Contributions of the Post-Structuralist Political Theory to the Development of Political Science and Sociopolitical and Critical Analyses

Abstract

The paper analyzes the main theoretical, epistemological and ethical-political contributions of post-structuralist political theory to the development of political science in general, and socio-political and critical analysis in particular. The article proposes a critical debate with the predominant perspectives in the discipline and aims to contribute to a more complex understanding of social reality, highlight its critical and transformational dimension. The central hypothesis is that the predominant perspectives of political science have a limited understanding of complexity. At the theoretical-methodological and epistemological level, the emphasis on rationality, objectivity and stability, reduces the ability to understand subjective and non-rational aspects and the contingent dimension of knowledge, the imaginary and unconscious ways of structuring, and ontological limits of social reality. At the ethical-political level, these shortcomings result in a narrow view on democracy, politics and policy, highlighting the rational and institutional dimension. Thus, these perspectives tend to suppress the polysemic, anti-essentialist and hegemonic dispute dimension of concepts, and relegate the passionate, emotional and unconscious aspects of identification. That limits the ability to explain political and social phenomena.