The Rise and Fall of American Political Science: Personalities, Quotations, Speculations
| Date | 01 January 1987 |
| DOI | 10.1177/019251218700800107 |
| Published date | 01 January 1987 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
85
The
Rise
and
Fall
of
American
Political
Science:
Personalities,
Quotations,
Speculations
ERKKI
BERNDTSON
ABSTRACT.
The
article
tries
to
link
the
development
of
American
political
science
with
a
major
concern
of
the
discipline,
democracy.
However,
the
concrete
forms
of
this
development
have been
molded
by
different
factors
(e.g.
practical
politics,
economic
interests
and
cultural
variants).
Looking
at
the
interplay
of
these
factors,
this
paper
traces
the
rise
of American
political
science
to
a
hegemonic
position
in
the
world,
from
the
founding
of
the
School
of
Political
Science
at
Columbia
University
in
1880
to
the
heyday
of
behavioralism
at
the
beginning
of
the
1960s,
coinciding
with
the
rise
of
America’s
role
as
a
superpower
and
with
the
growth
of
representative
democracy.
A
possible
decline
in
the
position
of
American
political
science
is
envisaged
because
of
changing
international
power
relations,
problems
of
representative
democracy
and
the
present
diversification
of
the
discipline,
which
may
lead
to
a
situation
where
there
is
no
American
nor
any
other
geographically
specific
political
science,
but
instead
different
political
discourses
depending
on
locality,
situation
and
politics.
Political
Science
as
a
Science
of
Democracy
’The
study
of
politics
in
the
United
States
is
today
something
in
size,
content
and
method
unique
in
Western
intellectual
history’,
was
the
argument
with
which
Bernard
Crick
started
his
book
The
American
Science
of Politics
in
1959.
In
regard
to
size,
at
least,
the
situation
has
not
changed
much.
As
William
G.
Andrews
has
recently
noted
(1982:
3),
the
United
States,
with
some
15 000
to
16 000
political
scientists,
has
75-80
percent
of
the
world’s
supply.
The
rise
of
American
political
science
into
a
hegemonic
position
in
the
world
was
accomplished
over
a
period
of
some
70
years,
beginning
about
1880.
However,
there
are
signs
of
crisis
in
American
political
science
and
its
absolute
hegemony
has
clearly
vanished.
The
growth
of
political
science
as
a
discipline
worldwide
is
producing
different
kinds
of
approaches.
Although
many
European
political
scientists,
for
instance,
still
adhere
to
’American’
theories,
they
are
at
the
same
time
more
and
more
conscious
of
the
limitations
of
those
theories.
In
the
United
States,
on
the
other
hand,
interest
in
the
work
of
European
scholars
who
are
not
even,
strictly
speaking,
’political
scientists’
(e.g.
Jfrgen
Habermas,
Claus
Offe,
Joachim
Hirsch,
Louis
Althusser,
Michel
Foucault,
Jacques
Derrida,
Anthony
Giddens,
Quentin
Skinner,
Juliet
Mitchell)
has
been
growing,
even
among
’mainstream’
political
scientists.
86
In
this
light
one
may
ask,
’Has
the
rise
of
American
political
science
come
to
its
end?
Will
there
be
some
kind
of
decline
or
will
American
political
science
return
to
a
new
ascendancy?’
These
are
crucial
questions
not
only
for
the
development
of
political
science
worldwide,
but
also
for
an
understanding
of
present
and
future
politics.
A
decline
in
esteem
for
American
political
science
may
indicate
a
decline
in
the
US
position
in
the
world,
or
even
the
coming
of
a
new
era
where
the
role
of
political
science
will
be
quite
different
from
what
it
is
today.
In
this
sense
an
analysis
of
the
development
of
American
political
science
is
of
the
utmost
importance.
In
an
earlier
article
(Berndtson,
1983)
I
argued
that
there
are
four
phases
of
development
in
American
political
science,
which
can
be
labelled
by
using
the
concept
of
democracy:
1.
the
formation
of
representative
democracy
(1880
to
1920);
2.
the
emergence
of
the
problems
of
representative
democracy
(1900
to
1940);
3.
pluralist
democracy
as
a
solution
to
the
problems
of
democracy
(1920
to
1965);
4.
the
crisis
of
pluralist
democracy
(1945
to
the
present).
To
envisage
these
phases
as
beginning
in
1880
is
somewhat
artificial,
as
the
formation
of
both
representative
democracy
and
political
science
was
underway
some
time
before
1880
(in
relation
to
political
science,
see
Haddow,
1939).
However,
1880
has
been
taken
as
a
starting-point
because
the
first
academic
institution
of
political
science,
the
School
of
Political
Science,
was
founded
that
year
at
Columbia
University.
Because
the
school
was
created
mainly
through
the
efforts
of
John
W.
Burgess,
he
is
often
considered
to
be
the
founder
of
the
discipline.
The
four
phases
outline
real
historical
development
and
reflect
the
alleged
changes
in
the
study
of
politics
that
can
be
discerned
in
political-science
texts.
If
there
is
one
shared
feature
in
the
texts
of
such
classic
or
influential
scholars
as
John
W.
Burgess,
Westel
Woodbury
Willoughby,
Charles
E.
Merriam,
Harold
D.
Lasswell,
David
Easton,
Robert
A.
Dahl,
Theodore J.
Lowi,
etc.,
it
is
a
common
theme
which
centers
around
the
concept
of
power -
or
its
different
forms
such
as
’sovereignty’,
’authority’,
’influence’,
’administration’,
or
’decision-making’.
In
each
case
a
concept
of
power
is
further
conceptually
linked
with
a
form
of
social
organization,
in
this
case
a
system
of
democracy.
The
phases
therefore
represent
theoretical
frameworks
and
basic
concepts
of
political
science
which
can
be
discerned
through
the
’reading’
of
the
texts
(see
Berndtson,
1983:
90-94).
The
overlapping
of
phases,
however,
shows
that
every
phase
contains
not
only
a
prophecy
of
what
is
to
come,
but
an
analysis
of
the
past.
In
this
sense
the
phases
must
be
understood
as
’analytical’.
Interpreting
political
science
as
a
science
of
democracy
is
of
course
nothing
new.
This
is
one
of
the
major
theses
of
David
Ricci
in
The
Tragedy
of Political
Science
( 1984),
and
the
same
idea
has
been
presented
not
only
by
critics
of
the
present
state
of
political
science
(e.g.
Lipsitz,
1972:
179),
but
also
by
those
who
have
wanted
to
turn
political
science
into
the
science
of
democracy
(e.g.
Lasswell,
1942).
I
have
tried
to
argue
that
this
’permanent
condition
of
political
science’
is
reflected
in
the
specific
’theoretical
objects’
which
political
science
has
produced
in
different
periods
of
its
development.
In
this
sense,
the
first
phase
is
a
period
where
the
state
was
considered
as
the
politically
organized
form
of
society,
the
form
defined
through
the
concept
of
sovereignty.
Political scientists
concentrated
on
problems
of
the
state:
government
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