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This essay explores how three components of the new political history—research on the motivations behind the rise of conservatism, the discovery of the nineteenth-century state, and arguments about the particularities of public policy—can offer useful analytical tools for political scientists.

AbstractThe article discusses the term "recursive," which has multiple uses in the political science literature. The two principle uses are reviewed, with attention to precedent and technical meanings, and examples are provided of mathematical concepts and their application to political science literature. The problem of divergent meaning is addressed through a survey of potential for reconciliation or possible substitute terminology.

Kim Quaile Hill (PS: Political Science and Politics, July 2004) seeks to
debunk five "myths about the physical sciences" that "pose notable hurdles for appreciating
the social sciences as legitimate scientific enterprise" (467). One of these myths is that
"the physical sciences have always been highly successful in explaining their subject
matter." Hill complains that political science students are "ignorant of the history of
science" and therefore they fail to "appreciate the differences between young and mature
scientific disciplines…. If students can appreciate that all sciences were once youthful—as
political science still is today—they will have a useful perspective by which to understand
why and how the knowledge base of our discipline is limited" (469).

In 1977, Charles Lindblom concluded his study ofPolitics and Marketswith the assertion that "the large private corporation fits oddly into democratic theory and vision. Indeed, it does not fit." In 1983, Robert Reich envisionedThe Next American Frontieras the eradication of the distinction between business culture and civic culture in the United States and the full integration of the corporation into the country's key political and social processes. Failure to achieve such a new political-economic compact could mean, Reich asserted, the end of democracy's progress in America. Between Lindblom and Reich lie six short years in time and one vast gulf in political theory and policy perspective. Their positions set the framework for a whole series of political choices confronting American politics today. They also set an agenda for political science as a discipline that studies power, authority, and social change—an agenda calling for an expansion of both intellectual focus and analytical paradigms.Differences between the purposes and contents of Lindblom's and Reich's studies can be cited, of course.Politics and Marketspresents itself as a scholarly work in the theory of political economy, whereasThe Next American Frontierhas a definite prescriptive flavor designed to influence current political debate. But such differences do not obscure the important element shared by the two books: recognition of the power and position of large corporations as the determining factor in the political-economic future of liberal democracy. Generated from this are several critical questions both authors confront: What is the purpose of public power and that of private economic power in advanced industrial societies today? What should be the relationship between the two as regards the preservation of liberal democracy? Whatisthat relationship when the large corporation is taken into account? What redirection of corporate power is necessary or possible? What blending of corporate institutions and political institutions does liberal democracy allow—or demand?

Political science has developed rapidly in the last half-century, but this has posed at least three serious problems. First, almost no attention has been given to political activity in private bodies: the scope of political analysis is narrowed as a result. Second, the connection between political science and 'policy analysis' is wholly unclear, which raises the danger that political science may want to cover too much or too little! Third, political science has always been concerned with norms, yet aims to be a science: this is no easy relationship. Adapted from the source document.

The contemporary estrangement of political theory from political science is in large measure the product of a quarrel that originated in the challenge to the values of U.S. political science initiated by émigré scholars during the 1940s. The behavioral revolution was in an important respect a conservative rebellion in defense of the values of liberalism and related notions of science, relativism, and historical progress that had traditionally informed the discipline. This controversy in the context of political science fundamentally structured the discourse of academic political theory and the contemporary constitution of the field both as a division of political science and as a wider interdisciplinary enterprise.