Easton TheNewRevolution

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The New Revolution in Political Science

Author(s): David EastonReviewed work(s):Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1969), pp. 1051-1061Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1955071 .

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T h e AmericanPolit ical Science Review

VOL. LXIII DECEMBER, 1969 NO. 4THE NEW REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE*

DAVID EASTONUniversity of Chicago

A new revolution is under way in Americanpolitical science. The last revolution-behav-ioralism-has scarcely been completed beforeit has been overtaken by the increasing socialand political crises of our time. The weight ofthese crises is being felt within our disciplinein the form of a new conflict in the throes ofwhich we now find ourselves. This new andlatest challenge is directed against a develop-ing behavioral orthodoxy. This challenge Ishall call the post-behavioral revolution.The initial impulse of this revolution is justbeing felt. Its battle cries are relevance andaction. Its objects of criticism are the disci-plines, the professions, and the universities. Itis still too young to be described definitively.Yet we cannot treat it as a passing phenome-non, as a kind of accident of history that willsomehow fade away and leave us very muchas we were before. Rather it appears to be aspecific and important episode in the historyof our discipline, if not in all of the socialsciences. It behooves us to examine this revolu-tion closely for its possible place in the continu-ing evolution of political science. Does it repre-sent a threat to the discipline, one that willdivert us from our long history in the searchfor reliable understanding of politics? Or is itjust one more change that will enhance ourcapacity to find such knowledge?

I. NATURE OF THE POST-BEHAVIORALREVOLUTION

The essence of the post-behavioral revolu-tion is not hard to identify. It consists of a deepdissatisfaction with political research andteaching, especially of the kind that is strivingto convert the study of politics into a more* Presidential Address delivered to the 65thAnnual Meeting of the American Political ScienceAssociation, September 2-6, 1969. New YorkCity.

rigorously scientific discipline modelled on themethodology of the natural sciences. Althoughthe post-behavioral revolution may have allthe appearances of just another reaction tobehavioralism, it is in fact notably different.Hitherto resistance to the incorporation ofscientific method has come in the form of anappeal to the past-to classical political sci-ence, such as natural law, or to the more looselyconceived non-methodology of traditional re-search. Behavioralism was viewed as a threatto the status quo; classicism and traditionalismwere responses calculated to preserve somepart of what had been, by denying the verypossibility of a science of politics.The post-behavioral revolution is, however,future oriented. It does not especially seek toreturn to some golden age of political researchor to conserve or even to destroy a particularmethodological approach. It does not requirean adherent to deny the possibility of discover-ing testable generalizations about human be-havior. It seeks rather to propel political sci-ence in new directions. In much the same way,behavioralism in the 50's, by adopting a newtechnology, sought to add to rather than todeny our heritage. This new development isthen a genuine revolution, not a reaction, abecoming, not a preservation, a reform, not acounter-reformation.Post-behavioralism is both a movement, thatis, an aggregate of people, and an intellectualtendency. As a movement it has many of thediffuse, unstable, even prickly qualities thatthe behavioral revolution itself once had in itsown youth. It would be a serious mistake, in-deed, a grave injustice, to confuse this broad,inchoate movement with any organized groupeither inside or outside the profession. Norought we to attribute any special political colorto post-behavioralists in the aggregate. Theyrange widely, from conservatism to the activeleft. Nor has this movement any particular

