Mark Bevir

Bevir was born in London. His family was broadly humanist and impressed upon Bevir the importance of reading, self-expression and seeking personal growth. Bevir was educated at the University of Exeter and Oxford University. He lectured at the University of Madras and at Newcastle University before he moved to Berkeley. He has been a visiting fellow at universities in Australia, Finland, France, the UK, and the US.{{cite news | last = Skodo | first = Admir | url=http://figureground.org/interview-with-mark-bevir | title=Interview with Mark Bevir | publisher = Figure / Ground Communication |date = 4 September 2009}}

Bevir has published extensively in philosophy, history, and political science literatures. His interests are diverse, including Anglophone, continental, and South Asian thought, particularly radical, socialist, and critical theory of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Philosophical concerns include postanalytic approaches to subjectivity, social inquiry, ethics, and democratic theory.

Bevir is the author of The Logic of the History of Ideas (1999), which builds on the work of analytic philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson to "undertake a normative study of the forms of reasoning appropriate to the history of ideas". His approach is intended to complement, and not directly oppose, the Cambridge School of history of political thought which focuses on recovering meanings of historical texts, and hermeneutic theorists concerned with the phenomenology of understanding. Rather, Bevir introduces the idea of a normative approach that hinges on using traditions and dilemmas to understand beliefs and more complex webs of meaning, key concepts that underpin his work on interpretive political science and governance theory.

Mark Bevir is the author of several works defending the interpretive turn in the human sciences. Most recently he offered a systematic defense of interpretivism with Jason Blakely in Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Defense (2018). He and R. A. W. Rhodes are also the authors of Interpreting British Governance (2003), Governance Stories (2006), and The State as Cultural Practice (2010). Bevir holds that political science must necessarily be an interpretive art. This is because he maintains that the starting point of enquiry must be to unpack the meanings, beliefs, and preferences of actors to then make sense of understanding actions, practices, and institutions. Political science is therefore an interpretative discipline underpinned by hermeneutic philosophy rather than positivism: there is no ‘science’ of politics, instead all explanations, including those that deploy statistics and models, are best conceived as narratives.

Bevir has thus provided an elaborate philosophical foundation for a decentred theory of governance woven together by the notions of beliefs, traditions and dilemmas. 'It follows that the role of political scientists is to use (1) ethnography to uncover people's beliefs and preferences, and (2) history to uncover traditions as they develop in response to dilemmas. The product is a story of other people's constructions of what they are doing, which provides actors’ views on changes in government, the economy, and society. So, for example, a political scientist may select a part of the governance process, and then explain it by unpicking various political traditions and how actors within these traditions encounter and act to resolve dilemmas. Governance is thus understood as the contingent and unintended outcome of competing narratives of governance.'{{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Encyclopedia of governance | publisher = Sage Publications | location = Thousand Oaks, California | year = 2007 | isbn = 9781412905794 }}

Bevir first published his decentred theory of governance in a 2003 paper.{{Cite book|last=Bevir|first=Mark|editor1-last=Bang|editor1-first=Henrik|title= Governance as Social and Political Communication|chapter=A Decentred Theory of Governance|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2003}} Later he published a book length version that applied the theory to both different organizational types and the changing nature of public action.{{Cite book|last=Bevir|first=Mark|year=2013|title=A Theory of Governance|publisher=University of California Press}} In his collaborations with Rhodes, Bevir applied the theory mainly to Britain.

The theory draws on Bevir's earlier work on the philosophy of history to develop a particular account of the state and of political action. It suggests that the modern state is dispersed, lacking an essence or center. It suggests that political action embodies the meanings and beliefs that people reach as they draw on inherited traditions to respond to new dilemmas.

In her short account, Claire Donovan explains that "For Bevir and Rhodes, decentered theory revolves around the idea of situated agency: institutions, practices or socialisation cannot determine how people behave, so any course of action is a contingent individual choice. People’s actions are explained by their beliefs (or meanings or desires); any one belief is interpreted in the context of the wider web of a person’s beliefs; and these beliefs are explained by traditions and modified by dilemmas. A tradition (or episteme or paradigm) is the set of theories against the background of which a person comes to hold beliefs and perform actions. It is a first influence upon people – a set of beliefs that they inherit and then transform in response to encounters with "dilemmas" (or problems or anomalies). A dilemma arises whenever novel circumstances generate a new belief that forces people to question their previously held beliefs. Change occurs through encountering such dilemmas: while individual responses to dilemmas are grounded in traditions, they then modify just those traditions."

