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.

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.

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.

In His Day: Awareness of Wilson’s Duplicity

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 762-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Jagmohan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complex Landscape ◽  
American Political Science

Woodrow Wilson is the only American political scientist to have served as President of the United States. In the time between his political science Ph.D. (from Johns Hopkins, in 1886) and his tenure as president (1913–21), he also served as president of Princeton University (1902–10) and president of the American Political Science Association (1909–10). Wilson is one of the most revered figures in American political thought and in American political science. The Woodrow Wilson Award is perhaps APSA’s most distinguished award, given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the previous year, and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation at Princeton University.Wilson has also recently become the subject of controversy, on the campus of Princeton University, and in the political culture more generally, in connection with racist statements that he made and the segregationist practices of his administration. A group of Princeton students associated with the “Black Lives Matter” movement has demanded that Wilson’s name be removed from two campus buildings, one of which is the famous Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (see Martha A. Sandweiss, “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race,” http://www.thenation.com/article/woodrow-wilson-princeton-and-the-complex-landscape-of-race/). Many others have resisted this idea, noting that Wilson is indeed an important figure in the history of twentieth-century liberalism and Progressivism in the United States.A number of colleagues have contacted me suggesting that Perspectives ought to organize a symposium on the Wilson controversy. Although we do not regularly organize symposia around current events, given the valence of the controversy and its connection to issues we have featured in our journal (see especially the September 2015 issue on “The American Politics of Policing and Incarceration”), and given Wilson's importance in the history of our discipline, we have decided to make an exception in this case. We have thus invited a wide range of colleagues whose views on this issue will interest our readers to comment on this controversy. —Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor.

Roger Boesche: The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville

1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 419-422
Author(s):  
James Schleifer
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
History Of

Roger Boesche, Chair of the Department of Political Science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, lias already written several thoughtful articles about Tocqueville, each marked by clarity of thought and expression: ’The Prison: Tocqueville’s Model for Despotism,” Western Political Quarterly 33 (December 1980):550-63; “The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville,” History of Political Thought 2 (Winter 1981): 495-524; “Why Could Tocqueville Predict So Well?” Political Theory 11 (February 1983): 79-104; “Tocqueville and Le Commerce’. A Newspaper Expressing His Unusual Liberalism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (April-June 1983): 277-92; and “Hedonism and Nihilism: The Predictions of Tocqueville and Nietzsche,” The Tocqueville Review 8 (1986/87): 165-84.

scholarly journals Teologia i duchowość: o przezwyciężenie podziału

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020(41) (3) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Stanisław T. Zarzycki
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Christian Spirituality ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Lives Of The Saints

This article synthetically deals with the relationship between theology and Christian spirituality. In the history of this relationship three periods are distinguished: 1. Original unity covering biblical times, patristics and medieval monastic theology; 2. Separation at the end of scholasticism (13th century), when theology, under the influence of philosophy, became too rationalistic, abstract and detached from life and as such persisted until the 20th century; 3. Reconciliation and gradual restoration and strengthening of unity and cooperation between theology and spirituality (theology of spirituality), starting from biblical and theological renewal before the Second Vatican Council until today. The full realization of this unity takes place in the lives of the Saints.

scholarly journals Lo que fue ya no es y lo nuevo aún no toma forma: elecciones 2006 en perspectiva histórica

2009 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciska Raventós Vorst
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
The Relationship

RESUMEN: Este artículo analiza el proceso de cambio político que se inició en Costa Rica en 1998 y que aún no concluye, ubicándolo en el contexto de la historia política de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Revisa luego las explicaciones que se han dado para el brusco quiebre en el comportamiento electoral de 1998, analiza la relación entre abstención y declive de los dos partidos tradicionales en el período 1998-2006 y se detiene a estudiar algunos rasgos del comportamiento electoral de los ciudadanos en el 2006. Concluye planteando una interpretación preliminar sobre el momento político en que se encuentra el país.ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the process of ongoing political change that has taken place in Costa Rica since 1998. It is analyzed in the context of the political history of the second half of the 20th century. This article reviews the explanations of the sudden shift in electoral behaviour in 1998, analyzes the relationship between electoral abstention and the decline of the two traditional parties between 1998 and 2006, and it studies some characteristics of voting behaviour in 2006. The paper concludes with a preliminary interpretation of the current political situation.

Giacomo Devoto 1898–1974

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-513
Author(s):  
Paolo Ramat
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Studies ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Significance ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Relationship

Summary The paper essays to give a brief survey of the imposing and complex work of Giacomo Devoto (1897–1974), with particular emphasis on its principal traits seen both from the point of view of the history of linguistics and its scientific significance. Especial attention is drawn first of all to Devoto’s position vis-à-vis Benedetto Croce’s Idealism and the linguistic positivism of the first half of the 20th century. It seems possible to define Devoto’s position as a dialectic one between these two intellectual currents, which eventually led to an historicism, which actually was typical of the Italian linguistic tradition. From this viewpoint then Devoto’s understanding of language as an ‘institution’ is examined, including his intervention in the dispute between N. Ja. Marr and Stalin. After having dealt with his concept of a ‘stylistics of language’, which returns to regarding langue as an historicaland social institution, and its difference from a literary stylistics, Devoto’s Indo-European studies are examined. Here, the question of the relationship between linguistics and the other disciplines concerned with antiuqty is discussed, a relationship which Devotohad been obliged on several occasions to come back to. The ‘Devotian’ position is presented critically with the help of discussions which Devoto himself had entertained, with archaeologists and with linguists.

Elinor Ostrom

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
David Goetze
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Public Choice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Indiana University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Choice Society ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

On June 12, 2012 Elinor Ostrom died. She was Distinguished Professor, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, and founder of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University (now renamed in honor of her and her husband Vincent, who also passed away this year). Lin served as the President of the American Political Science Association and the Public Choice Society and was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics (2009). She was an enthusiastic contributor to APLS Annual Meetings—she organized panels, served as a plenary speaker at our 2006 meeting on the IU campus, and gave the keynote address at the 2010 meeting in Bloomington.

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