№ 1 - 2009
Smorgunov L.V.
Comparative Political Science in Search for New Methodological Orientations: Would the Ideas Be Significant for Explanation of Politics?

The article discloses the content of constructivism as one of the new cognitive methodological approaches in modern comparative politics – the one that originated from the critics of the economic turn in political science in the 1980s to the 1990s. The general principles of constructivism are stressed; its differences from the interpretative approach and from the concept of «governmentality» as form of political analysis, are described. Most serious attention in the article is paid to the basic features of constructivism which characterize it as a positivist approach. Its applicability to comparative political studies is specially clarified. A particular care of the author is to demonstrate the place and role of ideas in the explanation of political processes.