Political Science and Modern British Society

Abstract

FOUR YEARS AGO THIS JOURNAL INITIATED AN OCCASIONAL series on the development of political science in different countries. To date four articles have appeared covering West Germany, Japan, France and the United States of America. Reading them together one is struck as much by the similarities as by the differences between the four countries. The main distinction of a comparative kind to be made, of course, is the fact of the sheer size and corresponding influence of American political science in relation to that of any other country or indeed all other countries taken together. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that commentaries on the contemporary character of American political science are almost exclusively concerned with its own methodological and professional considerations, while analogous exercises on the recent development of the discipline in other countries invariably dwell at length on how each has responded to the paradigmatic changes that have been pioneered from time to time in the USA; and as often as not they will admit of a hint of apology either for not embracing the new American modes fully enough, or, if positively disinclined so to do, for not developing a sufficiently considered critique of their shortcomings, or, again, for not themselves innovating alternative approaches and techniques of similar import and magnitude.