Stephen T. Leonard

History and Discipline in Political Science

Once sparce and sporadic, histories of political science have proliferated in recent years. We contend that such histories are a necessary feature of the discourse of political science, because there are essential connections between the history, identity, and actual practices of any rationally progressive discipline. In light of the fact that the objects political scientists study are historically and contextually contingent, there has been—and should be—a plurality of histories to match the diversity of approaches in politicalscience. Unfortunately, most histories of political science prove either “Whiggish” and condescending toward the past, or “skeptical” and negative. The consequence has been an inadequate understanding of the relationship between plurality, rationality, and progress in the discipline. Taking into account both the deficiencies and achievements of Whiggish and skeptical accounts, we argue that context-sensitive histories would better serve the rationality and progress of political science.

Political Science in History: Research Programs and Political Traditions

Editors introduction 1. The declination of the state and the origins of American pluralism John G. Gunnell 2. An ambivalent alliance: political science and American democracy Terence Ball 3. The pedagogical purposes of a political science Stephen T. Leonard 4. Public opinion in modern political science J. A. W. Gunn 5. Disciplining Darwin: biology in the history of political science John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg 6. Race and political science: the dual traditions of race relations politics and African-American politics Hanes Walton, Jr., Cheryl M. Miller, and Joseph P. McCormick, II 7. Realism in international relations Jack Donnelly 8. Remembering the revolution: behavioralism in American political science James Farr 9. Policy analysis and public life: the restoration of phronesis? Douglas Torgerson 10. The development of the spatial theory of elections John Ferejohn 11. Studying institutions: some lessons from the rational choice approach Kenneth A. Shepsle 12. Order and time in institutional study: a brief for the historical approach Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek Bibliography.

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.

The Genders of Citizenship

One important legacy of republicanism is the ideal of good citizenship; a related legacy of republicanism is the equation of citizenship and masculinity. These legacies are at once strange and familiar: today, masculinity and citizenship are often conceptualized as discrete and distinctive identities, and some critics, most notably feminists, suggest that in modern democracies good citizenship and masculinity may even be contradictory ideals. The source of these conceptual paradoxes is the transformation of gender and civic discourse in the early modern period, particularly the “long eighteenth century.” Understanding the implications of these changes helps us better grasp both the relationship of gender and citizenship today, and how a more effectively engaged and meaningfully egalitarian form of democratic citizenship, for men and women, might be realized.