The Deep Biology of Politics

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Author: Kennan Ferguson
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912914522344
• Date: 01 June 2014
• Subject Matter: Mini-symposium: Species Evolution and Cultural FreedomGuest Editor: Steven Johnston

522344PRQXXX10.1177/1065912914522344Political Research QuarterlyFerguson
research-article2014
Mini-Symposium
Political Research Quarterly
2014, Vol. 67(2) 457 –461
The Deep Biology of Politics: A Reminder © 2014 University of Utah
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DOI: 10.1177/1065912914522344
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Kennan Ferguson1
Abstract
Although Connolly appears to be introducing Darwin and biological history into political science, he has instead
returned to the roots of the discipline, working and reworking the foundations of politics as a disciplinary locus.
Biological thought underpins the history of political science, a fact too easily forgotten by contemporary practitioners.
Keywords
biology, Connolly, political science, Seeley, intellectual history
William Connolly, you may be surprised to discover, is a
Reminders tend to be slightly unpleasant (if you were
political scientist. “Impossible!” you argue: “He’s a biol-
entirely looking forward to a task, you would not need
ogist! He’s a philosopher! He’s a climatologist! He’s a
one), but they also promise the return of a self who had
self-help guru!” Yet a careful examination of the institu-
threatened to disappear (the person who feared you would
tional and historical record shows that his official status is
be so absorbed in your present task that you would forget
as a political scientist: he teaches politics, he is the
the responsibility you have now reminded yourself
Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at
about). Those who practice political science, whether
Johns Hopkins University, the catalogical terminology on
with positivist, hermeneutic, quantitative, poststructural,
the back covers of his books often (though not always)
game-theoretic, or phonetic approaches, occasionally
say “political science” or “political theory.”
need such reminders, especially to note how our practices
A question insinuates itself: How does this identity
and procedures contain old and sometimes antiquated
comport with his essay in this journal, which seems more
presumptions. Unlike the modes of creativity that inter-
to be about evolutionary biology than about politics
ests Connolly, a creativity that is future-oriented and
(Connolly IN PRESS)? One might first expect it to be an
emergent, reminders are historically caught up in the
expansion of the field of politics into a seemingly unre-
times of the past. But these pasts are also pluripotential,
lated field, a new and creative use of the biological sci-
sites of manifold uncertainties and possibilities, rather
ences to illuminate the inherent materialism and nuances
than realms of settled causality.
of humans who engage with the powers of one another
and the world at large. But the connection is far deeper,
Taking the Brute Out of Materialism
far more historically nuanced, than it would first appear.
For what Connolly has done, here, has not been the intro-
For more than a decade, now, Connolly has been turning
duction of new scientific concepts into our understanding
to the non-social, or “hard,” sciences to make sense of
of politics, but rather a returning to the roots of the disci-
certain formulations of logic, ideas, and the strange matri-
pline, working and reworking the foundations of politics
ces of individuation and collective identity that make up
as a disciplinary locus. He is, in other words, reexamining
political attitudes and identities. From Neuropolitics to
and reinscribing the central relationship in the history of
The Fragility of Things to the current essay, Connolly has
political science.
used neuroscience, climate predictions, and even
This response, then, is an excavation of this relation-
Darwinian biology to expand the ways in which politics
ship. Although my essay here is not precisely a critique of
must take into account the material world. In each, the
Connolly’s essay, it also is not exactly an explanation or a
further development. The reader looking for resources to
1University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, USA
further analyze Connolly’s work, either from a friendly or
unfriendly location, will be disappointed. Instead, it is
Corresponding Author:
better understood as a set of reminders: reminders to
Kennan Ferguson, Department of Political Science, University of
Connolly, to other political theorists, and to the discipline
Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA.
as a whole.
Email: kennan@uwm.edu

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458
Political Research Quarterly 67(2)
complexities of bodies, systems, and the world as a whole
do the presumptions that underlie it: what, precisely, we
are brought to bear upon the social presumptions that
learn from the complexities of Darwin’s biological theo-
make up the contemporary condition (Connolly 2002,
ries. Hi insights that speciation can have aesthetic, behav-
2013). A complex and nuanced view of recent scientific
ioral, and even attitudinal dynamics should encourage the
insights, Connolly argued, could illuminate the usual sus-
political scientist to expand his or her horizons of possi-
pects of politics, such as interest...