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1052 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOL. 63methodological commitments. It embracesrigorous scientists as well as dedicated classi-cists. Neither does it appeal to any one agegroup alone. Its adherents include all the gener-ations, from young graduate students to oldermembers of the profession. This whole improb-able diversity-political, methodological, andgenerational-is bound together by one senti-ment alone, a deep discontent with the direc-tion of contemporary political research.Even though today the organized cleavageswithin our profession are writing most of thedramatic scenarios, in the end these cleavagesmay prove to be the least interesting part ofwhat is happening. What will undoubtedlyhave far deeper meaning for us is the broaderintellectual tendency that provides the envi-ronment within which current divisions havetaken shape. It is on the purely intellectualcomponents of post-behavioralism, therefore,that I shall focus.New as post-behavioralism is, the tenets ofits faith have already emerged clearly enoughto be identifiable. They form what could becalled a Credo of Relevance' I would describethe tenets of this post-behavioral credo asfollows:1. Substance must precede technique. If onemust be sacrificed for the other-and this neednot always be so-it is more important to berelevant and meaningful for contemporary ur-gent social problems than to be sophisticatedin the tools of investigation. For the aphorismof science that it is better to be wrong thanvague, post-behavioralism would substitutea new dictum, that it is better to be vague thannon-relevantly precise.2. Behavioral science conceals an ideologyof empirical conservatism. To confine oneselfexclusively to the description and analysis offacts is to hamper the understanding of thesesame facts in their broadest context. As a resultempirical political science must lend its sup-port to the maintenance of the very factualconditions it explores. It unwittingly purveysan ideology of social conservatism tempered bymodest incremental change.3. Behavioral research must lose touch withreality. The heart of behavioral inquiry is ab-straction and analysis and this serves to concealthe brute realities of politics. The task of post-behavioralism is to break the barriers of silencethat behavioral language necessarily has cre-ated and to help political science reach out tothe real needs of mankind in a time of crisis.

1 Compare with the Credo of Behavioralism asdescribed in D. Easton, A Framework for PoliticalAnalysis (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall,1965), p. 7.

4. Research about and constructive develop-ment of values are inextinguishable parts ofthe study of politics. Science cannot be andnever has been evaluatively neutral despiteprotestations to the contrary. Hence to under-stand the limits of our knowledge we need to beaware of the value premises on which it standsand the alternatives for which this knowledgecould be used.5. Members of a learned discipline bear theresponsibilities of all intellectuals. The intel-lectuals' historical role has been and must be toprotect the humane values of civilization. Thisis their unique task and obligation. Withoutthis they become mere technicians, mechanicsfor tinkering with society. They thereby aban-don the special privileges they have come toclaim for themselves in academia, such as free-dom of inquiry and a quasi-extraterritorialprotection from the onslaughts of society.6. To know is to bear the responsibility foracting and to act is to engage in reshapingsociety. The intellectual as scientist bears thespecial obligation to put his knowledge to work.Contemplative science was a product of thenineteenth century when a broader moralagreement was shared. Action science of neces-sity reflects the contemporary conflict in so-ciety over ideals and this must permeate andcolor the whole research enterprise itself.7. If the intellectual has the obligation toimplement his knowledge, those organizationscomposed of intellectuals-the professionalassociations-and the universities themselves,cannot stand apart from the struggles of theday. Politicization of the professions is ines-capable as well as desirable.

No one post-behavioralist would share allthese views. I have presented only a distillationof the maximal image. It represents perhapsa Weberian ideal type of the challenges to be-havioralism. As such the credo brings out mostof the salient features of the post-behavioralrevolution as it appears to be taking shapetoday.

II. SHIFTING IMAGES OF SCIENCEWhat has this developing new image of po-litical science to offer us? In the United Statesbehavioralism has without doubt represented

the dominant approach in the last decade. Will'post-behavioralism destroy the undeniablegains of the behavioral revolution or is post-behavioralism only a valuable addition thatcan and should be incorporated into our prac-tices?One thing is clear. In a rapidly changingworld surely political science alone cannotclaim to have completed its development. Only



