2024-08-23
Woodrow Willson: "I believe that our own institutions can be understood and appreciated only by those who know somewhat familiarly other systems of government and the main facts of general institutional history. By the use of a through comparative and historical method, a general clarification of view may be obtained...."
A discipline grows and is shaped by within its specific social and historical settings. Comparative politics, in its preceding development - saw periods of progress and challenges, by its very nature, it embedded in time and space. It is in the times crisis, when existing values, structures, and social systems are challenge and questioned, institutions shattered. In the times of crisis, in challenge of revolutionary upheaval or in the defense of a threatened system that eminent social scientists come to the fore, where science of man/science of human flourish.
Politics, in theory and practice, is faced with issues and decisions of that temporal and special settings, that's why, we must rethink tenets and consider changing background, a renewed response from each generation.
Comparative politics had gone a significant change in early 5th decades of 20th century. Observing public opinion as a whole, significant changes apparent in the approach to the affairs of the state- from political alchemy to political morphology to comparative government proper. In the initial stage, mere collection of exotic facts in world affairs, out of curiosity. To a more serious and systematic consideration of significant dates and events become more prominent, with the new young nations emerges between the two world wars. Aftermath of this stage, purposeful comparison of alternatives in policy decisions- for maturing of protagonists among the great powers. Which makes demands that the academic discipline grow and change its character entirely.
The shifts in the discipline, in the USA, were even more articulate and characteristically quite separate from the prevailing climate of academics. Political science started out as an esoteric enterprise of a small group of academicians in a time of an America, that did not question its own existence, its power of absorbing an even-growing population, its promises of the wide-open spaces and its continental security, guaranteed by the mighty British navy in control of the seven seas. Even if questions or criticism arose at all, they were related to particulars issues such as immigration, the integration of racial minority groups, the coordination of social class or strata in the fast-growing giant cities. If there had been only these concerns, political science would never have been developed.
Political science as a distinct discipline is confined largely to the 20th century. Originally the study of the state, if undertaken at all, was dealt with by historians, jurists, and philosophers. In this short period of its independent existence, three definite stages of development may be recognized in the field and, with some slight, though characteristic variations, to be sure, equally detected in the specific areas of our research-in theory and public law, in national government and public administration, in international affairs and comparative politics. One may characterize the prevailing intellectual climate of these three phases as idealistic, positivistic, and realistic.
The first school of political scientists was brought by the deep dissatisfaction among some young academicians who measured the reality of their American community against the ideals of an imagined polis and found it wanting. For the today's sophisticate, it is easy to smile at the naivete of their concepts, but their complaints about the issues in "Congressional Government", in "Boos rule", and "the shame of the cities" were real, and so there were proper models of proper politics. Not that they all agreed on any specific governmental modal as the best, but they all shared a common conviction that an ideal did exist and could be pragmatically realized in a step-by-step development.
Fundamental assumptions apparently served as the basis of their conception of comparative politics:
Form rather than functions, means of communication rather than content-analysis of dynamic forces, were the main concerns of the experts. The primary emphasis gave to a descriptive study of national institutions, constitutional structure and administrative organizations. This concern reflected not only the natural desire to give the young discipline a definite and concrete framework before it could grapple with the more fluid forces of dispersive dynamics, but also meant to reject the doubts and accusations of the established older social sciences concerning the "scientific reliability" of politics. It was political science political orientation, and its "subjective" ties, which made it suspect in the eyes of the so-called "objective" disciplines. Indeed, the emancipation of political science was to some extent a not altogether voluntary declaration of independence, it could have meant expulsion from the temples of the university. In order to prevent this, political science tried to keep out of "politics" and to stand so to speak "on neutral ground".
The retreat to factual description and expert advice, no doubt, allowed political science to develop pioneering tasks, which in a way anticipated to contribute certain characteristics to the next phase in its academic process. Yet such deep-seated defensive disposition lead, especially in later periods, to strange adoptions of a conceptual course which in turn led political science to neglect the essential assignments of its domain. These trying adjustments were aggravated by an additional factor in the American academic picture. It is worth remembering that the young political science borrowed heavily from continental experiences, of European universities and academics. Especially Germany, it was the center of whole generation of social scientists and made a deep impact on the development of higher learning in the USA.
The universities, which had once been centers of the fight for freedom, had now been transformed into training centers for leadership in important public offices, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the teaching profession. In performing this crucial function, the academicians could allow themselves the privilege of "freedom of research" in the less dangerous fields of philosophy and arts. Conscious separation from policy decisions, this castration and unassuming insolation was the price they paid for the social prestige and acceptance.