Bevir argues that decentred theory supports democratic participation and pluralism.{{cite book|last=Bevir|first=Mark|year=2010|title=Democratic Governance|publisher=Princeton University Press}} Post-Marxists like Aletta Norval have also adopted decentred theory, arguing it supports democratic learning and agonistic politics.{{cite book|editor1-last=Griggs|editor1-first=Steven|editor2-last=Norval|editor2-first=Aletta|editor3-last=Wagenaar|editor3-first=Hendrik|year=2014|title=Practices of Freedom: Decentred Governance, Conflict and Democratic Participation|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}

Bevir wrote his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Oxford on the history of British socialism. He published a number of articles on the topic and then The Making of British Socialism (2011). Bevir rejects accounts of socialism that emphasise class consciousness. He argues that British socialism arose as people revised various traditions in response to economic and religious dilemmas. Socialism has diverse strands rooted in distinct traditions including Tory radicalism, romanticism, liberalism, and positivism. Bevir's emphasis on the diversity of socialism is meant to correct the twentieth century association of socialism with the labour movement and with state intervention. He suggests that earlier socialists focused on social justice, radical democratic schemes, and utopian personal and social transformations.

• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = The logic of the history of ideas | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge, UK New York | year = 1999 | isbn = 9780521016841 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Rhodes | first2 = R. A. W. | author-link2 = R. A. W. Rhodes | title = Interpreting British governance | publisher = Routledge | location = London New York | year = 2003 | isbn = 9780415304528 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = New Labour: a critique | publisher = Routledge | location = London New York | year = 2005 | isbn = 9780415359245 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Rhodes | first2 = R. A. W. | author-link2 = R. A. W. Rhodes | title = Governance stories | publisher = Routledge | location = New York, NY London | year = 2006 | isbn = 9780415459778 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Key concepts in governance | publisher = SAGE | location = Los Angeles, Calif. London | year = 2009 | isbn = 9781412935708 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Rhodes | first2 = R. A. W. | author-link2 = R. A. W. Rhodes | title = The state as cultural practice | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford | year = 2010 | isbn = 9780199580750 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Democratic governance | publisher = Princeton University Press | location = Princeton, New Jersey | year = 2010 | isbn = 9780691145396 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = The making of British socialism | publisher = Princeton University Press | location = Princeton, New Jersey | year = 2011 | isbn = 9780691150833 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Governance : a very short introduction | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford | year = 2012 | isbn = 9780199606412 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = A theory of governance | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 2013 | isbn = 9781938169113 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Blakely | first2 = Jason | author-link2 = Jason Blakely | title = Interpretive Social Science | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford | year = 2018 | isbn = 978-0198832959 }}

• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Trentmann | first2 = Frank | title = Critiques of capital in modern Britain and America: transatlantic exchanges 1800 to the present day | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | location = Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 9780333980811 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Trentmann | first2 = Frank | title = Markets in historical contexts: ideas and politics in the modern world | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge, UK New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 9780521044516 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Stimson | first2 = Shannon C. | last3 = Adcock | first3 = Robert | author-link2 = Shannon C. Stimson | title = Modern political science Anglo-American exchanges since 1880 | publisher = Princeton University Press | location = Princeton | year = 2007 | isbn = 9780691128733 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Hargis | first2 = Jill | last3 = Rushing | first3 = Sara | title = Histories of postmodernism | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2011 | isbn = 9780415514705 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Public governance (volumes 1–4) | publisher = SAGE | location = London Thousands Oaks, California | year = 2007 | isbn = 9781412921459 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Trentmann | first2 = Frank | title = Governance, consumers and citizens: agency and resistance in contemporary politics | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | location = Basingstoke, Hampshire New York | year = 2007 | isbn = 9780230517288 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Interpretive political science (volumes 1–4) | publisher = SAGE | location = Los Angeles | year = 2010 | isbn = 9781847875808 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = The Sage handbook of governance | publisher = SAGE | location = Los Angeles | year = 2011 | isbn = 9781446270424 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Modern pluralism: Anglo-American debates since 1880 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge, UK New York | year = 2012 | isbn = 9781107017672 }}
• {{cite book | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Daddow | first2 = Oliver | last3 = Hall | first3 = Ian | title = Interpreting global security | publisher = Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group | location = London New York | year = 2014 | isbn = 9780415825375 }}

