Formas de estudiar en teoría política: concepto, significante y argumento en los discursos políticos

Abstract

The political theory always seems obligated to discuss about its own identity. If political empirical sciences have their own standardized methodology, the political theory, however, does not have clear approaches and methodologies. This absence of method questions both the way of working and the place of political theory inside political sciences. Following this problem, this paper will try to analyse what political theory studies when, instead of focusing in normative or historical studies, it focuses on the analysis of quotidian political discourses. The article will study the methodological works of Ernesto Laclau, Michael Freeden and Kari Palonen, comparing the approaches and their objects of study: concept, signifier and argument. This way, the paper will show that the absence of a clear method is not the same as arbitrariness in the study of political theory, but, at the same time, this discipline must periodically revise its own approaches.