This book takes cosmopolitanism as its central problematic, asking the question of what it might mean for the very practices of political theorizing to be cosmopolitan? It suggest that methodological questions about the practice of what is commonly called comparative political theory—namely, the substantive and methodological turn beyond ideas and modes of inquiry determined by the West—are intimately and necessarily linked to the reenvisioning of political theory as a more cosmopolitan endeavour. It is therefore an argument for applying the idea of cosmopolitanism—understood in a particular w ... More

This book takes cosmopolitanism as its central problematic, asking the question of what it might mean for the very practices of political theorizing to be cosmopolitan? It suggest that methodological questions about the practice of what is commonly called comparative political theory—namely, the substantive and methodological turn beyond ideas and modes of inquiry determined by the West—are intimately and necessarily linked to the reenvisioning of political theory as a more cosmopolitan endeavour. It is therefore an argument for applying the idea of cosmopolitanism—understood in a particular way—to the discipline of political theory itself. It argues that reflections about four crucial methodological questions constitute this cosmopolitan intervention: the choice of units of analysis, the methods for interpreting non-Western texts and ideas, the application of these ideas transculturally across geographical boundaries, and the deconstruction of Eurocentrism. Taken together, each of these interventions calls upon the scholar to examine her own location as both insider and outsider to various traditions at different times, often dislocating herself through immersion within foreign civilizations, as well as relocating herself within her former disciplinary home and bringing new insights to bear on it. Examples used to illuminate these reflections will be taken from Gandhi’s political thought.