Political Theory meets Social Progress Indices: mutual benefits for Theory and Praxis

Political theory in recent decades has undergone a significant shift, with two main trends emerging. On the one hand, there has been a lot of self-reflection and discussion about the status, role, and methodology of political theory and philosophy. On the other hand, there have been calls for political theory to be more connected to real-world political realities, less abstract, and more pragmatic, engaged, empirical, and behavioral. One approach that exemplifies these trends is the "methodological contextualization" approach, which advocates for testing political theory against concrete real-world contexts. This paper applies the concept of "methodological contextualization" to the case of social progress indices, examining the interaction between theory and practice in this context. Many different indices have been developed to measure different conceptions of social progress or development, which are closely linked to key ideas in political theory. By focusing on this context, the paper demonstrates how political theory can contribute to understanding real-world practices, and how engagement with real-world practices can in turn advance and enrich political theory. The paper first discusses how political theory has informed discussions of social progress conceptions, and then explores how the process of turning these conceptions into indicators can feed back into and enrich political theory.