Who interprets the world? Interpretive Social science and mark bevir’s democratic governance

Abstract

I explore Bevir’s approach to interpretive social science and its implications for his study of governance. I make two arguments: one methodological and one substantive. First, I argue that we should think of the philosophy of interpretive social science as necessarily tied to some chosen method of recovering knowledge, be it local or expert knowledge. Without such a recovery of knowledge, interpretive analysis of local reasoning is impossible. Second, I argue that the recovery of not only expert knowledge - Bevir's primary focus - but also the local knowledge of citizens who are affected by these reforms, ought to play a central role in our understanding of governance.

Citation

Ben-Ishai, E. (2011), "Who interprets the world? Interpretive Social science and mark bevir’s democratic governance", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 537-554. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-14-04-2011-B007