Social Science and Ideology

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.

10.1017/s0003055402300467 ◽

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 ◽

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.

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

10.1017/s0003055405051907 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 99 (4) ◽

pp. 597-609 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

JOHN G. GUNNELL

Keyword(s):

Political Theory ◽

Political Science ◽

20Th Century ◽

Scientific Study ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Two Generations ◽

History Of ◽

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.

Report on a Survey of the Membership of the American Political Science Association

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s104909650001180x ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 7 (04) ◽

pp. 382-385 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Thomas E. Mann

Keyword(s):

Political Science ◽

Executive Director ◽

Response Rate ◽

Full Time ◽

National Office ◽

Final Questionnaire ◽

Number Of Individuals ◽

In conjunction with a discussion of the FY 1974–75 Budget at its April, 1974, meeting, the Council of the American Political Science Association instructed the Executive Director to survey the membership of the Association as to their attitudes toward the usefulness ofPSin form and content. In order to take full advantage of the resources needed to conduct this survey, the National Office conceived a broader study of membership attitudes toward Association activities. The final questionnaire was approved by the Council.On June 7, 1974, the questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 individuals selected randomly from the membership files of the Association. A second mailing was sent to those who had not responded on July 9. A total of 530 completed questionnaires were received for a response rate of 53 percent.The demographic characteristics of the membership, as reflected in the sample, are portrayed in Table 1.The small number of students in the sample is surprising, given the fact that a third of all Association members pay student dues. This discrepancy cannot be attributed to differential response rates; a check of our numbering system confirms the fact that “student” members returned their questionnaires at the same rate as “annual” members. Clearly, a substantial number of individuals paying student dues are employed full-time.

The “Absence of Chance” and the “Serving of Ends”

Spectrum ◽

10.29173/spectrum80 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Quah Say Jye

Keyword(s):

Political Theory ◽

Political Science ◽

Scholarly Literature ◽

The Social ◽

Political Principles

Aristotle’s concept of nature, captured in quotations such as “nature does nothing in vain” and “man by nature is a political animal,” is a topic consistently discussed within scholarly literature. This paper’s primary aim is to demonstrate how Aristotle’s concept of nature underpins his political theory. It first uncovers Aristotle’s concept of nature, then it demonstrates how this concept underpins his political principles. Aristotle’s concept of nature is first broken down to two ideas: the “absence of chance,” which describes the regularity and permanence of phenomena, and the “serving of ends,” which explains Aristotle’s teleological approach. As such, Aristotle’s nature is used both to describe and explain phenomena, and therefore it shows both how and why certain phenomena occur. Armed with this understanding of nature, this paper shows how Aristotle applies this concept of nature to derive two political principles - the “principle of rulership” and the “social instinct.” These political principles in turn underpin his political theory and approach to political science. This paper shows that, through an understanding of Aristotle’s concept of nature, we can better understand the foundation of his politics.

Political Science as a Discipline: A Statement by the Committee on Standards of Instruction of the American Political Science Association

10.2307/1952376 ◽

1962 ◽

Vol 56 (2) ◽

pp. 417-421 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Gabriel A. Almond ◽

Eric C. Bellquist ◽

Joseph M. Ray ◽

John P. Roche ◽

Irvin Stewart ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Social Psychology ◽

Political Science ◽

Human Experience ◽

Conceptual Schemes ◽

The Social ◽

Factual Data ◽

Political science is a basic discipline in the social sciences. Although it must necessarily maintain close scholarly association with the disciplines of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, and social psychology, political science cannot be considered a part of any of these other social sciences. Political science has its own area of human experience to analyze, its own body of descriptive and factual data to gather, its own conceptual schemes to formulate and test for truth.

Area Studies and the Disciplines: A Rejoinder

Issue A Journal of Opinion ◽

10.1017/s0047160700502480 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 29-31

Author(s):

John W. Harbeson

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Political Science ◽

Comparative Politics ◽

Scientific Knowledge ◽

Important Work ◽

Area Studies ◽

The Social ◽

Robert Bates’ letter entitled “Area Studies and the Discipline” (American Political Science Association, Comparative Politics 1, Winter 1996, pp. 1-2) uses the occasion of the SSRC’s abolishing of area committees to announce that “within the academy, the consensus has formed that area studies has failed to generate scientific knowledge.” As someone who has done some of his most important work on African development issues, Bates deplores declining investment in area studies as a “loss to the social sciences, as well as to the academy,” at an inopportune moment, “just when our [political science] discipline is becoming equipped to handle area knowledge in a rigorous fashion.”

Elinor Ostrom

Politics and the Life Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0730938400014325 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 31 (1-2) ◽

pp. 107

Author(s):

David Goetze

Keyword(s):

Policy Analysis ◽

Public Choice ◽

Political Theory ◽

Political Science ◽

Indiana University ◽

The Public ◽

Public Choice Society ◽

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.

A Conversation with Theda Skocpol

Annual Review of Political Science ◽

10.1146/annurev-polisci-030816-105449 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Theda Skocpol ◽

Eric Schickler

Keyword(s):

Political Science ◽

Harvard University ◽

National Academy Of Sciences ◽

Arts And Sciences ◽

Social Science History ◽

The Social ◽

The University ◽

Academy Of Sciences ◽

American Political Science

An interview with Theda Skocpol took place at Harvard University in December 2017. Professor Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Skocpol is the author of numerous books and articles well known in political science and beyond, including States and Social Revolutions, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, and The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (the latter coauthored with Vanessa Williamson). Skocpol has served as President of the American Political Science Association and the Social Science History Association. Among her honors, she is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences, and she was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. She was interviewed by Eric Schickler, the Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. The following is an edited transcript; a video of the entire interview can be viewed at https://www.annualreviews.org/r/theda-skocpol .

Some Contributions of Sociology to Modern Political Theory

10.2307/1947011 ◽

1921 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 487-533 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Harry Elmer Barnes

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

New York ◽

Political Theory ◽

Political Science ◽

The Subject ◽

Published Paper ◽

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.

„Geistige Orientierung“ der Bertelsmann-Stiftung

PROKLA Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft ◽

10.32387/prokla.v31i122.755 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 31 (122) ◽

pp. 123-143 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Oliver Schöller

Keyword(s):

Social Reform ◽

Entire Range ◽

World Wide ◽

Reform Movements ◽

Social Character ◽

Media Companies ◽

The Social ◽

Social Reform Movements ◽

The World

It will be presented the German Bertelsmann-Foundation which belongs to one of the world-wide biggest media companies. The enterprise-foundation exerts an important influence on several social reform movements in Germany. Doing this, the Bertelsmann-Foundation succeeds in integrating associations, parties and personalities representing nearly the entire range of society. This raises the question, weather the foundation is a political neutral institution as it claims to be. By having a critical look at the foundation-project „intellectual orientation“ the social character of production of ideas by the Bertelsmann-Foundation will be demonstrated. It can be shown, the role of the Bertelsmann-Foundation is that of a mediator, transforming different interests into a new kind of social corporatism.