Towards Engaged Pluralism in the Study of European Trade Politics

Abstract

Going back to the Kuhnian debate about the assumed incommensurability of different paradigms, we point at the need for engaged pluralism in political science. We illustrate this by giving illustrations from the different paradigmatic perspectives included in the special issue and how they could speak to each other. While this analysis clearly shows the limits and difficulties encountered during such an endeavor, we hope to have laid the basis for a more reflexive dialogue within the literature.

Keywords

• Paradigms
• trade policy
• IR
• EU
• trade
• critical theories
• pragmatism
• engaged pluralism