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Response to “What Is Comparative Political Theory?”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2009

Farah Godrej
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Type
Research Article
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The Review of Politics , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , Fall 2009 , pp. 567 - 582
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Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2009

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References

1 Andrew F. March, “What Is Comparative Political Theory?” Review of Politics 71, no. 4: xx–xx]

2 Ibid., xx.

3 Ibid., xx.

4 See, for instance, March, page xx: “[A] patient, thorough and responsible excavation of the contours of moral conflict itself is a creative and engaged way of genuinely comparing distinct ethical traditions”; as well as page xx: “[C]omparative political theory will be richer and more interesting by moving further into the realm of normative justification within multiple traditions.”

5 “It may of course be that the distinction I am drawing is incoherent or unsustainable. But then so might the idea of an engaged comparative political theory if it is to be more than non-Western political theory” (xx–xx).

6 For more details on the origins of the caste system, Vedic philosophy, and other classical Hindu texts, see Ghoshal, U. N., A History of Indian Political Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli and Moore, Charles A., eds., A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; and Chethimattam, John B., Patterns of Indian Thought: Indian Religions and Philosophies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1971)Google Scholar.

7 On p. xx, March recognizes that Gandhi's thought was never distinct or radically alien enough from Western thought as to form a distinct community of moral argumentation. On Gandhi's reinterpretation of orthodox Hindu doctrines, see Parekh, Bhikhu, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's Political Discourse (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1989)Google Scholar; Gandhi's Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); Iyer, Raghavan, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (New York, Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Parel, Anthony, Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

8 See Farah Godrej “Nonviolence and Gandhi's Truth: A Method for Moral and Political Arbitration,” The Review of Politics, 68, no. 2.

9 On Gandhi's interpretations of the Gita, see Parel, Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony; Gandhi, M. K., “Anasaktiyoga,” in Anasaktiyoga or the Gospel of Selfless Action: the Gita According to Gandhi, ed. Desai, Mahadev (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Gandhi, M. K., “The Meaning of the Gita,” in Gita the Mother, ed. Chander, Jag Parvesh (Lahore: Indian Printing Works, 1947)Google Scholar.

10 Godrej, “Nonviolence and Gandhi's Truth.”

11 See footnote no. 47 on p. xx.

12 Indeed, March makes fleeting references to Islamic thinkers such as Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Ghazali, and Al-Qardawi as orthodox representatives of Islamic doctrine, as well as to the possibility of a problem-driven investigation of the Danish cartoon controversy. But absent a more detailed example, one is left wondering what distinguishes these particular cases as good examples of systematic value conflict based on doctrinal orthodoxy or distinction, with no way to judge what other cases from traditions outside Islam might fulfill similar requirements.

13 His final paragraph suggests that hybridity and synthesis, rather than orthodoxy or authoritative doctrinal centrality, are the conditions that tend more commonly to characterize relationships between traditions, and that the project of building a subfield focused on problem-driven value-conflicts between autonomous, moral doctrines is, therefore, a tenuous one because the distinction of entities and sharpness of boundaries defining those distinctions is rather more blurred in the case of political theory than in other fields. “As it turns out, it might not be so easy for any form of ‘engaged’ political theory to follow political science, law, and other disciplines in inaugurating comparative methods. For unlike fields where the object of study is a well-contained entity … political theory has a special burden. In dealing with the realm of thoughts, ideas, and truth-claims, it is not always clear when the boundary between ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ obtains and when that boundary per se is generative of compelling questions” (xx).

14 “Of course, there is no denying that non-Western traditions are rich and have other interesting things to say besides those which bear on justification or value conflict. However … there would be nothing particularly comparative about the study of non-Western traditions that focus purely on the internal concerns of those traditions. There is no reason not to have a scholarship devoted to the noncomparative study of non-Western political thought (as, of course, we do)” (xx).

15 See March's elaboration of thesis 2 on pp. xx–xx. See also p. x: “Comparative methods are thus already assumed to be part of the wide, variable, and diverse forms of activity which for disciplinary-organization purposes go under the name political theory.”

16 See Godrej, , “Toward a Cosmopolitan Political Thought: The Hermeneutics of Interpreting the Other,” Polity 41, no. 2 (April 2009): 135–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I do not claim that March explicitly embraces the agenda of a global or cosmopolitan political thought, but rather that some global or cosmopolitan structure is implied in his argument.

17 I am deeply indebted to Leigh Jenco for pushing me to think about the most radical implications of decentering the parochialism of Western political theory. See also Jenco, Leigh, “What Does Heaven Ever Say?: A Methods-Centered Approach to Cross-Cultural Engagement,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 4 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Godrej, “Toward a Cosmopolitan Political Thought,” 139.

19 Ibid., 153.

20 Jenco, “What Does Heaven Ever Say?”

21 Godrej, “Toward a Cosmopolitan Political Thought.”

22 See Godrej, “Nonviolence and Gandhi's Truth,” as well as “Gandhi's Civic Ahimsa: A Standard for Public Justification in Multicultural Democracies,” International Journal of Gandhian Studies (forthcoming).

23 Ashis Nandy uses the term critical traditionalist to refer to Gandhi's unique relationship to the Indian tradition. Nandy, Ashis, The Intimate Enemy: The Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

24 See, for instance, March, Andrew, “Islamic Foundations for a Social Contract in Non-Muslim Liberal Democracies,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Sources of Moral Obligation to Non-Muslims in the ‘Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities’ (Fiqh al-aqalliyyat) Discourse,” Islamic Law and Society 16, no. 1 (2009).

25 See March, “What Is Comparative Political Theory?”: “A scholarship devoted to the noncomparative study of non-Western political thought … may indeed be richer and more sophisticated than various forms of comparative political theory” (xx).

26 On p. xx, he calls it the “weaker” form of political theory. He also states that “the interest in non-Western political thought … merely to decenter the canon or to frame ‘cross-cultural dialogue’ … without rigorous epistemic or normative standards … would be nothing … for the broader disciplines of political science and political theory to get too excited about” (xx).

27 Jenco, “What Does Heaven Ever Say?”

28 “Who today would assert with confidence that concepts and categories developed in European and North American societies are necessarily applicable to other societies? Who today would deny that European and North American societies have defined for themselves and others the dominant normative understandings of contemporary philosophical concepts?” (March, “What is Comparative Political Theory?” xx).