Political Science Professor Roberto Alejandro's article, Hermeneutics, Politics, and Philosophy, was recently published in the Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics. He discusses the relationship between hermeneutics and politics in Western society. 

Description: The pattern of universality and redemption capsizes in the realm of politics. This chapter discusses the relationship of hermeneutics and politics in light of several moments in Western culture and philosophy. It bases this inquiry on Hans-Georg Gadamer's ideas of hermeneutics, and begins with a discussion of his ontological commitments in order to assess their bearing on the question of politics. Gadamer sees agreement as the ontological outcome of conversations because it is antecedent to the conversation as well as its only goal. Tradition is the source of questions, the tribunal that stipulates the criteria that will validate claims. If we accept that power and the concepts it uses possess both the weight of a dominant reasoning and its criteria to validate claims, then the characterization of politics carries with it the question of tradition and all its potentialities and concomitant problems.