Abstract
AbstractPolitical science as an independent academic discipline emerged in Europe after the Second World War. Moreover, up until the 1990s, it was mainly a preserve of Western Europe. The discipline began to develop in Central and Eastern Europe only after the 1989/91 political upheavals. When political science was institutionalised as a discipline in Western Europe, it was helped by international organisations such as the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). It would seem, however, that European cross-national organisations do not currently promote and facilitate European political science successfully, as only a few Central and Eastern European institutions participate fully in international cooperation. The current field of European political science is organisationally fragmented, which makes it difficult to enable new countries to adapt to existing institutional frameworks, and to create an institutionalised pan-European political science discipline. Resolving this problem is vital if European political science is to develop more fully.
Highlights
Political science is a relatively young discipline
It pays special attention to the Central and Eastern European countries, as these are still under-r epresented in European political science cooperation frameworks
Following the recognition of political science as a clearly identifiable discipline in Western Europe, its development continued with the founding of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in 1970
Summary
Political science is a relatively young discipline. As an independent academic subject, it only emerged in Europe after the Second World War. The Soviet approach differed in many ways from the Western approaches In principle, it could accept the idea of the scientific study of politics (from the perspective of historical materialism).What it could not accept, was that political science constitutes an independent academic discipline, for the simple reason that Marxism–Leninism already accounted for the workings of politics. Following the recognition of political science as a clearly identifiable discipline in Western Europe, its development continued with the founding of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in 1970. This would not have been possible without the initial impetus offered by the IPSA, with its idea of political science as an independent academic discipline. They may not leave much room for political scientists with less experience in Western (often AngloAmerican) social science practices to participate in the ECPR’s activities
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