The History of Political Science

The history of political science serves as a context within which we make sense of the nature and role of our discipline. Narratives about the past development of British and American political science help to frame debates, choices, and identities within the contemporary discipline in Britain. What do recent studies on the history of political science tell us about the character of political science in Britain and America? What do they suggest about the relation of the British study of politics to British identities more generally? Our review of recent work concentrates on three issues: (1) how historical studies of political science relate to approaches and identities within the contemporary discipline; (2) how they relate to the past, i.e. whether their historical vision is marred by presentism; (3) whether they look beyond the boundaries of the discipline.     

Decolonising the University: The Origins and Meaning of a Movement

This article responds to the contemporary debates in UK higher education about the need to ‘decolonise the curriculum’, with particular attention to the implications for the discipline of history. The author positions these important debates as one outcome of a transnational movement led by students of colour whose grievances reach into and beyond the classroom. The first part of the article examines the origins of this movement identifying some important antecedents as well as the broader political and socio-economic forces that propelled its rise in 2015. There then follows an examination of the movement's multidimensional critique of the university sector, which includes—but is not limited to—the call to ‘decolonise the curriculum', before considering potential implications for academic workers labouring in the discipline of history.     

The Use of Indirection in Televised Political Debates

ABSTRACT

We examine the use of indirection in the three televised debates between George Bush and Al Gore during the 2000 American presidential race. Indirection is a discursive process that enables a speaker to perform a nonliteral “primary” speech act by performing a literal “secondary” speech act. Eight mechanisms of indirection are characterized and explained using examples from the debates. Their occurrence in the debates is also analyzed. The indirection used most often saw the speaker promising to perform an action by expressing his intention to do so. A comparison is made between the American debates and Canadian and Quebec debates. Also questioned is the persuasive effect of indirection in political communication and its potential for strategists and for future research in light of the presented results.     

“Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare!”: An Analysis of Media Effects on Tea Party Health Care Politics

This article analyzes the political effects of American media coverage on Tea Party health care politics. It suggests that the American media's inability to critique the neoliberal assumptions that lay at the foundation of Tea Party ideology have served—however inadvertently—to excite ideological confusion in American health care debates, especially those surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Specifically, this article shows that media failure to make sense of the ideological and statistical basis of Tea Party opposition to the ACA, as well as a general unwillingness to mediate disagreement, have barred mainstream media from helping Americans see that the ACA is largely consistent with neoliberal orthodoxy, and certainly far from “socialist.” As a result, the media has served to legitimate rather than critique positions that stand at the center of Tea Party ideology.     

美国城市限制流浪乞讨的措施及其启示

近二十年来,近半数美国城市对流浪乞讨行为进行了相当严厉的立法管制。管制措施包括设置"禁讨区"、禁止"侵犯性乞讨"以及禁止占用城市的公共场所等。但关于是否应对流浪乞讨行为进行立法管制,美国国内一直存在广泛的争议。本文分析了美国城市限制流浪乞讨行为的举措及其对我国流浪乞讨人员救助管理制度改革的启示。     

Contrarian investment philosophy in the American stock market: on investment advice and the crowd conundrum

Abstract

This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of crowds in the financial market by examining the historical origins and theoretical underpinnings of contrarian investment philosophy. Developed in non-scientific, practice-oriented ‘how to’ handbooks in 1920s and 1930s America, contrarian investment advice was aimed at so-called small investors rather than well-established market practitioners. Emerging out of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about public participation in the stock market, the contrarians expanded on a widely held (amongst financial writers) scepticism about the investment and speculation skills (or lack thereof) of the masses and adopted ideas from the theoretical discipline of crowd psychology, whereby they positioned the mass (i.e. the crowd) in opposition to the successful investor. I argue that despite its idiosyncrasies, the contrarians’ conception of the market based on crowd psychology points to a fundamental fragility of market participants, which still lingers on in recent debates about the wisdom of financial market crowds.     

International relations in China and Europe: the case for interregional dialogue in a hegemonic discipline

Abstract

The international relations (IR) discipline is known as an ‘American Social Science’ dominated by scholars and theories from the US core. This paper compares IR in two noncore settings, China and Europe. It shows that there is a growing institutional and intellectual integration into global Anglophone, mostly American, IR in both Europe and China. Both Chinese and European IR communities have established top Anglophone journals like the European Journal of International Relations and the Chinese Journal of International Politics to spearhead their integration into mainstream Anglophone IR and carve out a space for regional thinking. Yet, the analysis of their publication and citation patterns shows that IR outside the American core communicates through a hub-and-spokes system where there is always a connection to the American core but rarely very strong linkages to other peripheral regions. The two journals studied thus function as outlets for ‘local’ and American scholars, rely on ‘local’ and American sources, and there is very little integration and exchange between Chinese and European IR. Chinese and European IR would benefit from such a dialogue, especially regarding ‘schools’ of IR at the margins of an ‘American social science’.     

