A New Handbook of Political Science - Chapter 2

Politca Science: The History of the Discipline
by Gabriel A. Almond
Pages 50 - 96

What has improved in political science scholarship over the years is our qualitative knowledge of the properties of political institutions and the criteria we use in evaluating them

The "Chicago blip" in the interwar years introducing organised empirical research programmes, emphasising psychological and sociological interpretations of politics, and demonstrating the value of quantification.

Post war "blip" - behavioural revolution, much bigger, improvements in the more traditional sub-disciplines and professionalisation (in the establishment of multi-membered, meritocratically recruited, relatively non-heirarchic departments).

Third blip, deductive and mathematical methods, economic models in the "rational choice/methodological individualist" approach.

Four opposing views of the history of political science, two of which challenge its scientific character - the "anti-science" position as well as the "post-science" position. Marxism and rational choice school challenge the discipline's eclecticism in facour of a purist, heirarchical monism {unity in a given field of enquiry}.


Straussians express the anti-science view, that the introduction of scientific methodology is a harmful illusion - basic truths are to be uncovered by direct colloquy with the classics and old texts.

"Post-empirical", "post-behavioural" approach takes a deconstructive view; there is a pluralism of disciplinary identities, each with its own view of disciplinary history.

Marxist, neo-Marxist and "critical theory" approaches argue that social science (there can be no separable political science) consists of the unfalsifiable truths discovered in the works of Marx and elaborated by his associates and followers. The science of society reveals itself in its own dialectical development.

Rational choice theory rejects electicism aiming for a formal heirarchical model of political science applicable to the whole of social reality.

This may be useful in answering whether political science is indeed a discipline, or something else, and what comparative politics is. Tie in with the idea of metaphysical "natural kinds".

Almond assumes that political science is on the "cloud" side of Karl Popper's (1972) clouds and clocks continuum. The regularities it discovers are probabilistic rather than law-like and many of them have relatively short half-lives.

Greek and Roman scholarship - a brief historical overview
Begins with Plato (428 - 348 BCE) - Republic, Statesman and Laws are the first classics
Plato sets out propositions about justice, political virtue, athe varieties of polity and their transformation which have survived as political theories.
In the Republic virtue was a key variable. Plato presents his ideal regime based on knowledge and possession of the truth (exemplifying virtue), the other 4 regimes in descending order of virtue:
Timocracy - honour and military glory supplant knowledge and virtue
Oligarchy - wealth replaces honour as the princple of recruitment
Democracy - corruption of oligarchy
Tyranny - corruption of democracy
Later, in Statesman, he distinguishes between the ideal republic and realistic polities. 3 by 2 table, as in, rule of the many, few, or one, by pure or impure versions of each. Six fold classification: democracy, oclochracy (mob rule); aristocracy, oligarchy; monarchy, tyranny.
In The Laws, presented the first version of the Mixed Constitution. This obtains stability by combining principles often in conflict: monarchic principle of wisdom and virtue with democratic principle of freedom. This is the first explanatory theory in political science in which institutions, attitudes and ideas are related to process and performance. It is the ancestor of separation of powers theory.

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Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) formed his own Lyceum after being a pupil of Plato. His methods were inductive, empirical and historical (in contrast to idealist and deductive approach of Plato). The Lyceum collected 158 constitutions of Greek city-states, only Athens's survived. The Lectures that make up Politics were based on analysis and interpretations of these.
Where the rich dominate we have oligarchy. Where the poor dominate we have democracy. Where the middle-class dominate we have mixed or constitutional governments. The magistrative, judicial and deliberative organs determine political structures and patterns of recruitment (importance of insitutions).
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Potential criticisms from Dahl and Verba. Not scientific enough. The Aristotelian method consists essentially of a clinical sorting out of specimens, with hypotheses about causes and sequences, but without systematic tests of relationships.
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The Times reporting of the signing of the US Constitution

The Times has the page its archive.

Date of reporting 19th September 1787. (more)

Hans-Georg Gadamer. 1960. Truth and Method

Book about philosophical hermenutics (methods of interpretation). Post-positivist approach to social science.

Notes etc... (more)