Political Science as a Broad Church: The Search for a Pluralist Discipline
| Date | 01 September 2004 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2004.00216.x |
| Author | David Marsh,Heather Savigny |
| Published date | 01 September 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
© Political Studies Association, 2004.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Political Science as a Broad Church:
The Search for a Pluralist Discipline
David Marsh and Heather Savigny
University of Birmingham
In 1996 Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann published an edited collection of essays, A
New Handbook of Political Science, that provides probably the best overview of the discipline of polit-
ical science, at least as seen through the eyes of the mainstream of the profession. Goodin is an
American working at the Australian National University, while Klingemann is a German working
in Berlin. Nevertheless, their overview represents an American view of political science, which is
hardly surprising as more than 75 per cent of living political scientists are American. Overall, they
present a picture of the discipline as professional, pluralistic and improving rapidly. Here, we take
issue with that view, not as an ambition, but as a reality. In contrast, we argue that political science,
particularly US political science, is still dominated by a positivist epistemology and, particularly,
by behaviouralist and rational choice approaches that are underpinned by that positivism. We
begin by outlining Goodin and Klingemann’s argument and critiquing it. Subsequently, we take
issue with them empirically, using evidence drawn both from their own edited collection and an
analysis of the contents of the two foremost US and UK journals; in the US the American Political
Science Review, the American Political Science Association’s main journal, and the American Journal
of Political Science, and in the UK the British Journal of Political Science and Political Studies, the
Political Studies Association’s main journal. The methodology adopted is discussed below. In the
last section, we consider the consequence of our findings for the future of political science in
Britain.
1The view of Goodin and Klingemann
Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (1995) identify two revolutionary
movements in post-war political science, revolving around the growth of, first,
behaviouralism and, then, rational choice theory. They argue (Goodin and
Klingemann, 1995, pp. 10–11):
‘The “behavioural revolution” in its heyday, was from many perspectives a thor-
oughly Jacobin affair; and it would hardly be pressing the anology too far to say
that the reaction was decidedly Thermiodorian to boot’.
They continue (Goodin and Klingemann, 1995, p. 11): ‘A generation later the sce-
nario replayed itself with ‘rational choice’ (for an analysis of the decline of behav-
iouralism and the growth of rational choice theory in the US see Farr, Dryzek and
Leonard, 1995).
In their view then, these ‘revolutions’ were initially both dismissive of alternative
perspectives and strongly contested. These contestations, together with the
POLITICS: 2004 VOL 24(3), 155–168
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