MAREA STRATEGIE DE TIP COMPARATIV A UNIUNII EUROPENE. DOUĂ METODOLOGII DE CERCETARE PENTRU EVITAREA POPULISMULUI EPISTEMIC ÎN ŞTIINŢELE POLITICE
COMPARATIVE GRAND STRATEGY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. TWO RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES FOR AVOIDING EPISTEMIC POPULISM IN POLITICAL SCIENCES

Summary/Abstract: Broadly speaking, epistemic populism occurs when the research method is considered more important than the research object or the research problem. In a narrow sense, the hallmark of epistemic populism resides in the disjunction between the theoretical and the empirical dimension of research. A reflexive political science combines theory and practice, that is, the definition of research object and data collection which gives the former empirical traction. Coined by Pierre Bourdieu, the concept of “epistemic populism” emerges when mental structures are tantamount with social structures and is typical of descriptive research. In contrast, a reflexive political science sets out to solve epistemic populism through the epistemological break, an operation that seeks to redefine the research object of political science by extracting it from the influence of prevalent representations (doxa) in the public space. In the first part of this text, the European Union’s grand strategy is conceptualised based on a substantial methodology. Then, the research object is examined with the comparative method. In the concluding section, the text presents an epistemological break exercise based on a relational methodology. Thus, the research methodology, the European Union, and the grand strategy, that is, the research object, are looked at from a different perspective.

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