Conversations About Politics

includes the following 5 wide-ranging Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading political scientists. This collection includes a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. Each book is broken into chapters with a detailed introduction and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: This conversation explores Jacques Bertrand's extensive research on the politics and political changes in Southeast Asia and provides detailed insights into this extensive and complex region which consists of countries with remarkably diverse histories and cultures. Mark Bevir is an internationally acclaimed expert in the theory of governance. This thought-provoking conversation explores how attempts to shoehorn political science into a natural science framework commonly fail and how correctly appreciating what social science is and does has a direct bearing on our everyday social lives. Through an engaging dialogue format, John Dunn candidly shares his deep insights on the historical development and current significance and future of democracy in different parts of the world and the relevance of political science departments in achieving democracy and other worthwhile goals. After a detailed discussion of Michael Frazer's intellectual journey, the conversation explores the core ideas behind the sentimentalist theory as outlined in Prof. Frazer's book called The Enlightenment of Sympathy. This extensive conversation includes topics such as the serendipitous factors that led Josiah Ober to study the classical world, the insights that examining rhetoric provide about ancient Athenian society, and how social media might help us fruitfully recreate aspects of the past.