The Science of Politics in the United States

Abstract

The study of politics in the United States today is something in size, content, and method unique in Western intellectual history. As Professor Pendleton Herring has recently said: “Political science as a subject of systematic enquiry started with Aristotle but as a profession it has won its greatest recognition in the United States and within our generation. One fact is clear: no other country in the world has so large, so well trained, so competent a profession dedicated to the teaching and analysis of government… . This profession … is now part of our national strength.” Not merely has the size of “the profession” grown so much since Aristotle's day, but the method has also markedly changed. American methods have consciously aspired to the modern concepts of natural science. There has been an advocacy of an integrated science of society, resting especially on concepts drawn from modem physics, biology, and psychology, and on a marked displacement of speculative philosophy and historical study. There now follow, from a sceptical foreigner, some reflections on the claims of Professor Herring. It is surely important for friends and neighbours to make some judgment on how a political science profession can become a “partof … national strength” and how relevant these new methods can be to the peculiar historical experience of the United States.