Omissions and selectivities in Brazilian political science: thematic gaps and its social-epistemic problems

Abstract

This article departs form the context of self-reflexion that Brazilian Political Science faces nowadays and mentions the most important publications related to such a task. Subsequently, it is presented a new, allegory-based, typology for the 4 main kinds of social phenomena studied by different political scientists in Brazil. Then, the frequency of each type among recent publications is measured. The hypothesis is that, since the types are equally important and mutually relevant to each other, there should be a proportional distribution of each one among the publications. However, it is found that one type is immensely more studied than the others. Besides, the type related to protests, struggles and social conflicts is rather neglected. The precarious and narrow range of issues researched by Brazilian Political Science is, therefore, identified as a feature that hurts the field's consolidation and epistemic solidity.

Keywords:
Brazilian political science; social sciences' epistemology; allegories in science; thematic selectivities