Politics

The series, Comparative Politics. Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, is firmly anchored in the field of comparative political research and presents innovative studies comprising theory-guided empirical research or exploring new theoretical and conceptual ground. The series is not limited to specific theories, methods, or topics. On the theoretical side, we invite books that invoke theories such as rational choice, game theory and institutional theories as well as political attitudes, values, and political culture. Substantively, contributions to the series should belong to the field of comparative politics as it is broadly understood. Comparisons can, for example, involve countries from all regions of the world and subnational units within countries (like the German Länder or Swiss Kantone). Following a classic distinction, these comparisons can extend to polities (e.g., constitutions), politics, and policies from an array of fields such as welfare policy, foreign policy, or judicial policy. Methodologically, we are interested in books doing a rigorous empirical analysis based on the informed application of a wide range of social science methods. Thus, the series invites the submission of books using some form of quantitative analysis, ranging from simple regression to more advanced techniques such as multilevel and structural equation modeling. This will also include qualitative case studies, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), social network analysis, manual and computer-based content analysis, and any combination of multiple methods in a mixed-method design.

This interdisciplinary series of publications addresses the vast array of subjects related to education, such as research into schools and universities, inequality in education, economics, psychology, ethics, teaching theory, educational sociology and the sociology of knowledge. Its volumes will appeal to both academics and practitioners from the field of education. The series welcomes contributions with varying approaches, from a variety of fields and written in different languages.

The series focuses on the activities, concepts and debates related to ‘politics’, as well as on the relationship between these aspects. The research published in the series will consist of studies of politics, both in the disciplinary sense and beyond it. It is recognised that politics can be the object of study within a wide spectrum of academic fields, and the plurality of disciplinary backgrounds of the books published would be an asset for the series. The series welcomes a number of different approaches in and perspectives on studying politics. Their range reaches, for example, from history of concepts via political theory and intellectual history to political rhetoric and comparative politics. Contributions that fruitfully cross or combine strict disciplinary and sub-disciplinary genres are of particular interest. The series hence welcomes for example studies on the actions and speeches of politicians, the analysis of parliamentary, public and academic debates. Above all we want to cross the line between political theories and political practices. In this aim we follow Quentin Skinner’s thesis that “political life itself sets the problems for political theorists”. Both monographs and anthologies are welcome.

Incisive social transformations turn the focus on spatial forms of organization of social relations. Changes such as the increasing survey of outer space and the growing visualization of the interior of the human body bring up the following questions: In what kind of spaces do we live? How are they created? Who is in charge? The interdisciplinary series sets itself the task to elaborate on these questions from various points of view.

The Nomos’ Political Psychology Series, under the General Editorship of Sonja Zmerli and Ofer Feldman, aims to present a selected number of works related to the Political Psychology field of inquiry. Written by the most prominent and the most promising researchers from different disciplines including political science, international relations, social psychology, and psychology, each volume focuses on particular aspects of the discipline, and underlines the significance of the interrelationships between political behavior and involvement and psychological perspectives. The series offers theoretically, empirically, and methodologically sophisticated accounts on this interdisciplinary field of research to understand the crucial role individuals and groups play in politics; the effects of personality, attitude, learning, information processing and communication on political decisions and activity; and the linkages between situational and cultural features to performances in the public sphere. Among other subject matters the series includes research on individual and collective action, voting behavior and attitudes, political violence and terrorism, stereotypes and prejudice, group dynamics and conflicts, identity, and genetics and neuroscience, on both the domestic and international levels, and in cross-national, cross-cultural settings. Aimed at a broad international academic audience, volumes in this series will be published in English, German, and French. “Political Psychology: Issues, Challenges, and Prospects” will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone interested in political behavior and related fields of study.

Talk of the knowledge society is now almost universally accepted as a representation of social reality. Socially relevant actors have to adjust to it and (learn) to deal with it on a daily basis. However, academic reflections on this situation should not only state how strongly contemporary society depends on knowledge. They must also ask what is known about this knowledge itself and about society’s dependence on it. The question of knowledge in the knowledge society thus leads to the question of the opportunities and limits of the knowable, the intertwining of knowledge and non-knowledge with various forms of social logic, and an increase in knowledge conflicts. In this regard, the editors of this series want to offer an interdisciplinary discussion forum on this subject.