Joseph Schumpeter's Two Theories of Democracy. By John Medearis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 263p. $45.00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-806
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
World War ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The Subject ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Empirical Approaches ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter's “elitist” theory of democracy has been the subject of much discussion in political theory. It is commonly considered to have been seminal for the “empirical” approaches to democracy that emerged in American political science after World War II. In this excellent book, John Medearis presents an impressive, careful, and relatively comprehensive account of Schumpeter's writings on the topic of democracy. He argues that Schumpeter has been widely misunderstood, and the richness of his thinking has been wrongly reduced to the chapters of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942) in which the “elitist” theory is developed.

Social Science and Ideology

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Gunnell
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Reform Movements ◽  
Cognitive Authority ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Number Of Individuals ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

The origins of the social sciences were in ideologies associated with moral philosophy and social reform movements. The turn to science was initially to secure the cognitive authority to speak truth to power about matters of social policy. This heritage was particularly salient in the controversy about behaviouralism in American political science. The debate between what was becoming mainstream political science and a growing number of individuals in the subfield of political theory was actually less about whether the discipline could emulate the methods of natural science than about an underlying conflict between competing visions of democracy. This was to some extent the residue of a dispute, which began in the 1920s, between pluralism as the basis of a theory of democracy and a more communitarian image, but it was also a reflection of more recent work in political philosophy as well as ideological differences in the American political context.

Some Contributions of Sociology to Modern Political Theory

1921 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Elmer Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
New York ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
The Subject ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Published Paper ◽  
Science Association

The fact that a sociologist has been requested to appear upon the program of the American Political Science Association is in itself far more significant than any remarks which may be made upon the subject of the relation of sociology to political theory. It is an admission that some political scientists have at last come to consider sociology of sufficient significance to students of politics to be worthy a brief survey of its contributions to modern political theory.Many of the more liberal and progressive political scientists will doubtless ask themselves if this is not erecting a man of straw, and will inquire if there was ever a time when political scientists were not willing to consider the doctrines of sociology. One or two brief reminders will doubtless allay this suspicion. It was only about twenty years ago that a leading New York daily is reputed to have characterized a distinguished American sociologist as “the fake professor of a pretended science.” About a decade ago an ex-president of this association declared in a twice published paper that sociology was essentially worthless and unscientific and that all of its data had already been dealt with more adequately by the special social sciences.

The State in Political Science: How We Became What We Study

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore J. Lowi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
Science Discourse ◽  
Scientific Decision ◽  
American Political Science

American political science is a product of the American state. There are political reasons why particular subdisciplines became hegemonic with the emergence of the “Second Republic” after World War II. The three hegemonic subdisciplines of our time are public opinion, public policy, and public choice. Each is a case study of consonance with the thought-ways and methods of a modern bureaucratized government committed to scientific decision making. Following Leviathan too closely results in three principal consequences: (1) failure to catch and evaluate the replacement of law by economics as the language of the state, (2) the loss of passion in political science discourse, and (3) the failure of political science to appreciate the significance of ideological sea changes accompanying regime changes.

Political Science on the Cusp: Recovering a Discipline's Past

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. GUNNELL
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

As Thomas Kuhn noted, it is almost inevitable that scientific practitioners read the history of their field backward and perceive earlier stages as, at best, prototypical of the present. This is the manner in which political scientists, and even historians, have imaged the relationship between the debates about science and democracy that took place during the 1920s and 1950s. Despite the importance of Charles Merriam's role in the history of American political science, his work was not the discursive axis of the paradigmatic disciplinary shift that took place in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was the arguments of G. E. G. Catlin and W. Y. Elliott that most distinctly represented the transformation in both the theory of democracy and the image of science, and that, for the next two generations, set the terms of the debate about these issues as well as about the relationship between the mainstream discipline and the subfield of political theory. And, despite the theoretical and ideological differences between Catlin and Elliott, their exchange points to the intensely practical concerns that originally informed the controversy about the scientific study of politics.

“The heart above the ruins”: Miriam Waddington’s Poetry, the Spanish Civil War, and Jewish Canadian Literature

1969 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Canadian Literature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Subject ◽  
War Consequences

The Jewish Canadian writer Miriam Waddington returned repeatedly to the subject of the Spanish Civil War, searching for hope amid the ruins of Spanish democracy. The conflict, a prelude to World War II, inspired an outpouring of literature and volunteerism. My paper argues for Waddington’s unique poetic perspective, in which she represents the Holocaust as the Spanish Civil War’s outgrowth while highlighting the deeply personal repercussions of the war – consequences for women, for the earth, and for community. Waddington’s poetry connects women’s rights to human rights, Canadian peace to European war, and Jewish persecution to Spanish carnage.

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