Political Theory Is Not a Luxury: A Response to Timothy Kaufman-Osborn’s “Political Theory as a Profession”

• Author: Wendy Brown
• Published date: 01 September 2010
• Date: 01 September 2010
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1065912910369843
• Subject Matter: Mini-Symposium

Political Research Quarterly
63(3) 680 –685
Political Theory Is Not a
© 2010 University of Utah
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Luxury: A Response to
DOI: 10.1177/1065912910369843
http://prq.sagepub.com
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn’s
“Political Theory as a Profession”
Wendy Brown1
Abstract
In “Political Theory as a Profession,” Timothy Kaufman-Osborn calls for political theorists to shed attachments to
political science subfields. This call inadequately reckons with the perils to political theory posed by the combined
contemporary forces of scientization and neoliberalization in knowledge. Focusing on these perils, the author argues
for the strategic preservation of the political theory subfield. However, this preservation will not be advanced by
intensified professionalization or a turn toward market applicability. Paradoxically, the survival of political theory rests
in resisting professional and neoliberal metrics and reaching for publicly legible and compelling intellectual purposes.
Keywords
Political theory, humanities, science, neoliberalism
In most respects, I find little to disagree with in Timothy
harboring polymorphous inquiries whose identity is
Kaufman-Osborn’s “Political Theory as a Profession.”
probably forged mainly in relation to what it is not. We
Certainly he is right that the Penn State controversy let-
are less a mongrel enterprise than an asylum for diverse
ters are not especially compelling as political theoretical
outsiders to empirical political science.
arguments, although they are probably more appropriately
If I have no major disagreements with Kaufman-
analyzed as weapons in political battle. They were not
Osborn’s critiques, I am nonetheless disturbed by the
developed to expound the nature, scope, and value of
querulous, ungenerous, even unloving tone in the article,
theory as political theorists might formulate these but,
a tone that makes me diffident about his inquiry into what
rather, were deployed as strategic threats to nontheorists
we do and whether we ought to defend the autonomy of
about the consequences of expelling us from their midst.
the enterprise. Certainly there is no requirement that one
Kaufman-Osborn is right as well to remind us that the
who closely analyzes the scope or value of a particular
categories by which we organize knowledge are, like all
endeavor also care deeply for it. But to ask “Why should
discursive categories, compressed histories at best inapt
this field of inquiry be saved?” which is at bottom what
for the present and at worst perpetuating political forma-
Kaufman-Osborn is asking, shouldn’t deep affective
tions emanating from a rueful past. This is true both of
investments at least be relevant? It is one thing to make
the subfields of political science and of the subdivisions
the analytic claim that political science subfields are not
of theory many of us chafe against—political theory
merely incoherent but dysfunctional and hence ought to
apportioned into “historical” and “normative,” leaving
be dismantled along with all the other disciplinary bound-
“positive” to the formal modelers.1 Kaufman-Osborn’s
aries emerging from the twentieth-century cold war, impe-
account of how professionalization has warped political
rial, and colonial histories. It is another to ask after the best
theoretical pursuits and values is also incontestable. And
mode of nourishing and protecting what one considers a
certainly he is correct that political theory is not a unified
or coherent enterprise. In fact, even his dog metaphor
1University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
may be too kind. No matter its breeding, the mongrel is a
single animal modestly integrated in physiology and per-
Corresponding Author:
Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley, Department of
sonality. Far from a unified and coordinated “us” lacking
Political Science, 210 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1950
only illustrious pedigree, political theory is a genre (if that)
Email: wlbrown@berkeley.edu

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Brown
681
field of generative or compelling intellectual work, regard-
Rather, political theory is the sole outpost of nonscience
less of the logics and histories that contour the field’s
in an ever more scientized field. (Here I disagree with
present boundaries and endeavors. This second perspec-
Kaufman-Osborn’s claim that “very few still believe that
tive, and the affect that would animate it, is curiously
political science may one day acquire the epistemic author-
absent in Kaufman-Osborn’s unquestionably smart his-
ity of the natural science,” a disagreement that could be
tory and analysis, and I wonder why—what has cooled or
brokered by an American Political Science Association–
suppressed his ardor?
administered survey (Kaufman-Osborn 2010, [PE: Please
If one absence in Kaufman-Osborn’s article is any sign
insert a page number.]).) Of course, in some cases, the
of affective attachment to at least some of what political
nonscientific standing of political theory issues from an
theory is and does, another is close attention to the discur-
explicit belief that science is always and inherently the
sive powers organizing knowledge and intellectual life in
wrong knowledge paradigm for understanding the world
the present, powers generating the specific need for protec-
of power, action, institutions, discourses, and ideas that
tion of political theory’s autonomy that it might not other-
political life comprises. In others it derives from efforts
wise require or deserve. Kaufman-Osborn recognizes that
to grasp particular constellations of political meanings,
political theory is marginal turf in a playing field host to
values, or practices for which the tools of science are
academic technicians increasingly modeling themselves on
deemed inappropriate or insufficient. In either case, polit-
scientific and corporate hierarchies, styles, and purposes.
ical theory rejects an exclusively scientific way of under-
But within this recognition, I think he gives insufficient
standing politics.
weight to the powers organizing and threatening the condi-
Antagonism between the nonscientific and the scien-
tions of existence for the kinds of inquiries political theo-
tific in our discipline need not take the form of battle, any
rists may undertake and the conditions of discourse in
more than...