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1054 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOL. 63ture of basic research is to shift the focus awayfrom current concerns and to delay the appli-cation of knowledge until we are more secureabout its reliability.This dilemma of contemporary politicalscience is perhaps best revealed in the idealcommitments of behavioralism. For example,according to the behavioral image of science,those very epistemological characteristics ofpolitical research to which the post-behavior-alists so strongly object would seem to be un-avoidable, indeed, highly desirable. Post-behavioralism deplores what it views as tech-nical excesses in research. Yet no one couldpossibly deny that technical adequacy is vital.Without it the whole evolution of empiricalscience in all fields of knowledge in the last twothousand years would have been in vain. De-spite some post-behavioral objections to sci-entific abstractness and remoteness from theworld of common sense, by its nature sciencemust deal with abstractions. No science couldby itself cope with the whole reality as it isinterpreted by the politician. Only by analysis,by chopping the world up into manageableunits of inquiry, by precision achieved throughmeasurement wherever possible, can politicalscience meet the continuing need of a complex,post-industrial society for more reliable knowl-edge. Even to appeal to science to discard ab-stract theory and models as the test of rele-vance for research and to put in their place thesocial urgency of problems, is to ask it to sacri-fice those criteria which have proved most suc-cessful in developing reliable understanding.Furthermore, it appears that the use of themethods of behavioral science favors the verykind of sociological position for the politicalscientist to which post-behavioralism so stren-uously objects. These methods help to protectthe professional scientist from the pressures ofsociety for quick answers to urgent if compli-cated problems. The history of the natural sci-ences shows us how slowly basic researchmoves. The overshadowing new ideas in thenatural sciences-Newtonian mechanics, Dar-winian evolution, Einstein's relativity, ormodern cybernetics-come infrequently, on atime scale of centuries. But during the intervalsbetween new ideas, great or small, science seeksto work out their implications with a passionfor details, even if research seems to lead awayfrom the practical, obvious problems of theday. These seemingly remote, often minute de-tails, about scales, indices, specialized tech-niques for collecting and analyzing data andthe like, these details are the building blocksof the edifice in which more reliable under-standing occurs.

What is true about the slow pace of basic re-search in the natural sciences and about its re-moteness we can expect to apply with equalforce to the social sciences. Indeed in social re-search we even have difficulty in agreeing onthe great discoveries, so undeveloped are ourcriteria of adequacy. In addition, even if thepolitical scientist begins with an immediatesocial problem, as he so often does, in the pro-cess of investigation he will be likely to restatethe problem in more researchable terms. Thisreconceptualization usually leads him back tothe very kind of fundamentals that appear ir-relevant to initial practical concerns.The ideology of pure or basic research and itssuccess in the better developed sciences in pro-viding a reliable base of knowledge have seemedto justify this research strategy, slow and pains-taking as it is. In helping to protect scholar-ship from the daily pressures of society forquick and ready answers, this ideology hasfreed science to pursue truth in the best wayit knows how.This same concern for generalized, verifiableunderstanding has forced social scientists todiscriminate with extreme care about what wecan and cannot do with our premises and tools.We can describe, explain, and understand butwe cannot prescribe ethical goals. The valuequestion is thus set aside, not because we con-sider it inconsequential, but only because wesee it as unresponsive to the tools useful inanalyzing and explaining the empirical world.These then are some of the normal ideal com-mitments of science: technical proficiency inthe search for reliable knowledge, the pursuitof basic understanding with its necessary di-vorce from practical concerns, and the exclu-sion of value specification as beyond the com-petence of science. It is these ideals that be-havioral research in political science has soughtto import into the discipline.

IV. NEW STRATEGIES FOR SCIENCEToday these traditional ideals of science areconfronted with a set of social conditions whichhave no historical precedent. This extraordi-nary circumstance has created the predicamentin which behavioral research now finds itself.It derives from the fact that we are confrontedwith a new and shortened time scale in thecourse of human events, one in which the fu-ture may need to be discounted more heavily

than ever before. For many, nuclear war orcivil strife, with authoritarianism as a credibleoutcome, are clear and present dangers, to becounted in decades at the most. For many,without immediate and concentrated attentionto the urgent issues of the present day, we may

