1987) in Archaeology, Shapiro (1986) in International Relations, Morgan (1986) in Management and Organizational Studies, and Ricoeur (1978) in Philosophy. Discussion and assessment of opposing positions, such as those derived from Popper, Hempel and other philosophers of science and social science, will also form an important part of the workshop brief to all participants (see Grant and Oswick 1996:4-6).

The aim of the workshop is twofold:
(1) to advance substantive work in political science that focuses on metaphor, and to expand the range of empirical studies that employ this category descriptively and also in explanatory logic. Contemporary case-studies using existing discourse methodologies will be particularly welcome here.
(2) to advance methodological work in political science that investigates the role of metaphor in empirical and discourse-based methodologies. Papers that are able to examine and evaluate work done in other disciplines and in inter-disciplinary frameworks will be particularly welcome here.

All papers will be required:
(1) to clarify the scope and definition of ‘metaphor’ as employed in the paper;
(2) to evaluate the utility of ‘metaphor’ as a descriptive and explanatory category in political science.

Research Questions

The main research questions to be addressed include the following:
·	How have we been perceiving politics through metaphors?
·	How has the use of metaphors influenced our perception of politics?
·	What kind of descriptive function do metaphors have in politics and in political science?
·	What kind of constitutive function do metaphors have in politics and in political science?
·	What are the central metaphors of politics and of political science?
·	What is the relationship between the metaphors of practice and the metaphors of science?
·	Can metaphors be classified definitionally and evaluatively with respect to political science?
·	Can metaphors from other disciplines be productively incorporated into political science?
·	Can research on metaphor be transferred to methodological issues of operationalization in political science?
·	Can progress on this issue be useful exported by political science to other social science disciplines?

The papers will be publishable as an edited volume, and as with Interpreting the Political: New Methodologies (derived from the Limerick workshop), the final versions will attract an interdisciplinary audience. This is because metaphor is a key concept, whether it is defined as peripheral to social science (and so implicated in the definition of scientific terminology as ‘non-metaphorical’), or as central to a ‘constructivist’ social science (as has been argued, particularly in methodological debates in International Relations, but not as yet established). 

Workshop discussions will conclude with all members addressing the evaluative question as to whether progress in political science can be furthered by using analytical techniques that argue the importance of metaphor, or whether this approach has specifiable limitations with regard to case-study work and cumulative research.

Co-Directors

Jernej Pikalo is Lecturer in Political Theory at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is author of Neoliberal Globalisation and the State (ZPS, 2003) and Assistant Editor of Journal of International Relations and Development (published by Palgrave). His main research interests include political concepts, theory of the state, interpretative methodology and theories of globalisation.

Terrell Carver is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol, UK, and co-chair of the ECPR Theory Standing Group. He has published widely on methodological issues in the social sciences, and has co-edited two ECPR-based collections of papers that feature a theory/case-study approach: Interpreting the Political: New Methodologies (Routledge, 1997), and Politics of Sexuality: Identity, Gender, Citizenship (Routledge, 1998) in the ECPR Series ‘European Political Science’. He has also contributed to International Relations on gender, masculinities and non-reductionist approaches in theory. His books and articles have been translated into French, German, Turkish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

References
Black, M. (1962) Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Fox Keller, E. (1995) Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology. New York: Columbia University Press.
Grant, D. and Oswick, C. (1996) Metaphor and Organizations. London: Sage.
Hajer, M.A. (1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haraway (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association.
Howarth, D. (2000) Discourse. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Howarth, D. et al. (2000) Discourse Theory and Political Analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Maasen, S. (1995) Who is Afraid of Metaphors? in Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors, ed. S. Maasen, E. Mendelsohn and P. Weingart, pp. 11-35. Dodrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Marsh, D. and Stoker, G. Theory and Methods in Political Science, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Miller, C. A. (2003) Ship of State: The Nautical Metaphors of Thomas Jefferson. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Morgan, G. (1986) Images of Organization. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Ortony, A. (1993) Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1978) The Rule of Metaphor. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Shanks, M. and Tilley, C. (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity.
Shapiro, M.J. (1986) ‘Metaphor in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences’, Culture & Critique 2:191-214.
Torfing, J. (1999) New Theories of Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.
Yuval-Davis, N. (1997) Gender and Nation. London: Sage.