Behavioralism

Origins of Behavioralism

Although behavioralism as a trend began primarily after World War II, there are important predecessors in the context of American political science that paved its way. Beginning in the 1920s, the Chicago School and the New Science of Politics movement urged a greater use of empirical research to establish a scientific identity to the discipline. Charles E. Merriam, a leading figure in political science during those years, and Harold D. Lasswell, with his decades of work in the interdisciplinary area of policy studies, were key figures in those times; without their work, political science may well have taken a different course. Early behavioralist considerations developed in the 1920s as a reaction to the then predominant institutionalist approach, which was called “institutional realism,” “realistic institutionalism,” or simply “realism.” The realist approach focuses on the analysis of the actual relations (in contrast to relations as legally defined) between different government institutions, political parties, and interest groups. In general, the traditional political-scientific analysis of political institutions aimed less at the development of theories than at finding facts. A strict distinction between factual claims and value judgments was an exception rather than the rule.

Originally, behavioralism was a protest movement due to dissatisfaction with traditional political science. The latter—in contrast to its neighboring sciences of sociology and economics—was accused of being characterized neither by cumulative research nor by reasonable scientific communication or even scientific cooperation. This flaw, it was stated, was among others due to political scientists having no common language, no common issues, and no agreement on methods. This was explained by the lack of comprehensive, generally accepted models or terminology schemes of the political process by which research was guided (David Easton, 1969).

This protest was initiated primarily by younger scientists who came from very different intellectual approaches and who were initially rather isolated, since they worked in different fields of political science. Protest was nourished by the experience of increased cooperation between political scientists and government institutions following the New Deal and, most of all, during World War II, when contact with representatives of the other social sciences had also increased. One result of this increased interaction between political scientists and politicians was the painful insight that there was an almost insurmountable difference between what was needed for political advice and what political science could offer. This difference between theory and praxis was not as strong in the neighboring disciplines, particularly psychology and economics, and, to a lesser extent, in sociology. In any case, government institutions were much less interested in advice from political scientists than from economists, psychologists, and sociologists, whose theoretical orientation and methodological basis were generally held in higher esteem than that of political scientists. In this context, the inability of traditional political science to predict events was particularly criticized.

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