Separation of powers and the role of political theory in contemporary democracies

Jeremy Waldron’s book Political Political Theory, for the most part a collection of previously published essays, focuses on the structures that accommodate our politics (at 123), namely, political institutions. Political institutions form a most demanding subject of study: Understanding their democratic capacities and dysfunctions requires a normative-theoretical perspective as well as empirical observations, analysis of legal structures (most importantly, constitutional law) as well as insights into societal contexts and political cultures. Generally, one could say that the study of political institutions demands a combination of abstraction and concreteness that is a challenge to deliver as an individual researcher trained in a specific discipline’s methodology.