Author(s): Tudor Pitulac / Language(s): Romanian
Issue: 4 (42)/2023
Accelerating social and political transformations, along with the expanded access to information show just cause for questioning the current status of political science. Of the many ways the subject can be treated, I have chosen one circumscribed by the reflex I have developed in recent years of openly reacting against the noxious 21st-century progressivism.My hypothesis is formulated as follows: in the last 5 years, the progressivist infusion of political science discourse has increased. Investigating the validity of the hypothesis, I provide readers with benchmarks for constructing their own answers to questions worth revisiting periodically, such as: How large is the infused area, from the thematic perspective?, or How deep is the damage?For testing, we carried out a literature review, considering the years 2019 and 2023. Specifically, we analysed the most important 5 political science journals in the world, as ranked by Google Scholar based on the h5-index and h5-median criteria, using 131 keywords, which appeared 328 times in the titles of 225 articles out of 1107 examined.To carry out the approach, we used a mix of interpretative methods, completing with a quantitative analysis.Adding to the central focus: we advanced the term progrecratisation, denoting the manner in which progressivism believes that democracy should look in their strongly ideologized sense; and we found that, access to progressive articles is a bit easier than access to the others, considering the 225 articles that we selected.The investigation’s result confirmed our hypothesis. Moreover, the disconcerting fact that the topic "progressivism" is missing from all the consulted publications also shows its oppressive influence. Without being named, it is either promoted, avoided, or, rarely and only in an indirect manner, combated. It is the-word-that-should-never-be-written.The bottom line is that unless there is a strong and explicit anti-progressive backlash from as many political scientists as possible who do not embrace 21st-century progressivism, it will continue to infuse political science discourse increasingly. As a consequence of not assuming freedom of personal, civic and academic expression, the area in which meaningful discourse will be able to be exhibited freely would narrow down further, ending in being tolerated only in petty political science vivariums.
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