“Behavioristic” Tendencies in American Political Science

As Robert A. Dahl pointed out in 1961, the new school of the "behavioral approach" has come of age in the United States; a decade ago it was still a hotly debated issue. Opposition to the behavioral approach is especially voiced by groups of political scientists whose primary interest lies in political theory or public law, and by those who consider civic education the central purpose of political science. The astonishing and increasing number of research operations of recent date which apply the behavioral methods to the most varied fields of political science demonstrate its lively impetus. The rise of the behavioral sciences could mean the disintegration of political science. The resurgence of empirical theory and the flowering of empirical research that rests more heavily on "solid islands of theory"—the building blocks for the construction of a modern political science on a broad eclectic basis—are of lasting value.