Preface
The original idea for this book started life some ten years ago. At the outset, it was
envisaged as a short text, but subsequently it appeared virtually to take on a life of its
own. The initial serious research began during a two year fellowship in the Research
School of the Social Sciences at the Australian National University, between 1994 and
- My thanks go to the Research School, and particularly to Barry Hindess, who
then headed the politics section. I am sure Barry’s perspective will differ markedly
from my own; nonetheless, his independent critical thinking and open, friendly
support were great stimuli to my initial reflections on this whole issue. Whilst in the
Research School I ran a seminar series over a year, on the theme ‘Whither Political
Theory?’ Many of the papers were later published in an edited volume entitledPolitical
Theory: Tradition and Diversity(1997): however, the seminars themselves were an
additional impetus to thinking more deeply about the whole issue of theory. In many
ways the series was, in part, a preface to the present study. My thanks go to all the
participants in that seminar programme.
After my research period in Australia, I found myself involved in a process
of detailed administrative work at Cardiff University which slowed my research
momentum. I sought solace in some easier writing projects. But the ideas for the
present work kept up their own peculiar underlying intellectual momentum. Between
2000 and 2001, I was fortunate to be offered a sabbatical research fellowship in the
Humanities Research Centre in the Australian National University, Canberra. My
thanks also go here to my old University in Cardiff for this period of research leave,
which allowed me time not only to finish another project on nationalism, but also
to return to the present topic under the excellent writing conditions provided by
the Centre—I was thus able to complete a large proportion of the present book.
It also enabled me to meet up again with old friends and colleagues in Canberra.
I am especially grateful to the then Director of the Humanities Research Centre,
Iain McCalman and Caroline Turner (Deputy Director) for providing such first class
friendly and supportive conditions.
In 2001, I joined the politics department at Sheffield University and have managed
over my first couple of years to complete the present book in the midst of new teach-
ing and administrative responsibilities. My thanks go to the political theory group in
the department—that is, Mike Kenny, Matthew Festenstein, Andrew Gamble, James
Meadowcroft, and Duncan Kelly—for enjoyable political theory conversation and
encouragement. Over the last decade, and more, during which I have thought intens-
ively about political theory, I have incurred innumerable intellectual debts. There have
been so many interesting conversations from which I have learnt to see political theory
issues in a new light. My thanks go to (to name but a few) Ed Andrew, David Boucher,
Bob Brown, Maria Dimova-Cookson, Michael Freeden, Maurice Goldsmith, Knud