Political Science in the United States: Reflections on One of its Trends
| Author | Henry S. Kariel |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1956.tb00947.x |
| Date | 01 January 1956 |
| Published date | 01 January 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
POLITICAL
SCIENCE
IN
THE
UNITED
STATES: REFLECTIONS
ON
ONE
OF
ITS
TRENDS
HENRY
S.
KARIEL
Hurvurd
University
THI
s
article proposes to explore
a
research orientation which an influential
as well as articulate section of American political scientists currently finds
attractive. However much their interests diverge in other respects, these
political scientists appear to agree on
a
specific set of assumptions
in-
herently at variance with those of liberal democracy-and this despite
assurances of altogether contrary intentions. The aim of this article
is
to
raise these assumptions to
a
level on which they may be clearly seen, related
to one another, and discussed on their merits.
A
clue to the development of the orientation in question may be provided
by reference to certain earlier concerns of English and American theory.
Not satisfied by the pretentions of German idealism, by the Austinian
theory of sovereignty, and no more by Spencer’s rationale for
a
laissez-faire
state,
a
host of English political thinkers had been stimulated around the
turn
of
the century to redirect attention to the social reality and to the
political facts which philosophy had generally begun to blur. They found
philosophy not
so
much syntactically incredible or morally shocking as
untouched by reference to experience: the prevalent abstractions seemed
artificial and contrived. To be sure, English pluralism was not disengaged
from metaphysics. It was not free from the moral drive to lend individual
rights a theoretical foundation, to provide both freedom and functional
representation for organized interests. for organizations too readily
absorbed by a liberal state set in motion by the conviction that all interests,
after all, are harmonious. Yet it was a sense of the unreality
of
philosophy
--especially as it found expression in what was later to be identified as
historicism-that made it desirable to be deliberately naive and see through
some of the offered categories. The result, as has been repeatedly observed,
was
a
revolt against established forms and fictions, in particular the fiction
of ‘sovereignty’. The English pluralists, trying
to
hold fast to political
Political
Studies.
Vol.
IV,
No.
2
(1956,
113-127).
I
5540.4.2
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