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1969 THE NEW REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE 1055have no future worth contemplating, howeveruncertain our findings or inadequate our tools.How then can behavioral research, with itsacknowledged glacial pace and apparent re-moteness, hope to meet the demands now beingplaced upon our discipline?For some among post-behavioralists, the fearof physical and political self-destruction hasled to the abandonment of science altogether.For them science is simply incapable of mea-suring up to contemporary needs. Others, whohave always considered science to be inherentlydefective, now feel justified in their convictions.But for those post-behavioralists who continueto place their hopes in modern behavioral sci-ence, the current crisis poses the issue aboutthe wisdom of continuing our commitment toa "normal" strategy of scientific research.These kinds of post-behavioralists have beendriven to conclude that we have no alternativebut to make our research more relevant. Forthem we can do so only by devoting all ourprofessional energies to research, prescriptionand action with regard to the immediate issuesof the day. In short, we are asked to revise ourself-image by postponing the demands of slow-moving basic research and by acting in ourprofessional capacity so as to put whateverknowledge we have to immediate use.

For all of us this plea poses some criticalquestions. Even in the face of the social crisesof our time, do we really need to subordinatethe long-run objectives of the scientific enter-prise to the undeniably urgent problems of theday? Is there any other way in which we cancope with this transparent need for practicalrelevance? And if so, can we hope to retain forpolitical science those conditions of theoreticalautonomy, precision, and relative insulation sovital if we are to continue to be able to add toour capital stock of basic understanding?I would argue that we do not need to aban-don the historical objectives of basic science.There is a strategy that will enable us to re-spond to the abnormal urgency of the presentcrises and yet preserve these traditions. Byadopting this course, post-behavioralism neednot be considered a threat to behavioral re-search but only an extension of it necessaryfor coping with the unusual problems of thepresent epoch.

To appreciate the strategy implied, we mustremember one thing. Even if it is arguable thatthe time scale in terms of which we must thinkhas been greatly shortened, mere projectioncannot fully persuade us that the future needsto be counted in decades, not centuries. What

little solace we may get from it, we know thatour intuitions have been wrong in the past. Wemay still have centuries rather than only de-cades ahead of us.This realistic possibility suggests that weought to pursue an optimizing strategy inwhich there is some apportionment of resourcesfor the long run as against the short run, justin case we are not in fact all dead. The cost ofdevoting our efforts exclusively to short-runcrises is far too high. It might easily assure thatif we do in fact survive the present crises, thefailure to continue to add to our capital accu-mulation of basic social knowledge will see ustragically unprepared for even greater crises inthe more distant future. We will then have lostevery chance to prevent the self-annihilation ofmankind or the collapse of those political insti-tutions we cherish.Is there any sensible way in which we canprovide for some satisfactory use of our re-sources without distracting excessively fromthe attention and altered research orientationsthat the major issues of the country and theworld require? It is to this question that thoseof us who still have some hope that we maysurvive the certain and greater crises of thenear future ought to be devoting some of ourenergies. Various courses of action are possibleand we need to consider them as they apply tothe discipline as well as to the profession.

V. THE DISCIPLINEBasic vs. applied research

For the discipline, the post-behavioral revo-lution suggests the appropriateness of revisingour ideal image at least as it has been incorpo-rated into behavioralism. It is vital to continueto recognize the part that basic research oughtto play. But in the allocation of financial andhuman resources we must also consciously rec-ognize that a shift in emphasis must occur atonce to take into account the critical times inwhich we live.In terms of any ideal distribution of ourefforts, basic research ought to command a dis-proportionate share. Although socially usefulresults from such research are usually a longtime in coming, they are in the end more de-pendable. But under the inescapable pressureof current crises the emphasis needs to be re-versed. A far larger part of our resources mustbe devoted to immediate short-run concerns.We need to accept the validity of addressingourselves directly to the problems of the day toobtain quick, short-run answers with the toolsand generalizations currently available, how-ever inadequate they may be. We can 110

