Professor David Kettler commented at the time of initial release, that this book is "writing with great poise and clarity, the author says important things in a deceptively simple way about a problem of paramount significance. A fine piece of clarification, blending just the right mixture of respect and impiety toward the important heroes of contemporary political science, this is the kind of book I look forward to having available for our courses in political theory." Ideology, though long pronounced moribund, continues to play a central role in contemporary political inquiry. In this reevaluation of the true function of political science, the author lays down guidelines for the construction of fruitful political interpretations in the large areas where ideological assumptions and claims cannot be adequately tested. He analyzes two representative theories of power in American society-those of the "pluralists" who affirm and the "elitists" who dispute the case for democracy-and demonstrates how personal preferences and group-oriented interests enter into the development of these concepts. Speaking to all social scientists and students engaged in the study of political processes, Connolly details the methods by which the investigator-who inevitably brings his own beliefs and values to the task-can lay bare and control the ideological aspects of his own work and that of others. A critical examination of the writings of some of the leading figures in recent and contemporary political inquiry, such as Karl Mannheim, C. Wright Mills, Robert Dahl, Daniel Bell, and Seymour Martin Lipset leads him to assign a decisive role for the political scientist in the creation of carefully formulated ideologies. An original mind, drawing upon an exceptionally rich store of knowledge, has here produced an important book which will be of immediate-and challenging-relevance to the work and studies of all scholars, graduate students, and majors in the field of government and to all concerned with fundamental problems in social science. William E. Connolly was Professor of Political Science at Ohio University. He has held a Horace Rackham Graduate Fellowship and has taught at the University of Michigan, where he received his undergraduate and graduate training in political and social science. He is currently Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University.

Professor David Kettler commented at the time of initial release, that this book is "writing with great poise and clarity, the author says important things in a deceptively simple way about a problem of paramount significance. A fine piece of clarification, blending just the right mixture of respect and impiety toward the important heroes of contemporary political science, this is the kind of book I look forward to having available for our courses in political theory."
Ideology, though long pronounced moribund, continues to play a central role in contemporary political inquiry. In this reevaluation of the true function of political science, the author lays down guidelines for the construction of fruitful political interpretations in the large areas where ideological assumptions and claims cannot be adequately tested. He analyzes two representative theories of power in American society-those of the "pluralists" who affirm and the "elitists" who dispute the case for democracy-and demonstrates how personal preferences and group-oriented interests enter into the development of these concepts. Speaking to all social scientists and students engaged in the study of political processes, Connolly details the methods by which the investigator-who inevitably brings his own beliefs and values to the task-can lay bare and control the ideological aspects of his own work and that of others.
A critical examination of the writings of some of the leading figures in recent and contemporary political inquiry, such as Karl Mannheim, C. Wright Mills, Robert Dahl, Daniel Bell, and Seymour Martin Lipset leads him to assign a decisive role for the political scientist in the creation of carefully formulated ideologies. An original mind, drawing upon an exceptionally rich store of knowledge, has here produced an important book which will be of immediate-and challenging-relevance to the work and studies of all scholars, graduate students, and majors in the field of government and to all concerned with fundamental problems in social science.
"William E. Connolly" was Professor of Political Science at Ohio University. He has held a Horace Rackham Graduate Fellowship and has taught at the University of Michigan, where he received his undergraduate and graduate training in political and social science. He is currently Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University.

Encompassing the whole spectrum of the history and theory of politics from Socrates to Rawls, this is the most comprehensive and scholarly reference work available on its subject.

The 350 entries, written by a team of 120 international specialists, are a balanced blend of full-length survey articles and shorter definitions. Key concepts in political thought are defined and analyzed, and ideologies are considered in relation both to historical context and to contemporary politics. All articles are cross-referenced and indexed.

How plural, really, is pluralism today? In this book a prominent political theorist reworks the traditional pluralist imagination, rendering it more inclusive and responsive to new drives to pluralization. Traditional pluralism, William E. Connolly shows, gives too much priority to past political settlements, allotments of public space and power relations already made and fixed. It deflates the politics of pluralization. "The Ethos of Pluralization" explores the constitutive tension between pluralism and pluralization, pursuing an ethos of politics that enables new forces of pluralization to find receptive responses in public life. Connolly explores how contemporary drives to pluralize stir the reactionary forces of political fundamentalism and how fundamentalism generates the cultural fragmentation it purports to resist. The reluctance of traditional pluralists to address the tension between pluralism and pluralization plays into the hands of fundamentalist forces. "The Ethos of Pluralization" eventually ranges beyond the borders of the territorial state to explore relations between the globalization of economic life and a more adventurous pluralization of political identities. Engaging images of pluralism and nationalism advanced by Tocqueville, Schumpeter, Ricoeur, Walzer, Herz, and Kurth, Connolly draws selectively upon Nietzsche, Foucault, Butler and Deleuze to delineate an ethos of politics that makes for new identities while protecting conditions that make pluralism and governance possible.

The practice of spiritual direction is a large part of the faith journey for many people. This study looks at the actuality of spiritual direction in concrete terms.