Bringing the Constitution Back In: Political Science and the State

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dearlove
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
New Institutionalism ◽  
The State ◽  
British Politics ◽  
American Study ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Recent Growth ◽  
Anglo American

At one time the study of politics centred on the state but for much of this century the emphasis has been on political behaviour and policy-making with governmental decisions explained as a response to societal forces. In the last decade or so, state-centric theorists have sought to bring the state back, arguing that it is more autonomous than society-centred theorists have suggested. I record the retreat of the state in the Anglo-American study of politics and the related rise of a particular kind of political science, going on to outline the more recent growth of a ‘new institutionalism’ which places the state at the very centre of political science. Bringing the state back in to the study of British politics must necessarily involve bringing the constitution back in but in ways that avoid the limitations of the constitutional approach and a narrow legalism.

British Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Institutional Foundations

British Politics provides an introduction to British politics with an emphasis on political science to analyse the fundamental features of British politics, and the key changes post-Brexit. Part A looks at constitutional and institutional foundations of the subject. Chapters in this part look at leadership and debating politics and law creation. The second part is about political behaviour and citizenship. Here chapters consider elections, the media, agenda setting, and political turbulence. The final part is about policy-making and delegation. The chapters in this part examine interest groups, advocacy, policy-making, governing through bureaucracy and from below, delegating upwards, and British democracy now.

Crisis, Choice, and Change in Retrospect

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel A. Almond ◽  
Scott C. Flanagan ◽  
Robert J. Mundt
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
New Institutionalism ◽  
American Political Science Review ◽  
Program Committee ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

THE ‘NEW INSTITUTIONALISM’ HAS BEEN THE MOST VISIBLE movement in American political science during the last decade. It is a recoil from reductionism that is said to have dominated the political science of the previous decades. During the American Political Science Association presidency of Charles E. Lindblom in 1981, with Theodore Lowi and Sidney Tarrow as co-chairs of the Program Committee, it was decided that all titles of panels and round tables at the annual meeting were to have ‘and the state’ tacked on. The implication was that the behavioural revolution had resulted in the neglect of the power and autonomy of the state. But this adding on ‘and the state’ had very little effect on the content of the papers, and seemed primarily to have ‘buzzword’ significance. A second manifestation of this discomfort was an article in the American Political Science Review of 1984 by James March and Johan Olsen, entitled ‘The New Institutionalism; The Organizational Factor in Political Life’, followed by a book by the same two authors called Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics.

The state of political science, 2020

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Rom Jensen ◽  
Jonathon W. Moses
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The State

Combating Problems in Teaching State and Local Government

1981 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 19-20
Author(s):  
Mary H. Waite
Keyword(s):  
Community Colleges ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
The State ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Science Instructors

Because many political science instructors come from another region or state; they feel insufficiently informed in teaching about the state and local government wherein they presently reside. Consequently, instructors generalize about these governments. Yet in many public universities and community colleges, students find the politics in their area pertinent and care less for comparative analysis. In truth, the students probably have a valid point, since the majority will reside in the state where they are attending college.

A Note on “Public Policy”

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Government Body

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.

Rosenau's adaptive behaviour approach – a critique

1981 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Systemic Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Level Of Analysis

With the widespread usage of systems analysis in political science over the last twenty years it is axiomatic that the problem of adaptation has been a recurring theme in the literature. At the level of the individual political system this concern has been germane to the work of Easton, the structural functionalists and the developmental/modernization writers. In International Politics writing, the problem of adaptation is central to both the applications of systems theory, at whatever level of analysis (for example Kaplan, Rosecrance at the systemic level, and Hanrieder and Modelski at the state level) and the less overtly theoretical works which still emphasize the importance of a state adapting to its environment.

Trade Unions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Critical Moments

In assessing the relationship between trade unions and British politics, this chapter has two focuses. First, it examines the role of trade unions as significant intermediate associations within the political system. They have been significant as the means for the development of citizenship and involvement in society, as well as a restraint upon the power of the state. Their power has also raised questions about the relationship between the role of associations and the freedom of the individual. Second, the chapter considers critical moments when the trade unions challenged the authority of governments, especially in the periods 1918–26 and 1979–85. Both of these lines of inquiry underline the importance of conservatism in the achievement of stability in modern Britain.

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