Mark Bevir
Encyclopedia
Mark Bevir is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley
, where he currently teaches courses on political theory and philosophy, and public policy and organization.
Bevir was born in London, and educated at the University of Exeter
and Oxford University. He lectured at the University of Madras
and at Newcastle University before moving to Berkeley. He has been a visiting fellow at universities in Australia, Finland, France, the UK, and the US.
Bevir has published extensively in philosophy, history, and political science literatures. His interests are diverse, including Anglophone, continental, and South Asian thought, particularly radical, socialist, and critical theory
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Philosophical concerns include postanalytic
approaches to subjectivity, social inquiry, ethics, and democratic theory. Bevir's intellectual influence has been greatest in the fields of philosophy of history
, interpretivism
, and governance
.
and Donald Davidson
to "undertake a normative study of the forms of reasoning appropriate to the history of ideas". His approach is intended to complement, and not directly oppose, the Cambridge School of history of political thought which focuses on recovering meanings of historical texts, and hermeneutic theorists concerned with the phenomenology of understanding. Rather, Bevir introduces the idea of a normative approach that hinges on using traditions and dilemmas to understand beliefs and more complex webs of meaning, key concepts that underpin his work on interpretive political science and governance theory.
are the authors of Interpreting British Governance (2003), Governance Stories (2006), and The State as Cultural Practice (2010). They argue that political science must necessarily be an interpretive art. This is because they hold that the starting point of enquiry must be to unpack the meanings, beliefs, and preferences of actors in order to then make sense of understanding actions, practices, and institutions. Political science is therefore an interpretative discipline underpinned by hermeneutic philosophy rather than positivism: there is no ‘science’ of politics, instead all explanations, including those that deploy statistics and models, are best conceived as narratives. Bevir and Rhodes thus provide an elaborate philosophical foundation for a decentred theory of governance woven together by the notions of beliefs, traditions and dilemmas. 'It follows that the role of political scientists is to use (1) ethnography to uncover people’s beliefs and preferences, and (2) history to uncover traditions as they develop in response to dilemmas. The product is a story of other people’s constructions of what they are doing, which provides actors’ views on changes in government, the economy, and society. So, for example, a political scientist may select a part of the governance process, and then explain it by unpicking various political traditions and how actors within these traditions encounter and act to resolve dilemmas. Governance is thus understood as the contingent and unintended outcome of competing narratives of governance.'
Edited Books
Special Journal Issues
Reference works
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, where he currently teaches courses on political theory and philosophy, and public policy and organization.
Bevir was born in London, and educated at the University of Exeter
University of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
and Oxford University. He lectured at the University of Madras
University of Madras
The University of Madras is a public research university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the three oldest universities in India...
and at Newcastle University before moving to Berkeley. He has been a visiting fellow at universities in Australia, Finland, France, the UK, and the US.
Bevir has published extensively in philosophy, history, and political science literatures. His interests are diverse, including Anglophone, continental, and South Asian thought, particularly radical, socialist, and critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Philosophical concerns include postanalytic
Postanalytic philosophy
Post-analytic philosophy describes a detachment from the mainstream philosophical movement of analytic philosophy, which is the predominant school of thought in English-speaking countries. Postanalytic philosophy derives mainly from contemporary American thought, especially from the works of...
approaches to subjectivity, social inquiry, ethics, and democratic theory. Bevir's intellectual influence has been greatest in the fields of philosophy of history
Philosophy of history
The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...
, interpretivism
Interpretivism
Interpretivism is a school of thought in contemporary jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. The main claims of interpretivism are that*Law is not a set of given data, conventions or physical facts, but what lawyers aim to construct or obtain in their practice. This marks a first difference...
, and governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
.
Philosophy of history
Bevir is the author of The Logic of the History of Ideas (1999), which builds on the work of analytic philosophers such as Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
and Donald Davidson
Donald Davidson (philosopher)
Donald Herbert Davidson was an American philosopher born in Springfield, Massachusetts, who served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton...
to "undertake a normative study of the forms of reasoning appropriate to the history of ideas". His approach is intended to complement, and not directly oppose, the Cambridge School of history of political thought which focuses on recovering meanings of historical texts, and hermeneutic theorists concerned with the phenomenology of understanding. Rather, Bevir introduces the idea of a normative approach that hinges on using traditions and dilemmas to understand beliefs and more complex webs of meaning, key concepts that underpin his work on interpretive political science and governance theory.
