Steven Ney
Steven visited the James Martin Institute last Monday, and we had a great opportunity to listen to his presentation as well as to have a small meeting session with him.
He kindly commented on Sam’s and my concerns about our own research. Here, I shall pick some points relevant for the blog.
He told us that he approach the research field with lettle assumption about social solidarities of actors. In other words, you should not approach ‘government’ assuming that it is hierarchical organization, thought often it is the case. This, for me, suggests that formal labels of organisations does not necessarily match their structure.
Another point is that operational use of Cultural Theory. He sees Cultural Theory as a ‘value-free’ mapping tool. To link this tool with normative statements seems to be a difficult issue.
Also he thinks that there are some ambiguiteis in terms of concepts and not the perfect tool.
However, he is keen to see two different path-ways; to develop the thoery further, and to experiment it in many fields of study. He himself is more interested in actually using the theory, but he agrees that someone have to take the other path.
As my comment, I am very interested in his diagram of responsiveness/accessibility. As Steve commented at the presentation, I took the two axes as number of voices in the field of concern and number of solidarities involved in decision-making.
If such field, what he called ‘advocacy coalition’, is built up in this way, I am also interested in the structure of this coalition. For example, the coalition at the national-politics level is seen as a voice at the international-level and forms another level of coalition. Steven and also Sam might want to some words on this view.
Thank you very much, Steven, and sincere apologies if I got some points wrong. I am hoping that Steven or Sam would correct me if that is the case.
July 11th, 2007 at 4.49 am
There are a few tools out there in the political world that capture similar dimensions of thought.
Two of them are: http://www.politicalcompass.org/test and http://www.quiz2d.com/index.php
You will find them both interesting. It would be nice if there were an equivalent tool to place oneself in the grid/group matrix. I know that more accurate measurement of the theory was one of Aaron’s goals in the last years of his life.