Economic knowledge and the scientization of policy advice

The growing role of economic expertise in contemporary policy-making has received increasing scholarly attention. Yet, so far, this discussion has only been tenuously linked to relevant debates in public policy and administration, such as the work on policy advisory systems. The article attempts to bridge this gap by examining the changing reliance on academic economic knowledge within policy advisory bodies. It does so by analysing appointments and citation patterns in Norwegian advisory commissions in economic policy over the last 45 years. The analysis shows a marked increase in the number of academic economists appointed to commissions and in citations to economic literature. Moreover, it reveals an orientation towards the most prestigious outlets of the international economics discipline. This development can be interpreted as a scientization of policy advice in the economic field, that is, a growing reliance on academic expertise for analysis and arguments about public policy.     

Paradigm,School, or Sect? Some Reflections on the Status of Rational Choice Theory in Contemporary Scandinavian Political Science

There is a marked difference between American and Scandinavian political science when it comes to the position of rational choice theory within the discipline. In the US it is said to have become "probably the hottest thing going in political science today", whereas in Scandinavia it seems at present to linger on the borderline between a school and a sect. As part of a possible explanation for this difference, this article points, on the one hand, to some differences between the status of American and Scandinavian political science and on the other hand to some differences between dominant intellectual traditions. The intellectual differences may in turn be linked to differences between American and Scandinavian politics. Thus, in some respects rational choice theory appears to be more congenial to the American than to a Scandinavian political setting. The article concludes with a short discussion of how ongoing changes in Scandinavian and, more generally, European politics might affect the scientific status of rational choice theory in the future.     

Intelligence,crises and security: Lessons from history?

The scholarly study of intelligence has grown steadily into what is now a distinct sub-field of history and political science. Recent events – notably jihadist attacks on the US, Spain and the UK and the war on Iraq and its aftermath – have generated debate and controversy about the use and representation of intelligence. A plethora of official inquiries have fuelled debates into the ‘intelligence failures’ involved. This essay explores how lessons might be learned from the history of intelligence for contemporary debates and controversies. An overview of the issues includes discussion of how different approaches are apparent between American and British perspectives. Challenges and opportunities for applying lessons from the past are explored and a case is made for greater engagement between academia and officialdom.     

Of Revelatory Histories and Hatchet Jobs: Propaganda and Method in Intelligence History

This article explores a number of issues in the contemporary study of intelligence. These issues are methodological (relating to engagement with ‘primary’ sources), epistemological (concerned with notions of ‘bias’ and objectivity), and presentational (dealing with how scholars locate their work within existing debates). The article will contend that the study of intelligence, largely because of its ambiguous positioning on the borderland between political science and history, has been somewhat isolated from the debates over theory and method that have flourished in the wider historical discipline in recent decades, and that an engagement with such literature will yield commensurate benefits. Finally, the article will explore the place of intelligence history within the wider discourse of ‘popular’ history. Given its potentially sensational content, some intelligence literature is targeted at a ‘popular’ readership, but many of the claims made in authoring, promoting and reviewing such books are highly problematic. Since this is inimical to scholarly rigour, and is unlikely to facilitate wider public understanding of major historical issues, such matters need to be addressed.     

The ends justify the means: A global research agenda for political marketing and public affairs

Political marketing has developed into an increasingly mainstream discipline in universities globally over the last decade. There are many schools of political marketing with different approaches, such as the North American approach, the Western and Eastern European perspectives, and the Asian position. The study and application of political marketing has been categorised with different perspectives, such as electoral, governmental, and international aspects. It is becoming increasingly evident that political marketing needs further classification like any matured and established discipline. A close analysis of political marketing practices and academic research leads one to perceive two distinct areas of political exchanges in two different markets: the intranational market and the international market. The first deals with political marketing at a local, district, municipal, state/provincial, and national levels. The second deals with political marketing across national borders. As in the case of commercial marketing, international marketing became a major study field when marketing grew into a matured mainstream discipline in the 1980s.     

Political Science as a Broad Church: The Search for a Pluralist Discipline

In 1996 Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann published an edited collection of essays, A New Handbook of Political Science , that provides probably the best overview of the discipline of political science, at least as seen through the eyes of the mainstream of the profession. Goodin is an American working at the Australian National University, while Klingemann is a German working in Berlin. Nevertheless, their overview represents an American view of political science, which is hardly surprising as more than 75 per cent of living political scientists are American. Overall, they present a picture of the discipline as professional, pluralistic and improving rapidly. Here, we take issue with that view, not as an ambition, but as a reality. In contrast, we argue that political science, particularly US political science, is still dominated by a positivist epistemology and, particularly, by behaviouralist and rational choice approaches that are underpinned by that positivism. We begin by outlining Goodin and Klingemann's argument and critiquing it. Subsequently, we take issue with them empirically, using evidence drawn both from their own edited collection and an analysis of the contents of the two foremost US and UK journals; in the US the American Political Science Review , the American Political Science Association's main journal, and the American Journal of Political Science , and in the UK the British Journal of Political Science and Political Studies , the Political Studies Association's main journal. The methodology adopted is discussed below. In the last section, we consider the consequence of our findings for the future of political science in Britain.     

