Brian Caterino is an independent researcher who works in public media. He is the co-editor of Making Political Science Matter (2006) with Sanford Schram and has published in a variety of journals.  His most recent article "Lowering the Basement Floor" appeared in New Political Science.

Series Editor Foreword

1. Introduction: The Practical Import of Political Inquiry

Some Proposed Alternatives

2. The Practical Import of Political inquiry: Perestroika's last Stand

Political Science Under Attack Post-Perestroika

The Perestroikan Movement and its Antecedents

Perestroika's Legacy

Taking the participant's perspective seriously

Toward a theory of the participant's perspective

Participants and life worlds

The status of social inquiry

3. ON THE CONCEPT OF NON NORMATIVE CRITIQUE

The formation of Non-Normative critique

Precursors: Marxism and non-normative critique

Critique as problematization

Risky Business

An objective conception of norms?

Everyday Life

The normative content of practical reason.

Foucault problematization and normative critique

4. Conclusion: Toward a practical political theory

Post positivism and social inquiry

Causal Explanatory or singular causal analysis

Realism Reconsidered

Experts and laymen

Critical theory and the participant's perspective

Phronesis revisited: Aristotle or Hegel (via Kant)

Mutual Accountability Communicative power and Ideology

Bibliography

INDEX

NOTES

This book examines a basic problem in critical approaches to political and social inquiry: in what way is social inquiry animated by a practical intent? This practical intent is not external to inquiry as an add-on or a choice by the inquirer, but is inherent to the process of inquiry. The practical intent in inquiry derives from the connection between social inquiry and the participant's perspective. The social inquirer, in order to grasp the sense of those who are the subject of inquiry, has to adopt the perspective of the participant in the social world. Caterino opposes the view that research is an autonomous activity distinct from or superior to a participant's perspective. He argues that since the inquirer is on the same level as the participant, all inquiry should be considered mutual critique in which those who are addressed by inquiry have an equal right and an equal capacity to criticize addressors.