ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, despite the difficulties, political theorists play a crucial role in developing the justice discourse that can underlie policy-making. It advocates adopting an interdisciplinary iterative methodology, learning from that developed in numerical analysis in order to develop a genuine understanding of what justice requires. This ensures direct engagement with real-world concerns throughout and involves a process of constant re-examination of the world as it actually is. Crucially, it enables an acknowledgement of its dynamism. The chapter argues that theorizing the political cannot be done without theorizing the real-world societies and individual humans that are its subjects. The realities of the world should form the starting point from which policy and theorizing around policy must start. The chapter presents the political theorist as someone who is responding to observations about the world in a certain way. It suggests a formalized methodological approach to ensure that questioning is directed, throughout, to real-world concerns.
