The National Character of Ernest Barker's Political Science

Abstract

This article considers the writings of Sir Ernest Barker (1874–1960), one of the first professional political scientists in Britain. It examines his background in Literae Humaniores and Modern History at late-Victorian Oxford, disciplines which respectively imparted the idealist and Whig framework of his later thought. It is argued that Barker's fusion of these two rival discourses – together with the concerns of early twentieth-century pluralism – reinforced powerful cultural motifs. As a consequence, the significance of political science seems to have outstretched the academic boundaries in which it increasingly became confined after his death.