Just What Is Ontological Political Theory Meant to do? The Method and Practice of William E. Connolly

Abstract

This article provides a critical appraisal of the ontological method of political theorizing through an examination of the methodological development of the work of William E. Connolly. Connolly has often been taken as a paradigmatic figure of the ‘ontological turn’. This is not only because of the significance of his work in the field but because he is one of its major methodological articulators. However, there has been no systematic evaluation of that method and its development. This paper rectifies that lacuna by critically illustrating Connolly’s turn from a post-positivistic interpretivism to his much noted ‘onto-political method’. It argues that the latter, while usually thought to be modelled on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, is structured by Heidegger’s understanding of ontological difference. The paper then argues that this leads to several problematic tendencies within Connolly’s model that undermine the critical-explanatory and normative power of his methodology by compromising the critical reflexivity ontology is meant to provide. All of this raises some concerns and criticisms of the use of ontological method of political theorizing, which has escaped sustained methodological analysis and scrutiny.