Adoption of European system of rigid abstraction in the USA, prevailing pragmatical atmosphere, such borrowing could easily lead to new tensions. But strangely, it was often the most abstract theory that made the deepest impression on the practitioners. It would not be difficult to show fundamental discrepancies between an inherent inclination toward pragmatic progressive politics and a determined drive for scientific systematics, embraced by the very same people.
First generation of political scientists, hold together by an unshaken belief in a rational progress for person freedom. In search for scientific technique there was much to admire and to adopt in the European universities, even to societal differences and inconsistencies. Although, American political scientists drawn their strength from different sources, a symbiosis of rationalist idealism help to sustain this effort through the first decades.
The world-war first was the first deep disturbance, for rationalist idealist, Wilson succeeded in persuading the nation that this was "the war to end all wars" and the war "to make the world safe for democracy". This event was interpreted as a seemingly necessary step leading up to popular government and league of nations. It was a decade later that the full impact of this new age of world wars and revaluations was felt, and that a changing climate of opinion could be observed.
The second phase of American political science research was closely related to the frustrating experiences of the armistice between the world wars. They gave rise to a disillusionment with the basic tenets of the idealistic school. Instead of the "assured" spread of free institutions, aggressive dictatorships emerged; despite of multiple conferences to promote international understanding, the system of collective security collapsed; and irrational, integral nationalisms held the spread across the people and the harmony of interests up to ridicule.
In reaction to the philosophic idealism, a new generation turned its interest to the concrete and detailed study of material forces. This school rejected the naive utopianism of the earlier stage by accepting an equally naive cynicism (an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest, skepticism). Ideologies were presented as subjective sentiments, superfluous (unnecessary, especially through being more than enough), and misleading rationalizations of the simple reality of objective power. It is obvious that such reaction did a great injustice to the accomplishments of the early pathfinders of political science.
In contrast of first phase's great panaceas, quick generalization, broad comparisons, unrecognized deduction, and speculative theory. New phase was a sobering, it turned towards details, concrete phenomena, inductive empiricism, focus on measurable and verifiable data in order to make politics at last "scientific."
In this positivist period of "objective" fact-finding, although problems with methodological problems, sharpened the tools of our perception and our critical source analysis by introducing and testing elaborate techniques of case studies, survey methods, and statistical research. During these years of comparative government research, gave the discipline a substantive foundation from which to operate a rationally controllable body politic (the people of a nation, state, or society considered collectively as an organized group of citizens) and to advance the frontiers of our knowledge. New areas of research developed, and the machinery of functioning political systems was subjected to intensive analysis. The rise of public administration was probably the most conspicuous (clearly visible) corollary to this trend. At times it almost seemed as if the public administration overshadows the other fields of the discipline. In truth, the data brought together consisted mostly of the mere raw material, out of which politics is made, it was not a particularly exciting collection at that. Comparative government after a period, feels tedious and stagnating.
The young scholars knew it too. If they entered the study of politics at all, they turned to the entertaining and enthralling "international relations," which in some universities had moved out of the domain of political science. The separation of both, had some detrimental negative impact on both. "International relations" was often degraded to pontifical study on contemporary events. On the other hand, comparative government bogged down with outdated data. A common approach, combination of both, with systematic penetration and scholarly perspective, to the burning issues of the time, would be mutually beneficial.
The comparative government seemed for a while to be competely overshadowed among its academic companions, by public administration and international relations. But it was not the most serious shortcoming in this low ebb of its esteem.
The real problem and peril of this period becomes apparent, if one closely sees the underlying assumptions and expectations of its protagonists. Notwithstanding, was by no means "free from value judgments." Material positivists were open to positivist criticism, such as Vilfredo Pareto. This master mind of man's irrationality indeed appealed to a generation whose belief in progress and rational man had been shaken by the chaos of war and revoluation.
This shocking experience did not lead to a complete resignation of the cynicism and utter despair. Instead, political scientists seek to find the persistent powers and determining laws which make irresponsible and irascible (having or showing a tendency to be easily anegre) man operate. In search of this "Open Sesame" of the rationale behind man's irrationalism, 20th century scientific inquiry has indeed pushed forward the frontiers of knowledge and has made its pioneers (Freud, Kohler and many other) welcome pathfinders to a new political science. Its novelty was due to rich influx in methods and materials from other research disciplines. Yet, impact of such scientific expansion and cross field fertilizations was to be felt later in its third stage. When a more cautions and confident discipline would weigh, digest and assimilate the findings of other fields.