Natalist Policies in the United States

This retrospective reviews the policies that affect the fertility of American women, both policies designed to alter fertility intentionally as well as those that change childbearing unintentionally. Becker's seminal work on the economics of fertility serves as the theoretical foundation for this literature. After describing Becker's economic model, we review the empirical literature on fertility responses to social welfare policies, tax policies, the mandated health care coverage of infertility treatments, abortion policies, and government‐sponsored family planning services. We also address several Supreme Court cases that have played an important role in the interpretation of these policies. Where relevant, this retrospective describes the distributional effects of these natalist policies. We also discuss the limitations of this literature and identify important gaps. Unlike most developed countries that have created strategies to increase fertility to support their ageing population, the United States spends considerably less time and thought on this issue. Our reading of the literature suggests that we have many public policies that have affected and continue to influence the fertility choices made by families in the United States and that this is a topical area that deserves more attention in policy debates.     

Coalitions and Conservation: Conditional Impacts of Coalitions on Ballot Measures for Open Space

Social scientists have long debated the impact of interest group coalitions on public policies. While views on coalition impacts range from dominance to impotence, an emerging perspective suggests that coalitions have impacts under certain conditions. In this paper, we join and expand that perspective by arguing that coalitions have a conditional impact on public policies through ballot measures. Specifically, we argue that coalitions will have greater impact on ballot measure outcomes in non‐presidential election years, when the stakes involved are high, and when the goals of the measure are diverse. We test these hypotheses with analyses of a dataset of over 2,400 ballot measures on spending for open space at the state and local level between 1988 and 2014. We find strong support for our hypotheses. The findings have implications for scholarly debates on interest groups and coalitions, for the role of ballot measures in American public policy, and for assessments of open space and conservation in American society.     

Empirical philosophies of mind

Three anthropological contributions within the debates on rationality and modes of thought are considered here: Horton's ‘African Traditional Thought and Western Science’, Gellner's Legitimation of Belief and Needham's Belief, Language and Experience. It is argued that within these texts, seemingly diverse and even opposed in theoretical position though they are, certain anthropological imperatives are common. Various philosophical views are invoked in these works in order to grapple with recurrent problems of social anthropology, a discipline conceived as the ‘empirical philosophy of mind’ and expressing itself as an essentially epistemological discourse. These attempts are unsuccessful but the reasons for their lack of success can be traced to certain constraints within the anthropological problematic itself.     

Approaches to Understanding the Inaugural CIA Covert Operation in Italy: Exploding Useful Myths

The Italian election of April 1948 represented the first occasion on which the CIA intervened to influence events abroad. Understanding of the operation has been shaped by three dissimilar approaches that have been critical, celebratory, and stressed continuity. These approaches have, in turn, fuelled a series of useful myths around the episode. Agency declarations of greater ‘openness’ after the Cold War promised to advance historiographical debates on this – and other – interventions through the declassification of records, although proved a false dawn. This article offers an alternative method to analyse the case through a broader international frame of inquiry that considers CIA action in the context of both American and Italian efforts during the election. In so doing, it challenges the useful myths around 1948.     

Teaching American Politics

This article examines some of the hurdles that confront teachers of American government and politics in the United Kingdom. It argues that whilst the problems associated with teaching American politics are hardly unique within the politics discipline, they do pose substantial challenges. In particular, confronting students' stereotypes and prejudices about the United States is a key task of a successful teaching programme. To do this, and to make the study of US politics an 'active' one, some suggestions are made as to how the standard 'textbook approach' can be supplemented and enhanced.     

Deliberative qualities in televised election debates: the influence of the electoral system and populism

Abstract

Concerns are raised repeatedly about the quality of televised debates. Both a country’s electoral system and the presence of populist candidates have been argued to influence the deliberative qualities of these debates. By using an extended version of the Discourse Quality Index, this study conducts a content analysis of 12 televised election debates in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2015. Against expectations, results show that politicians in multiparty systems do not justify their policy positions more and are not more respectful in the televised debates. Rather, this study uncovers a clear populist challenge to key deliberative debate qualities across party systems. Left- and right-wing populist politicians adopt more positions without proper justification, and the presence of right-wing populists in the televised debates increases the number of disrespectful interactions, lowering the deliberative qualities of the televised debates in different electoral contexts.     

The Dynamics of Partisan Conflict on Congressional Approval

Partisan divisions in American politics have been increasing since the 1970s following a period where scholars thought parties were in decline. This polarization is observed most frequently within the debates and deliberation across issues within Congress. Given that most studies of public opinion place the behavior of elites at the center of public attitudes, surprisingly little research examines the effect of partisan conflict on the mass public. This research examines quarterly congressional approval data from 1974 to 2000 to determine the consequences, if any, of party conflict on the dynamics of congressional approval. The findings indicate that over-time changes in partisan conflict within Congress have a direct and lasting effect on how citizens think about Congress.