Editor's introduction

Abstract

True to our stated mandate, this year's volume of Political Power and Social Theory opens new windows of understanding on the relationship between political power, class politics, and historical development, and does so through a wide range of articles that present research or commentary on Russia, Chile, several countries in Africa, Israel, Canada, Brazil, and the United States. As much of our readership knows, Political Power and Social Theory prides itself on offering a venue where serious scholarship can meet normative concerns with justice, equity, inequality and their implications as well as social and political change. We also see our mandate as providing a setting for scholars to explore these questions in comparative and historical context, thereby offering a geographic and methodological eclecticism frequently absent in a single journal. As a scholar of the developing world, I know well that the ethnocentrism of U.S. social science often limits the peer-review process, and that scholars who write on locations outside the advanced capitalist context frequently find themselves relegated to area studies journals. As an historical sociologist, I also know that scholars who focus on the past, or employ an historical methodology, must struggle hard to convince reviewers of the larger sociological relevance of their claims or of the importance of taking history seriously in a modern world. To a certain extent these trends seem to be changing slowly, perhaps because globalization is making the world a smaller place, and because history is always a good reference point in times of significant transition, which, as some suggest, characterizes the current rise of the information/internet economy. In any case, because of our wonderfully diverse editorial board and our stated mission, Political Power and Social Theory has always sought to represent a wide range of comparative and historical scholarship, and we continue to do so this year with Volume 18.

Citation

(2006), "Editor's introduction", Davis, D.E. (Ed.) Political Power and Social Theory (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xv-xx. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0198-8719(06)18015-1