Search results

In the December 1988 issue of thisReview, John Dryzek and Stephen Leonard argued the need for "context-sensitive" histories of the discipline of political science. In their view, disciplinary history must guide practical inquiry if it is to be most useful. The course of their argument draws the criticisms of three political scientists concerned about the history of political science—James Farr, John Gunnell, and Raymond Seidelman. Dryzek and Leonard respond to their critics and underscore their own rationale for enhanced interest in the history of the discipline.

After a close association in the first half of the 20th century, during the 1970s the political science & history disciplines parted company: political science embraced behavioral analysis of narrow questions & historians lost interest in government institutions & public policy. However, in the 1980s & 1990s, the field of American Political Development gained in popularity among political scientists who pursued broader historical questions, eg, Progressive Era reform, the New Deal, etc. Institutional political historians emerged to tackle issues surrounding law & public policy & the development of the modern administrative state. The exciting connections between political science & history should not be limited to American Political Development, however. Examples of other scholarship examining the connections are reviewed, eg, in civic participation, the relationship between race & politics, international political economy, & the philosophy of history. Each discipline still has its unique approach but for the study of politics, an understanding of the other is of great benefit. M. Pflum

This paper examines the changing relationship between the study of history and the study of political science. It reviews the tensions which produced a divorce between the two subjects, particularly in the United States when behavioural political science was dominant. It then examines five areas in which history has enriched the study of politics: as a source of material; as a demonstration of the links between the present and the past; as a body of knowledge to test theories; as a means of analysing political concepts and as a source of lessons. It concludes that the links between the two subjects today are strong, but that the contribution of history is more as a body of knowledge than as a set of distinctive methods.

Regards the study of politics not so much as a discipline with a distinctive method but more as a field of study which is amenable to various approaches. Suggests that the contribution of history has been more a body of knowledge than a set of methods. (SJK)

Once sparce and sporadic, histories of political science have proliferated in recent years. We contend that such histories are a necessary feature of the discourse of political science, because there are essential connections between the history, identity, and actual practices of any rationally progressive discipline. In light of the fact that the objects political scientists study are historically and contextually contingent, there has been—and should be—a plurality of histories to match the diversity of approaches in politicalscience. Unfortunately, most histories of political science prove either "Whiggish" and condescending toward the past, or "skeptical" and negative. The consequence has been an inadequate understanding of the relationship between plurality, rationality, and progress in the discipline. Taking into account both the deficiencies and achievements of Whiggish and skeptical accounts, we argue that context-sensitive histories would better serve the rationality and progress of political science.

There was a period in America when the political science and history disciplines were not that far apart. Both approaches to analyzing civil society had evolved out of an old Anglo-American tradition where these two subjects, along with philosophy and literature, were all considered in relationship to one another. During the formative years of the American research university, which took place at the turn of the twentieth century, both disciplines shared common founding fathers. A classic example was Charles Beard, whose influence spanned both areas of scholarship. Indeed, it was a breakaway faction of the American Historical Association that formed the American Political Science Association.