1. Introduction to Research Methods – Lecture 1 The history of the discipline of political science and international relations

2. Why intellectual history matters (1)  A disciplinary identity, its boundaries are shaped by its history  It legitimises some approaches and makes others marginal  Generates a sense of purpose and belonging

3. Why intellectual history matters (2)  Contemporary American political science is relatively uninterested in the concept of the state which is a central one in Europe  This in part reflects different modes of governing  But early American political science was shaped by a notion of the state derived from German ethical traditions  It was supplanted by a ‘protobehavioural revolution’

4. Hegemony of American political science Country Depts in top 200 (Hix) % of top 200 USA 97 97 48.5% 48.5% UK 48 48 24% 24% Other Europe 32 (5 in NL) 32 (5 in NL) 14.5% 14.5% Germany 10 10 5% 5% Australia 9 4.5% 4.5%

5. Where top departments are not  Asia  The Pacific  The Arabic world  Latin America  Almost completely absent from E- Central Europe and Russia  EU countries increasingly teach in English

6. Top ten in world  1. Columbia (East coast)  2. Harvard (East coast)  3. Stanford (California)  4. Ohio State  5 EUI, Firenze  6. UC, San Diego (California)  7. UC, Irvine (California)  8. Indiana  9. Princeton (East coast)  10. Yale (East coast)

7. Numbers  20,495 political scientists in US  10,386 are academics  One third are women  6 per cent African American, 4 per cent Asian American, 3 per cent Latino .3% are American Indian or Alaskan Native (1.4% of US population)

8. Early origins in US  1880: School of Political Science at Columbia University in NY established by John Burgess  John Hopkins, Baltimore  1903: American Political Science Association founded  Woodrow Wilson is early president, becomes President of USA

9. Driving forces  Expansion of undergraduate population from 54,300 in 1870 to 597,200 in 1920 creates a demand for new courses  Dominant subject of theology in old colleges challenged by science, e.g., Darwinism  Progressive movement, urban reform movement of middle class

10. Driving forces (2)  Need to socialise wave of immigrants in US in last quarter of 19 th century into democracy. Civics in schools.  Strong German influences on development of subject in US, reinforced in inter-war period by refugees from Nazis  Cannot take law as a first degree in the USA

11. Interwar period: Chicago school dominates  Turn away from state, need to realise political realities of social heterogeneity  Protobehavioural revolution reacting against formal, legal and historical methods of inquiry of 19 th century using new methods of inquiry  Times were not auspicious for a scientific revolution

12. Behavioural revolution of 1950s/60s  Times were right – nuclear physics, space exploration, Cold War competition with Soviet Union, Second World War advances in survey techniques  Aspiration to make political science a ‘normal’ science, free of value judgements  Political reality existed and could be understood through the objective techniques of scientific inquiry (psychology as model)

13. Main tenets of behaviouralism  Sought to discover uniformities in political behaviour by systematically collecting and recording data in a manner that encouraged replication  Quantification became important – and remains so  Political science has no concern with moral questions, or at least should keep them separate

14. Why behaviouralism failed  Pointed out that not observing behaviour but reports of people’s behaviour  Difficult to come up with useful generalisations as so much behaviour is contingent or represents adaptation – model of natural science flawed  Vietnam War, crisis in US institutions, accusations of conservatism, Caucus for New Political Science (1967), Easton calls for post-behaviouralism (1969)

15. Legacies of behaviouralism  Study of politics should be theory oriented  Should be self-conscious about methodology  Should be interdisciplinary  Strong desire for methodological rigour remained – rational choice (versus historical institutionalists)

16. Perestroika movement (2000)  Respect for political theory and comparative politics, concern that political science in US was too narrowly behavioural and quantitative – united by opposition to monopoly claim of scientific approach  Consider that behaviouralists and rat choice people think that only they are doing hard science and that everything else is dated

17. Perestroika (2)  Argue that some scholars claim that rational choice institutionalism should be basis of all analysis  Questions about engagement with politics and policy makers, practice of politics  ‘English school’ in international relations has favoured normative enquiry

18. British political science  In 19 th century Benthamite advocates of a deductive (theory led) approach and a science of legislation lost out to advocates of an inductive approach based on history  LSE set up to teach colonial administrators, included many reformers prominent in the Labour Party, public intellectuals

19. Oxford  Modern Greats established in 1923, part of a humane tradition that emphasised classics, literature and history  ‘The subject is taught by a very few specialists and a large number of philosophers and historians who approach it with varying degrees of enthusiasm or distrust’  As late as 1966 40% of teachers of politics in universities in Britain had taken history as first degree

20. Post-Second World War  Political Studies Association formed in 1950  Emergence of Manchester department headed by W J M Mackenzie (eclecticist), but made politics more social scientific  Prevalence of Whig interpretation of history, at worst nostalgia for political order before 1 st World War  Mixture of moral philosophy (Oxford) and constitutional history (Cambridge)

21. Things start to change  Colonial constitutions fail  Britain is gripped after 1960 (the year of the Brighton Revolution) by a sense of relative decline and the failure of its institutions  University expansion expands political science especially in plateglass universities  Technocratic reformism

22. Political science comes to Warwick

23. Wilfrid Harrison  First editor of Political Studies  Taught at Oxford, civil service in war, then Liverpool  Founded Warwick department  Strong believer in tolerant eclecticism and no dominant paradigm

24. Sceptical professionalism  Technocratic reformism comes to an end in mid to late 1970s  1980s a difficult decade for UK universities and political science  1992 sees new universities, subject continues to expand  Formation of European Consortium for Political Research in 1970

25. Political science in Europe  Public law tradition predominates in some countries, e.g., France, Italy  Subject stunted in countries that were dictatorships, e.g., Greece, Spain  Particularly strong in Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) also NL, Germany

26. Chilean political science association meets in Santiago

27. Political science in Latin America  Severely disrupted by authoritarian periods in Argentina, Brazil, Chile  Influence of FLACSO, founded by Unesco in 1957  Influence of Catholic thought: St. Thomas Moore Dept. of Politics  Importance of sociology  Intrusions of partisan politics

28. Dominance of US political science  Neglect of state  Often very inward looking, state level studies  Does a lot of work on EU, but model implicitly a US federal one  APSA is first loyalty for many British political scientists, 7,000 at annual convention

29. Future developments  European wide association following Bologna reforms  Recognition of complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative techniques  More emphasis on interdisciplinarity  Increasing internationalisation