Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:41:42.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

American Political Science, Liberalism, and the Invention of Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John G. Gunnell
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany

Abstract

The contemporary estrangement of political theory from political science is in large measure the product of a quarrel that originated in the challenge to the values of U.S. political science initiated by émigré scholars during the 1940s. The behavioral revolution was in an important respect a conservative rebellion in defense of the values of liberalism and related notions of science, relativism, and historical progress that had traditionally informed the discipline. This controversy in the context of political science fundamentally structured the discourse of academic political theory and the contemporary constitution of the field both as a division of political science and as a wider interdisciplinary enterprise.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Gabriel, Dexter, Lewis, Whyte, William, and Hallowell, John. 1946. Politics and Ethics—A Symposium. American Political Science Review 40:283312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, William. 1949. Political Science North and South. Journal of Politics 11:298317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appleby, Paul. 1950. Political Science, the Next Twenty-five Years. American Political Science Review 44:924–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1951. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Brecht, Arnold. 1947. Beyond Relativism in Political Theory. American Political Science Review 41:470–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brecht, Arnold. 1959. Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brecht, Arnold. 1970. The Political Education of Arnold Brecht. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Easton, David. 1949. Walter Bagehot and Liberal Realism. American Political Science Review 43: 1737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1950. Harold Lasswell; Political Scientist for a Democratic Society. Journal of Politics 12:450–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1951. The Decline of Political Theory. Journal of Politics 13:3658.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1953. The Political System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Finer, Herman. 1945. Towards a Democratic Theory. American Political Science Review 49: 249–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, Carl J. 1938. Thomas Hobbes: Myth Builder of the Modern World. Journal of Social Philosopy 3:251–57.Google Scholar
Gunnell, John G. 1983. Political Theory: The Evolution of a Subfield. In Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Finifter, Ada W.. Washington: American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Gunnell, John. 1986. Between Philosophy and Politics: The Alienation of Political Theory. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Hallowell, John H. 1942. The Decline of Liberalism. Ethics 52:323–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowell, John. 1943. The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hallowell, John. 1944a. Politics and Ethics. American Political Science Review 38:639–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowell, John. 1944b. Review of Arnold Brecht, Prelude to Silence: The End of the German Republic. Journal of Politics 6:466–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowell, John. 1947. Modern Liberalism: An Invitation to Suicide. South Atlantic Quarterly 46:453–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowell, John. 1950. The Main Currents of Modern Political Thought. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max. 1947. Eclipse of Reason. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Kelsen, Hans. 1948. Absolutism and Relativism in Philosophy and Politics. American Political Science Review 42:906–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasswell, Harold, and Kaplan, Abraham. 1950. Power and Society. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lippincott, Benjamin. 1940. The Bias of American Political Science. Journal of Politics 2:125–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippincott, Benjamin. 1950. Political Theory in the United States. In Contemporary Political Science, ed. Ebenstein, W.. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Marcuse, Herbert. 1941. Reason and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, Felix. 1950. Relativism, Absolutism, and Democracy. American Political Science Review 44:951–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Charner. 1950. The Semantics of Social Science. Discussion by Max Radin, George Lundberg, Harold Lasswell, and Herbert Simon. American Political Science Review 44:394425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabine, George H. 1939. What is Political Theory? Journal of Politics 1:116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spengler, J. J. 1950. Generalists versus Specialists in Social Science: An Economist's View. Discussion by Cook, Thomas I., Rice, Stuart, and Wilson, Francis G.. American Political Science Review 44:358–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, Leo. 1936. The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Its Basis and Genesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Voegelin, Eric. 1952. The New Science of Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Voegelin, Eric. 1975. From Enlightenment to Revolution. Ed. Hallowell, John H.. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
White, Leonard D. 1950. Political Science, Mid-Century. Journal of Politics 12:1319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whyte, William F. 1943. A Challenge to Political Scientists. American Political Science Review 37: 692–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Francis G., Wright, Benjamin F., Griffith, Ernest S., and Voegelin, Eric. 1944. Research in Political Theory: A Symposium. American Political Science Review 38:726–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 1960. Politics and Vision. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.