Interpretivism
Mark Bevir and R. A. W. RhodesR. A. W. Rhodes
R.A.W. Rhodes is a Professor of Political Science.Rhodes currently holds a joint appointment as Professor of Government in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and as Distinguished Professor of Political Science in the Political Science Program at the Australian...
are the authors of Interpreting British Governance (2003), Governance Stories (2006), and The State as Cultural Practice (2010). They argue that political science must necessarily be an interpretive art. This is because they hold that the starting point of enquiry must be to unpack the meanings, beliefs, and preferences of actors in order to then make sense of understanding actions, practices, and institutions. Political science is therefore an interpretative discipline underpinned by hermeneutic philosophy rather than positivism: there is no ‘science’ of politics, instead all explanations, including those that deploy statistics and models, are best conceived as narratives. Bevir and Rhodes thus provide an elaborate philosophical foundation for a decentred theory of governance woven together by the notions of beliefs, traditions and dilemmas. 'It follows that the role of political scientists is to use (1) ethnography to uncover people’s beliefs and preferences, and (2) history to uncover traditions as they develop in response to dilemmas. The product is a story of other people’s constructions of what they are doing, which provides actors’ views on changes in government, the economy, and society. So, for example, a political scientist may select a part of the governance process, and then explain it by unpicking various political traditions and how actors within these traditions encounter and act to resolve dilemmas. Governance is thus understood as the contingent and unintended outcome of competing narratives of governance.'
Governance
"For Bevir and Rhodes, decentered theory revolves around the idea of situated agency: institutions, practices or socialisation cannot determine how people behave, so any course of action is a contingent individual choice. People’s actions are explained by their beliefs (or meanings or desires); any one belief is interpreted in the context of the wider web of a person’s beliefs; and these beliefs are explained by traditions and modified by dilemmas. A tradition (or episteme or paradigm) is the set of theories against the background of which a person comes to hold beliefs and perform actions. It is a first influence upon people – a set of beliefs that they inherit and then transform in response to encounters with "dilemmas" (or problems or anomalies). A dilemma arises whenever novel circumstances generate a new belief that forces people to question their previously held beliefs. Change occurs through encountering such dilemmas: while individual responses to dilemmas are grounded in traditions, they then modify just those traditions."Publications
Books- The Logic of the History of Ideas, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
- Interpreting British Governance (with R.A.W. Rhodes), London, Routledge, 2003.
- New Labour: A Critique, London, Routledge, 2005.
- Governance Stories (with R.A.W. Rhodes), London, Routledge, 2006.
- Key Concepts in Governance, London, Sage, 2009.
- The State as Cultural Practice (with R.A.W. Rhodes), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Democratic Governance, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2010.
Edited Books
- Critiques of Capital in Modern Britain and America: Transatlantic Exchanges 1800 to the Present Day (with Frank Trentmann), Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
- Markets in Historical Contexts: Ideas and Politics in the Modern World (with Frank Trentmann), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
- Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges since 1880 (with Robert Adcock and Shannon Stimson), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007.
- Histories of Postmodernism (with Jill Hargis and Sara Rushing), New York, Routledge, 2007.
- Public Governance, 4 vols., London, Sage, 2007:
- Governance, Consumers and Citizens (with Frank Trentmann), Baringstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
- Interpretive Political Science, 4 vols., London, Sage, 2010:
Special Journal Issues
- Capitalism and Social Justice: British Critiques, Traditions, and Practices (with Frank Trentmann), European Legacy, vol. 6, no. 2, 2001.
- Traditions of Governance: History and Diversity (with R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weller), Public Administration, vol. 81, no. 1, 2003.
- Historical Understanding and the Human Sciences, Journal of the Philosophy of History, vol. 1, no. 3, 2007.
- Genealogy, Journal of the Philosophy of History, vol. 2, no. 3, 2008.
Reference works
- Encyclopedia of Governance, ed., 2 vols., Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, 2007.
- Encyclopedia of Political Theory, ed., 3 vols., Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, 2010.
Further reading
- Mark Bevir and the Logic of the History of Ideas, History of European Ideas, 28/1 (2002).
- Round Table: The Logic of the History of Ideas, Rethinking History 4 (2000).
- Symposium: The Logic of the History of Ideas, Philosophical Books 42 (2001).
- Constructing the Past: Symposium on The Logic of the History of Ideas, History of the Human Sciences 15/2 (2002).
- The Interpretive Approach to Political Science: A Symposium, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 6 (2004).
- Social Democracy and Social Science: A Symposium, History of the Human Sciences 19/1 (2006).
External links
- Berkeley Faculty Biography - Mark Bevir
- Online videos of Bevir giving lectures:
- "The Idea of a National History"
- "Philosophy and the History of Ideas" - In four sessions by Fathom / Cambridge University Press
- http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v007/7.2bevir.htmlMark Bevir investigates the effect of Michel Foucault'sMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
The Order of ThingsThe Order of ThingsThe Order of Things is a book by Michel Foucault first published in 1966. The full title is Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines...
in the context of political theory]