Date of Award
12-2009
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Dr. Emily Hauptmann
Second Advisor
Dr. Susan Hoffmann
Third Advisor
Jacinda Swanson
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Campus Only
Abstract
This thesis explores a mid-twentieth century European-American literary discourse on the death and prospects for revival of political theory or political philosophy in the 1950s and early 1960s. This thesis is relevant for contemporary American readers because we can still observe and feel the effects of the behavioral revolution. I look at the literature on the death of political theory and discover that there are two distinct strands of interpretation. In the US, the "behavioral revolt" (Dahl 1961), was embraced and celebrated as a key to the advance of the scientific study of politics. At the same time, disparate European political theorists began a conversation that mourned the loss of the formerly open and eclectic ways and practices of Western political theory. I argue for a new understanding of the behavioral revolution in the US that takes into account the European perspective on the death of political theory. I also discuss how the related themes of positivism and the "scientific study of politics" (Storing 1962), became touchstones for a great deal of writing and discussion in the 1950s and 1960s. This new reading on the death of political theory shows, finally, that political theory can never die.
Recommended Citation
Berkenpas, Joshua R., "The Ongoing Revolution in American Political Science" (2009). Masters Theses. 272.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/272