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1056 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOL. 63longer take the ideal scientific stance of behav-ioralism that because of the limitations of ourunderstanding, application is premature andmust await future basic research.3In truth this proposal represents less of ashift in our practices than a change in ourideological posture. The behavioral revolutionhas never been fully understood or absorbedinto the discipline; we are still grappling withits meaning. Any casual inspection of ongoingresearch would reveal that, regardless of anyideal apportionment, at no time has pure re-search really consumed more than a very smallfraction of the discipline's resources. We havebeen only too ready to advise federal, stateand local agencies on immediate issues and po-litical parties and candidates about their cam-paigns. It is just that with the behavioral revo-lution the ideals of the discipline as incorpo-rated in research ideology were beginning tochange. This new image legitimated that kindof basic research, the pay-off of which mightnot be immediately apparent, but the futurepromise of which was thought to be consider-able. Today we need to temper our behavioralimage of the discipline so that in these criticaltimes we no longer see it as commanding us todevote most of our efforts to the discovery ofdemonstrable basic truths about politics. Wewill need to obtain more of our satisfactionsfrom seeking immediate answers to immediateproblems.This kind of shift in disciplinary focus willcall urgently for the systematic examination ofthe tasks involved in transforming our limitedknowledge today into a form far more consum-able for purposes of political action. Certaindifficulties stand in the way of applying ourknowledge. In the first place, contemporarysocial problems far outrun the capacity of po-litical science alone or in concert with theother social sciences to solve them. Our basicknowledge is itself limited. What little we haveis not necessarily directly applicable to prac-tical issues.In the second place, like medieval medicine,we may still be at the stage in which we are let-ting blood in the hope of curing the patient.Because of our low capacity for sorting out thecomplex causal connections between our adviceand its social consequences, we have littleassurance that we may not be doing more harmthan good. Some efforts are currently underway to correct this situation. In the broaden-ing quest for social indicators we are inventingtechniques for isolating the outcomes of policy

3 See D. Easton, The Political System (NewYork: Knopf, 1953), pp. 78 ff.

outputs4 and for comparing these consequenceswith the presumed policy goals.' Thereby weshall have a measure of the effects of our inter-vention in the social processes. But the successof these efforts lies some distance in the future.In the third place, political science alone isunable to propose solutions to social problems;these normally involve matters that call uponthe specialized knowledge and skills of othersocial scientists. Yet seldom do policy makersseek the collective advice of comprehensiveteams of social scientists.These and many other difficulties have stoodin the way of the application of our knowledgeto specific situations. They have contributedto the low academic esteem of applied science,in comparison at least with basic research. Pastefforts at application have experienced toolittle success to attract the best minds of theday.6 In temporarily modifying the immediatepriorities of the discipline, we will need to de-vise ways for elevating the self-conscious de-velopment of applied knowledge, inappropri-ately called social engineering, to the respecta-bility that behavioralism has succeeded inacquiring for basic research.

To assign all of our research resources to thepresent, however, as some post-behavioralistsseem to be suggesting, would be to discount thefuture far too heavily. We need to keep aliveand active the legitimate long-range interestsof all science. Social problem-solving is nottotally inconsistent with this objective. Theline between pure and applied research is oftenvery fine. Those of us who choose to adopt thelong-run point of view, optimistically expect-ing the survival of mankind, will find muchfrom which to profit in the research under-taken by those concerned with applied prob-lems. Yet this cannot relieve us of the need tocontinue to devote specific attention to basicproblems in the discipline-to the reconcep-tualization of our significant variables, to thecontinuing search for adequate units of politi-4For the difference between outcomes andoutputs see D. Easton, A Systems Analysis ofPolitical Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), p. 351.5 For the literature on social indicators see R. A.Bauer (ed.), Social Indicators (Cambridge:M.I.T. Press, 1966); "Social Goals and Indicators

for American Society," Annals of the AmericanAcademy of Political and Social Sciences, vols. 371(May, 1967) and 373 (September, 1967).6 See H. W. Riecken, "Social Science and Con-temporary Social Problems," 23 Items (1969),1-6.



