James H. Read, College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University
Book Review: Political Theory
The song fancifully illustrates what the editors of Political Creativity call “creative syncretism” (p. 29), a phenomenon they regard as central to the creation, maintenance, and transformation of political institutions. The contributors to the volume challenge in various ways the notion that institutions tightly constrain agents, or that creative political action is possible only for those who set themselves in opposition to reigning institutions. Political Creativity rejects this “false duality of structure and agency” (p.1). It maintains, instead (as editors Gerald Berk, Dennis Galvan, and Victoria Hattam argue in the Introduction) that institutions, including the most effective and enduring, are not internally unified, highly path-dependent structures but instead “partial and multiple” in ways that enable actors—including the apparently powerless—to “dismantle orders,” “select useful parts,” and “combine them in new ways” (p. 8). The final car is a unique blend of styles and years—the narrator’s own creation. Instead of being slave to the assembly line, he makes the assembly line his own.
The song fancifully illustrates what the editors of Political Creativity call “creative syncretism” (p. 29), a phenomenon they regard as central to the creation, maintenance, and transformation of political institutions. The contributors to the volume challenge in various ways the notion that institutions tightly constrain agents, or that creative political action is possible only for those who set themselves in opposition to reigning institutions. Political Creativity rejects this “false duality of structure and agency” (p.1). It maintains, instead (as editors Gerald Berk, Dennis Galvan, and Victoria Hattam argue in the Introduction) that institutions, including the most effective and enduring, are not internally unified, highly path-dependent structures but instead “partial and multiple” in ways that enable actors—including the apparently powerless—to “dismantle orders,” “select useful parts,” and “combine them in new ways” (p. 8).
Perspectives on Politics / Volume 14 / Issue 01 / March 2016, pp 211-212/ Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016