• {{Cite journal | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Trentmann | first2 = Frank | title = Social justice and modern capitalism: historiographical problems, theoretical perspectives | journal = The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms | volume = 6 | issue = 2 | pages = 141–158 | doi = 10.1080/10848770120031341 | date = 2001 | s2cid = 145578795 }}
• {{Cite journal | last1 = Bevir | first1 = Mark | last2 = Rhodes | first2 = R. A. W. | last3 = Weller | first3 = Patrick | author-link2 = R. A. W. Rhodes | title = Traditions of governance: interpreting the changing role of the public sector | journal = Public Administration | volume = 81 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–17 | doi = 10.1111/1467-9299.00334 | date = March 2003 | s2cid = 59130897 | doi-access = free }}
• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Historical understanding and the human sciences | journal = Journal of the Philosophy of History | volume = 1 | issue = 3 | pages = 259–270 | doi = 10.1163/187226307X229353 | date = 2007 | url = http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/24g4s98c }}
• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = What is genealogy? | journal = Journal of the Philosophy of History | volume = 2 | issue = 3 | pages = 263–275 | doi = 10.1163/187226308x335958 | date = 2008 | s2cid = 62860109 }}

• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Encyclopedia of governance | publisher = Sage Publications | location = Thousand Oaks, California | year = 2007 | isbn = 9781412905794 }}
• {{cite book | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Encyclopedia of political theory | publisher = SAGE | location = Thousand Oaks, California | year = 2010 | isbn = 9781412958653 }}

• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Ernest Belfort Bax: Marxist, idealist, and positivist | journal = Journal of the History of Ideas | volume = 54 | issue = 1 | pages = 119–135 | doi = 10.2307/2709863 | date = January 1993 | jstor = 2709863 }}
• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = British socialism and American romanticism | journal = The English Historical Review | volume = 110 (CX) | issue = 438 | pages = 878–901 | doi = 10.1093/ehr/CX.438.878 | date = September 1995 | url = http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9kq451tc }}
• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | title = Sidney Webb: utilitarianism, positivism, and social democracy | journal = The Journal of Modern History | volume = 74 | issue = 2 | pages = 217–252 | doi = 10.1086/343407 | date = June 2002 | s2cid = 144317055 | url = http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7vm01529 }}
• {{Cite journal | last = Bevir | first = Mark | editor1-first = Janet M | editor1-last = Box-Steffensmeier | editor2-first = Henry E | editor2-last = Brady | editor3-first = David | editor3-last = Collier | title = Meta-methodology: clearing the underbrush | journal = The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology | volume = 1 | doi = 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199286546.003.0003 | date = August 2008 | pages = 48–70 | isbn = 978-0199286546 }}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/person_detail.php?person=219 Berkeley Faculty Biography – Mark Bevir]
• Online videos of Bevir giving lectures:

::[https://web.archive.org/web/20110724152957/http://sites.univ-provence.fr/webtv/cible.php?urlmedia=the_ideologie26_fev2008 "The Idea of a National History"]

::[https://web.archive.org/web/20100102133008/http://fathom.com/course/10701059/index.html "Philosophy and the History of Ideas"] – In four sessions by Fathom / Cambridge University Press

• [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v007/7.2bevir.html "Humanism in and against The Order of Things"], Mark Bevir investigates the effect of Michel Foucault's The Order of Things in the context of political theory
• Intellectual History Review's [http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rihr20/21/1#.Uj6aNLxJMht theme issue on Bevir.]
• [http://www.ideasroadshow.com/issues/mark-bevir-2015-03-14 "How Social Science Creates the World – A Conversation with Mark Bevir"], Ideas Roadshow, 2016

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bevir, Mark}}

Category:1963 births

Category:Living people

Category:Philosophers of history

Category:English political philosophers

Category:20th-century British philosophers

Category:21st-century British philosophers

Category:Intellectual historians

Category:English historians

Category:British political scientists

Category:English socialists

Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty

Category:People educated at Ardingly College

Category:Alumni of the University of Exeter

Bevir,Mark