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1969 THE NEW REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE 1057cal analysis, to the exploration of alternativetheories and models about the operation ofvarious types of systems, and to our basicmethodological assumptions and technical re-quirements. Admittedly these persisting con-cerns often lead us far from the practical issuesof the day. Yet without attending to thesebasic problems we cannot hope to add to ourstore of reliable knowledge, and thereby to pre-pare ourselves for equally critical politicalcrises in the more distant future.Value premises and researchinterests

In addition to suggesting this temporary re-allocation of our resources as between basic andapplied research, we need to become increas-ingly aware of the fact that basic research isnot without its own substantive deficiencies.This is the message underlying the constantpost-behavioral complaint that our research isnot relevant. It is argued that excessive pre-occupation with techniques and with factualdescription has distracted us from the signifi-cant questions about the operation of theAmerican democratic system in particular.We have learned a great deal about this sys-tem but all within a value framework thataccepts the ongoing practices as essentiallysatisfactory and at most subject only to theneed for incremental improvements. As a dis-cipline we have proved incapable of escaping acommitment to our own political system. Thisresearch myopia, the post-behavioralists ar-gue, has discouraged us from posing the rightquestions for discovering the basic forces thatshape the making and execution of authorita-tive decisions.Here the post-behavioralists are alerting us,once again, to what has been repeatedly re-vealed over the years, by Marx, Weber, andMannheim, among others, namely, that all re-search, whether pure or applied, of necessityrests on certain value assumptions. Yet themyth that research can be value-free or neutraldies hard. We have continued to develop ourdiscipline as though the subjects we select forresearch, the variables we choose to investi-gate, the data we collect, and the interpreta-tions we generate, have all some extraordinarypristine purity, unsullied by the kinds of valuepremises to which we subscribe, consciously orotherwise. We do not consistently ask the ques-tion, central to the sociology of knowledge:To what extent are our errors, omissions, andinterpretations better explained by referenceto our normative presuppositions than to igno-rance, technical inadequacy, lack of insight,absence of appropriate data, and the like? Be-havioralists have indeed failed to insist, with

the same fervor we have applied to our tech-nological innovations, that our operating valuesbe brought forward for self-conscious examina-tion and that their impact on research beassessed.Today the hazards of neglecting our norma-tive presuppositions are all too apparent. Therecan be little doubt that political science as anenterprise has failed to anticipate the crisesthat are upon us. One index of this is perhapsthat in the decade from 1958 to 1968, thisREVIEW published only 3 articles on the urbancrises; 4 on racial conflicts; 1 on poverty; 2on civil disobedience; and 2 on violence in theUnited States.7In some considerable measure we have alsoworn collective blinders that have preventedus from recognizing other major problems fac-ing our discipline. For example, how can weaccount for the failure of the current pluralistinterpretations of democracy to identify, un-derstand, and anticipate the kinds of domesticneeds and wants that began to express them-selves as political demands during the 1960's?How can we account for our neglect of the wayin which the distribution of power within thesystem prevents measures from being taken insufficient degree and time to escape the resortto violence in the expression of demands, acondition that threatens to bring about thedeepest crisis of political authority that theUnited States has ever suffered? How can weaccount for the difficulty that political scienceas a discipline has in avoiding a commitmentto the basic assumptions of national policy,both at home and abroad, so that in the end,collectively we have appeared more as apolo-gists of succeeding governmental interpreta-tions of American interests than as objectiveanalysts of national policy and its conse-quences? Finally, in even so recent a major re-research area as political socialization, how canwe account for the natural, effortless way inwhich inquiry has sought to reveal the contri-butions of preadult political learning to thestability of systems, virtually ignoring theequally significant function of socialization inbringing about political change?8There is no single explanation for the narrowvision of our discipline. We can, however, atleast go so far as to offer this hypothesis: What-ever the reasons, the failure to broaden the

7This undoubtedly reflects only the few articleson this subject submitted for publication ratherthan any editorial predisposition.

8 See D. Easton and J. Dennis, Children in thePolitical System: Origins of Political Legitimacy(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), chapter 2.




