Political science and the challenges of the twenty first century: deglobalization, decolonization, demystification

The article attempts to apply a historical approach to describe the challenges faced by political science in the 21st century. The problems of political science are considered from the standpoint of recognizing and understanding the nonlinearity of the processes of scientific cognition, using the “challenge-and-response” methodology, in which the described challenges are external to political science. The article highlights three main challenges: deglobalization, decolonization, and demystification. Each of them has its own genesis, however, they all, to a considerable degree, overlap and reinforce each other. The challenge of deglobalization forces political science to reconsider significant scientific achievements and results based on the phenomena and events of the last 40 years, during which global processes seemed comprehensive and long-lasting. The accumulated amount of problems and failures associated with the liberal model of globalization makes this task not only necessary, but also very ambitious. The decolonization of knowledge calls into question the enormous amount of knowledge which emerged during the formation and development of the colonial system. Political science so far did not accept this challenge in all its complexity, but this choice will have to be made in the near future. Demystification, which radically reflects the confrontation between the scientific truth and “convenient knowledge”, draws attention to the fact that “group epistemologies” in modern society often become more important than scientific knowledge. The article raises the question of whether there will be forces within political science to notice the identified challenges, soberly assess them and professionally respond to them.