The Limits of Pluralism

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the implications for pluralism and the limits of pluralism in the context of current global challenges such as climate change/Anthropocene and calls for decolonization of knowledge structures. This chapter highlights the importance of exploring and amplifying the classical critiques of positivism, empiricism, and rationalism in ensuring and extending methodological pluralism. It details how the post-positivist critique can be refracted in different ways around the world. It considers the dominance of quantitative methods and positivism in general as not straightforward globally unless one starts from and accepts the dominance of particular kind of American or Anglo-European political science. The chapter explains how relationality, the idea of the pluriverse and the changing nature of scientific knowledge in the 21st century are opening up new avenues for engaging with political worlds.