John G. Gunnell

The Founding of the American Political Science Association: Discipline, Profession, Political Theory, and Politics

In the evolution of the social sciences, disciplines (forms of research, training, and instruction) preceded professions (distinct occupational identities). Although professionalism has often been viewed as a conservative force, what was arguably the most prominent transformation in the history of political science was the result of a professional challenge to the discipline. The founding of the American Political Science Association represented not only an ideological break with some of the principal voices in the discipline but a reformulation of the reigning vision of the relationship between political science and politics. Despite the markedly different circumstances, the dissenting claims emanating from the subfield of political theory during the behavioral era reflected, in many respects, a similar form of confrontation.

The Myth of the Tradition

Leo Strausss epic rendition of the history of Western political philosophy has been a principal factor in the establishment and perpetuation of the myth of the tradition or the belief that the conventional series of classic works from Plato to Nietzsche represents the development of modern political ideas and constitutes the core of an inherited pattern of thought which, in turn, provides the basic context for interpreting particular texts. Much of the scholarly commentary on the history of political philosophy has been directed toward a critique of contemporary political thought and action, and the idea of the tradition has served as a vehicle for this historical etiology. In Strausss argument, the concept of the tradition plays a strategic rhetorical function, but the myth of the tradition in its various forms has become a pervasive regulative assumption in both teaching and research.

The Development of political science : a comparative survey

In recent years the history of political science has become recognised as an important but neglected area of study. The Development of Political Science is the first comprehensive discussion of the subject in a comparative international perspective. Offering a wide-ranging account of the development of the subject and its dissemination across national borders and cultural divides, the book begins with a study of the historiography of the discipline in the United States, a country which has been at the forefront of the field. Widening its discussion to emphasise Western Europe as a focus for comparison, the contributors provide studies of further areas of interest such as China and Africa. This particular approach emphasises the books vision of political science as a growing transnational body of knowledge. In presenting critical analysis of the state of the field, this vigorous study aims to further the development of the discipline in the countries discussed, and to provide a work that is interesting not only to political scientists, but to all those concerned with the development of the social sciences.

Are We Losing Our Minds? Cognitive Science and the Study of Politics

Contemporary literature in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind points to the locus of significant unresolved theoretical and methodological issues in political theory and political science, and particularly to the persistently anomalous status of mental concepts. The manner in which political and social theorists have accessed and deployed this literature, however, has been highly selective and conceptually problematical. The purpose has often been to justify prior agendas, and issues relating to how brain processes are involved in an explanation of political phenomena have not been satisfactorily confronted. Cognitive science is itself a highly contested field with indigenous theoretical difficulties, and it is necessary to sort out and analyze the salient positions in this conversation and to begin, at least tentatively, to assess critically its implications for both social theory and empirical research and to suggest a direction for further investigation.

Can Political Science History Be Neutral

In the December 1988 issue of this Review, John Dryzek and Stephen Leonard argued the need for “context-sensitive” histories of the discipline of political science. In their view, disciplinary history must guide practical inquiry if it is to be most useful. The course of their argument draws the criticisms of three political scientists concerned about the history of political science—James Farr, John Gunnell, and Raymond Seidelman. Dryzek and Leonard respond to their critics and underscore their own rationale for enhanced interest in the history of the discipline.

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

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 Merriams 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.

Handbooks and History: Is It Still the American Science of Politics?

While the American origins of the discipline of political science have often been noted and stressed, it has also been argued that the field has been fundamentally transformed as it has migrated and been adapted to new political and scientific contexts. There is thus a question of the extent to which it is still an American science of politics. Although one might assume that the recent genre of English language handbooks and state-of-the-discipline studies devoted to establishing the identity of political science would contribute to a better understanding of this matter, this literature has lacked an adequate historical perspective. Representative examples of this genre, both those generated in the United States and those with an ostensibly more international focus, have remained bound to an American vision of the past and present of the discipline and have failed to take account of recent scholarship on the history of political science.

Interpretation and the History of Political Theory: Apology and Epistemology

Recent challenges to traditional approaches and purposes for studying the history of political theory have raised questions about its constitution as both a subject matter and subfield of political science. Methodological arguments advocating what is characterized as a more truly historical mode of inquiry for understanding political ideas and recovering textual meaning have become increasingly popular. The relationship of these hermeneutical claims about historicity, such as that advanced by Quentin Skinner, to the actual practice of interpretation is problematical. Such claims are more a defense of a certain norm of historical investigation than a method of interpretation, and the implications of this norm for the reconstitution of the history of political theory require careful consideration. One must keep in mind that what was written was often written in a different day and age from the one in which the interpreter lives; it is the primary task of interpretation not to understand an ancient text in view of modern thinking, but to rediscover the original relationship between the writer and his audience.

The Genealogy of American Pluralism: From Madison to Behavioralism

Although the concept of pluralism is often equated with democracy in the language of American political science, and in accounts of contemporary trends toward democratization in other countries, both the critique of pluralist theory that began in the 1960s and the early history of the concept suggest the need to reflect on that equation. Pluralism is a concept that often appears in the language of politics, but its systematic meaning is largely a function of its use in talking about politics in the discursive universe of political science. The genealogy of pluralism as a descriptive and normative concept in American political science reveals a great deal about both the evolution of the discipline and its understanding of its relationship to politics.

Realizing Theory: The Philosophy of Science Revisited

Contemporary issues in the philosophy of science, and the recent turn to scientific realism in political theory, prompt both a reconsideration of the nature of theory in social scientific inquiry and an examination of current attempts to appropriate philosophical arguments in support of images of theory and the relationship between social science and political practice. Metatheoretical claims about the explanation of social phenomena and about the possibilities of a critical social science are not a substitute for a substantive theory of social reality and a confrontation with the practical issue of the relationship between political theory and politics.