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1058 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOL. 63vision of our basic research may be due in goodpart to a continuing hesitation to question ournormative premises and to examine the extentto which these premises determine the selec-tion of problems and their ultimate interpre-tations.Creativespeculation

How are we to make those serious effortsnecessary to break out of the bonds imposed onbasic research itself by ongoing value frame-works? How are we to create those conditionsthat will help us to ask fundamental questionsabout the operation of political systems, thatwill lead us to pose those "outrageous hypoth-eses" about which Robert Lynd once chidedus?9 A new awakening to the part that ourvalue commitments and other social influencesplay in limiting the range of our basic researchmay partly correct the errors of our ways. Butthis moral self-scrutiny may not be enough.If we are to transcend our own cultural andmethodological biases, such self-awareness cancarry us only part of the way. We may need totake stronger measures and find additionalhelp by returning to an older tradition in po-litical research but in a thoroughly modernway.Many years ago, in The Political System, Iargued for the urgent need to reconsider ourapproach to value theory at the same time aswe began the equally critical task of construc-ting empirical theory."0The latter task is nowunder way in our discipline. The first one, crea-tive construction of political alternatives, hasyet to begin.To enrich their own understanding and togive broader meaning to their own social real-ity, the great political theorists of the pastfound it useful to construct new and oftenradically different conceptions of future pos-sible kinds of political relationships. By formu-lating such broad, speculative alternatives tothe here and now we too can begin to under-stand better the deficiencies of our own politi-cal systems and to explore adequate avenues ofchange that are so desperately needed. This, Iwould argue, must now be considered part ofthe task and responsibility of science if it is toretain its relevance for the contemporary world.Those philosophies that seek to revive classicalnatural law and that reject the possibility of ascience of man have thereby forfeited theiropportunity and put in question their fitnessto undertake this creative task of theory. We

9 R. S. Lynd, Knowledge for What? (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1939).

10D. Easton, The Political System, chapters 9and 10.

require boldly speculative theorizing that isprepared to build upon rather than to rejectthe findings of contemporary behavioral scienceitself and that is prepared to contemplate theimplications of these findings for political life,in the light of alternative, articulate valueframeworks.The significance for political science of thiskind of creative speculation cannot be overesti-mated. For those who seek to understand howpolitical systems operate, such speculation pro-vides alternative perspectives from which todetermine the salience of the problems theychoose for research and analysis. If we takeseriously the conclusions of the sociologistsof knowledge, then our scientific output is verymuch shaped by the ethical perspectives wehold. In that event, by failing to encouragewithin the discipline creative speculation aboutpolitical alternatives in the largest sense, wecannot help but imprison ourselves within thelimitations of the ongoing value framework. Asthat framework begins to lose its relevance forthe problems of society, its system-mainte-nance commitments must blind us to the urgentquestions emerging even for the immediatefuture.And this is precisely what has happened topolitical science. Both our philosophers andour scientists have failed to reconstruct ourvalue frameworks in any relevant sense andto test them by creatively contemplating newkinds of political systems that might bettermeet the needs of a post-industrial, cyberneticsociety. A new set of ethical perspectives wovenaround this theme might sensitize us to a wholerange of new kinds of basic political problemsworth investigating. It might also point up thesignificance of inquiry into these problems withnew or radically modified types of relevantempirical theories. Thereby we could perhapsbe freed from that occupational myopiabrought about by excessive attention to thefacts as they are. We would perhaps be lessprone to stumble into the pitfall of "empiricalconservatism,"y or commitment to system-maintenance perspectives, of which politicalscience has with justice been accused12 bypost-behavioralists and others.

In these several ways, then, does our disci-pline need reordering. Basic research needs to11 H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston:

Beacon Press, 1964). chapter 4.n See C. A. McCoy and J. Playford (eds.),Apolitical Politics (New York: Crowell, 1967)and D. Easton, The Political System, chapters 2and 11.



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1969 THE NEW REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE 1059be maintained as an investment for the future.But even its priorities need to be rearrangedin the light of a better understanding of its ownvalue assumptions. Applied, action-oriented re-search requires more systematic attentionthan ever before. We need greater awarenessof the limits that our value premises have im-posed on our research; and on the solid founda-tion of knowledge constructed by behavioralresearch, alternative possible rearrangementsof our political relationships need to be seri-ously contemplated.

