The SAGE Handbook of Political Science

This handbook breaks new grounds in political science by providing distinct but connected global voices in cutting edge political science research. It will be an indispensable resource for the study of politics well into mid-century but especially in an era of unprecedented transformations and disruptions.

This Handbook demonstrates – most remarkably in the authors’ introduction – that political science in the 21st century cannot be understood without appreciating its comprehensive  global reach against the backdrop of diverse epistemological traditions, of cultural backgrounds, and of a cross-area perspective. While this is made evident in the coverage of the discipline’s sub-fields and in the selection of contributors, the last section on contemporary challenges – international power relations, environmental changes, migrations, populism - highlights the core research topics and possible institutional innovations that concern us all.

This new Handbook of Political Science deserves my full praise thanks to the extraordinary skills of its editors: Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino and Bertrand Badie. The range of contributors, including excellent colleagues from Latin American, Asian, Australasian and African universities, reflects the truly global character of contemporary political science. Moreover, this is not the only turning point of this Handbook. A second distinguishing feature relates to a particularly striking erosion of the thus far dominant political science terminology.  The scope of the topics covered, the concepts and the terminology similarly show this innovative and pluralist perspective. This includes some of the major challenges of political science in the 21^st Century and, indeed, of humankind.