Such careful differentiation was certainly not the order in the earlier stages of the explorers, when an uncritical identification with the natural sciences was often proclaimed. Behind such a confession one might even have detected an urge for a simple, over-all formula. In the justice of that phase, one might remember that it was part and parcel of a cultural crisis; where it lost its values, was in search for stable concepts, indisputable tenets, absolute standards. For such new poster a new scientific absolutism was to establish. Whenever its youth could not find satisfactory answers, it looked for them outside the lecture halls. Marxism attracted some of them, it seemed to give a complete comprehension of past history, a scientific prediction of the future. This direction and certainty come with a cost, individuals were ready to surrender his/her freedom, for sake of comprehensive, deterministic worldview. These were the deeper roots of modern totalitarianism and its fascinating appeal. Only a new image of individual and his/her meaningful place in society could defeat such morbid self-destruction.
Most certainly such a new perspective was not presented by the academic school which won some ardent disciples in the 30s, namely Geopolitika. This importation from the continent was the true counterpart to Marxism. Instead of economics, space becomes the absolute and exclusive yardstick. Its attractiveness resided in its promise of stability and dynamic action, its scientific absoluteness and its presumed concreteness. Geopolitics merged the complexities of life into one single and seemingly objective factor. In the ever-changing environment, space seems to be the invariable, independent of human and events. But it fails to account actions of humans, that come from the emptiness of his/her small inner life, human's desire to escape from his despair of real values and from himself/herself. yet human cannot escape his/her responsibility as a human. Science of society and social order can't establish itself as a "natural science" without missing its challenge completely.
The fact that space represented the one stable element, presumably independent of human's decision, by no means made it the most important element in world affairs. But the natural science of politics, with its principles of mechanism of power balance, seemed to provide a monistic, scientific explanation of a world longing for order and stability. When Geopolitika becomes the weapon of unscrupulous (having or showing no moral principles; not honest or fair) and instrument of world conquest, it revealed a materialism devoid of any moral evaluation or restraint. The World War 2 ended this cynical power politics and opened the way for a more adequate and exacting approach to a study of the state and society.
To raising politics to the unimpeachability of an objective science, impact of behavioral science must be dealt with. No doubt political science gained much material enrichment, a refinement of research techniques, and sober reassessment of its earlier generalizations through this confrontation and exchange with the developing finding of neighboring fields. At this times, psychology and sociology intimidated political science and threatened it with utter submission. Political science just passed through a period of insecurity and crisis, if not one of self-effacement. Its basic tenets had been shattered by war and revolution and the ensuing "retreat from reason." Deflated drams of world order plunged a nation of missionaries back into a more accustomed and sober isolationism. In such a time frame, politics did not look attractive to the enterprising youngster, if he/she entered the academics at all, instead of "the world that mattered." When this world was shattered, too, by the great depression, the pressing problems of the economic crisis preoccupied the "braintrusters," who now concentrated their intellectual efforts upon finding "cures" for this internal disease.
Obviously, this crisis did not occur in isolation but required a world-wide perspective for its proper solution. Yet by and large, the country answered the threatening irrational break-through with a proud, "It can't happen here." Fear of unknown might be held back a courageous facing of the crisis. The successive one-track answer to the challenge of modern totalitarianism illustrates the changing moods of the time. From curiosity reports on inside stories of "megalomania one-man rule", to apologetic accommodations to a proud people's grievances, to shame of Versailles, and to appeasers' acceptance of the "bulwark against the Red Peril"- until democracies were finally locked in battle with these efficient, organized, and propagandists' regimes.
The war awakened political science to its full responsibilities. The material exigencies called for quick action, for efficient services, and for specific and measurable results. In this respect the "Behavioral science" seemed to excel, coming forward with verifiable methods and models. The ascendancy of psychology and sociology derived in large part from the remarkable contribution during the war. It is equally undeniable that the spectacular field of public opinion measurement developed greatly in response to dictatorial mass manipulation, and even frequently accepted its underlying assumptions concerning human behavior. This proven war-time utility and greater promise of measurable social predictability raised the repute of the behavior science to a point, where it becomes preferred and exclusive method of social research. Only by becoming a natural science cloud the social sciences justify their existence and the money spent by foundations on social research.
Political science has profited greatly from collaboration with the behavioral sciences and their exacting research methods. But only those phenomena which are measurable and calculable are worth scientific inquiry, for behavioral science. And their influence may imperil the whole discipline of political science. If the research concentrates exclusively in a limited area, then political science would miss the key issues which are the crucial concern and daily dignity of our discipline.
Under this scientific predominance, a silent revolution has taken place, indicating that political science is entering upon a new plane. Its character and consequences can be drawn at this early stage of development. In a sense this 3rd stage, is a step to higher plane from preceding stages. Where preservation and conciliation of their conflicting positions and possibly constitute an advance to a more promising synthesis.
Neumann, Sigmund. “Comparative Politics: A Half-Century Appraisal.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 19, no. 3, 1957, pp. 369–90. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2126766. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.