Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:41:02.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Role of Research in the Unification of a Discipline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Warren E. Miller*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan

Abstract

Large-scale complex research project designs are providing a new impetus to the elimination of subfield boundaries within political science. Major projects are taking advantage of the methodology and technology of contemporary social research to include comparisons among institutions, across cultural boundaries, and extending through time. As a consequence, traditionally narrow field and subfield concentrations on segments of the political process are giving way to intellectual interests that bring together hitherto separate concerns. The full potential for discipline-unifying research will, however, not be realized until there is a strengthening of the organizational infrastructures for research, a broadening of training in research design and administration, and an increase in funding for large-scale projects. The execution and subsequent intellectual exploitation of large research projects will carry additional problems that will be solved only with substantial changes in the workways of the political scientist, but those problems are greatly outweighed by the positive contribution that such research will make to the future of the discipline.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1981 

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, and Verba, Sidney (1963). The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Samuel H., Kaase, Max, et al. (1979). Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Cain, Bruce, Ferejohn, John and Fiorina, Morris (1979a). “The Roots of Legislative Popularity in Great Britain and the United States.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Cain, Bruce, Ferejohn, John and Fiorina, Morris (1979b). “The House is Not a Home: British M.P.'s in Their Constituencies.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 4: 501–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, Bruce, Ferejohn, John and Fiorina, Morris (1980a). “Legislators v. Legislatures: A Comparative Analysis of Fenno's Paradox.” Presented at the Conference on Congressional Elections, Houston.Google Scholar
Cain, Bruce, Ferejohn, John and Fiorina, Morris (1980b). “The Demand for Constituency Service in Great Britain and the United States.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Center for Political Studies (1978). American National Election Study, 1978 Codebook. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.Google Scholar
Clarke, Peter, and Evans, Susan H. (1980a). “Media Coverage and Voters' Information about Congressional Candidates.” Presented at the Western Political Science Association Meeting, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Clarke, Peter, and Evans, Susan H. (1980b). “All in a Day's Work: Reporters Covering Congressional Campaigns.” Journal of Communication, Autumn, pp. 112–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Converse, Philip E., and Pierce, Roy (1971). “Basic Cleavages in French Politics and the Disorders of May and June, 1968.” Presented at the 7th World Congress of Sociology, Varna, Bulgaria. In Allerbeck, K. R. and Rosenmayr, L. (eds.), Aufstrand der Jugend. Munich: Juventa Verlag.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. (1975). “Some Mass-Elite Contrasts in the Perception of Political Spaces.” Social Science Information 14: 4983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Converse, Philip E. (1979). “Representative Roles and Legislative Behavior in France.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 4: 525–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotter, Cornelius P., and Bibby, John F. (1980). “Institutional Development of the Parties and the Thesis of Party Decline.” Political Science Quarterly 95: 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotter, Cornelius P., Gibson, James L., Bibby, John F. and Huckshorn, Robert J. (1980). “State Party Organizations and the Thesis of Party Decline.” Presented at the 1980 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Evans, Susan, and Clarke, Peter (forthcoming). “Slug it ‘Politics’” to appear in Communicators in Context: Current Research on Mass Communicators, Ettema, J. and Whitney, D. C. (eds.), Sage Annual Review of Communications Research, Vol. 10. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, Edie N., and Traugott, Michael W. (1980). “Congressional Campaign Effects on Candidate Recognition and Evaluation.” Political Behavior 2: 6190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (1979). Guide to Resources and Services, 1979–1980. Ann Arbor, Mich.: ICPSR.Google Scholar
Kim, C. L., Barkan, Joel D., Turan, Ilter and Jewell, Malcolm E. (1981). The Legislative Connection: The Representative and the Represented in Kenya, Korea, and Turkey. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Loewenberg, Gerhard, et al. (1981). The Role of European Parliaments in Managing Social Conflict, forthcoming.Google Scholar
McClosky, Herbert, Hoffman, Paul J. and O'Hara, Rosemary (1960). “Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Party Leaders and Followers.” American Political Science Review 54:406–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. (1963). “Constituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57: 4556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Academy of Sciences, Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey Committee (1969). The Behavioral and Social Sciences: Outlook and Needs. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
National Research Council (1976). Social and Behavioral Science Programs in the National Science Foundation: Final Report. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Stokes, Donald E., and Miller, Warren E. (1962). “Party Government and the Saliency of Congress.” Public Opinion Quarterly 26: 531–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H. and Kim, Jae-On (1971). The Modes of Democratic Participation: A Cross-National Comparison. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Wahlke, John C., Eulau, Heinz, Buchanan, William and Ferguson, Leroy C. (1957). The Legislative System: Explorations in Behavior. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.