Political Science in the Next Decade

Extract

In the United States, the academic study of political thought and institutions for nearly two generations has been carried on in a quiet and often sequestered college atmosphere. Departments of political science, having achieved their independence from history or philosophy or from faculties of law, have freely pursued their interests and attracted satisfactorily large groups of students. Political scientists in the past have often been very effective as reformers and sometimes have served as lawmakers and administrators. Our profession has, however, been essentially a product of the humanistic and philosophic tradition of the liberal arts college. Our occasional forays into politics or administration have been treated rather as personal adventures than as habitual to the career of a student of government. As professors of a distinctive discipline, we have taught our courses and expected of our colleagues in other departments that respect for jurisdictional boundaries which serves as the greatest safeguard to our scholarly mysteries and the readiest protection of academic amenities. Changes are already upon us that promise to alter greatly these familiar and pleasant arrangements.

During the next ten years, the profession of political science will be facing conditions that promise to affect profoundly the nature of this discipline. These conditioning factors are (1) the relatively greater rôle that government has assumed and (2) the more active part that students of government are undertaking in public affairs. With these two factors as my premise, I shall discuss their implications for political science as a distinctive field of study.