Designing Politics: A Neglected Justification for Political Science

Abstract

Political science offers a valuable and developing set of insights into how politics works. The challenge for the discipline, however, is that it is methodologically and culturally ill equipped to adopt a solution-oriented approach. This article makes the case for a shift in focus and points to political science work that takes the challenge of designing politics as its intellectual focus. It identifies key features of a design-oriented political science and points to examples which suggest that it is a neglected path for political science rather than an impossible road down which to travel.