VI. THE PROFESSION AND THE USE OFKNOWLEDGE

Not only our discipline, however, but ourprofession needs restructuring to bring it intoharmony with the changing conceptions of so-cial science. Our discipline refers to our intel-lectual enterprise; our profession, to the trainedand expert scholars who participate in the dis-cipline. Post-behavioralism suggests that be-havioral commitments create not only a disci-pline but a profession that shows a decliningrelevance to the political world around it.The behavioralimage of the profession

Two basic reasons account for this decline,it is in effect argued. First, professionalizationof the discipline in behavioral terms has nour-ished an image of political science in whichknowledge and action have been carefully sep-arated and compartmentalized.'3 As scientistspossessed of special skills, we see ourselves aspurveyors of something called professional ex-pertise. Our task as experts is to offer adviceabout means only, not about the purposes towhich our knowledge might be put. As the well-worn adage puts it, we are on tap, not on top.In fact, as post-behavioralism correctly as-serts, the expert has never lived by this rule.In the discipline, as we have already noted,behavioral inquiry has not been able to attainany real measure of ethical neutrality. Thishas had serious consequences for basic re-search. In the profession too, the critics pointout, ethical neutrality is no less spurious. Inthe application of his knowledge the politicalscientist explicitly or unwittingly accepts thevalue premises of those he serves. His postureof neutrality has the added consequence ofundermining his will or capacity to challengethe broader purposes to which his knowledgeis put.A second reason accounts for the decline of

13 See especially T. Roszak (ed.), The DissentingAcademy (New York: Random House, 1968),Introduction.

professional relevance. Here post-behavioralismbreaks sharply with the prevailing professionalparadigm about the moral relationship betweenresearch and action. In the behavioral inter-pretation, the possession of knowledge imposesno special obligation on the political scientistto put his knowledge to use in the service ofsociety. He remains free to choose whether ornot he ought to step outside his scientific rolefor this purpose. This laissez faire attitudetowards political engagement has been an ac-cepted moral premise of the profession. It haspermitted if not encouraged withdrawal frompolitical strife. Knowledge is divorced fromaction.For post-behavioralism, however, the linebetween pure research and service begins tofade. Knowledge brings an awareness of alter-natives and their consequences. This opportu-nity for rational choice imposes special obliga-tions on the knower. The political scientist as aprofessional is the knower par excellence. It istherefore immoral for him not to act on hisknowledge. In holding that to know is to beara responsibility for acting, post-behavioralismjoins a venerable tradition inherited from suchdiverse sources as Greek classical philosophy,Karl Marx, John Dewey, and modern existen-tialism.Criteriafor the use of knowledge

The implications of this post-behavioral shiftin the image of the professional's role in societyare considerable. If the political scientist is toevaluate the uses to which his knowledge isbeing put and if he is himself to bring hisknowledge to bear on social issues, what cri-teria are to guide his choices? Here post-be-havioralism returns to the humanist conceptionof the intellectual as the guardian of thosecivilized, humane values known to most men.It is incumbent on the professional to see to itthat all society, not just a privileged part,benefits from his expertise. His obligations aremet only if he takes into account the broadestspectrum of interests in society.Many post-behavioralists scrutinize the ac-tivities of scholars in recent years and concludethat the talents of political scientists have beenput in the service largely of the elites in society-in government, business, the military andvoluntary organizations. The professional isseen as having little communication and con-tact with those who characteristically benefitleast from the fruits of modern industrial so-ciety-the racial and economic minorities, theunrepresented publics at home, and the colonialmasses abroad. These are the groups least ableto command the resources of expertise forwhich political science stands. The social re-



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1060 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW VOL. 63sponsibility of the political science expert is torectify the imbalance.In this post-behavioral view, the applicationof expert knowledge in the service of socialreform becomes competitive with the pursuitof knowledge for its own sake. Reform becomesinseparable from knowledge.Clearly there is in birth a new image of theprofessional, one in which science is not neces-sarily denied its place but in which the scientistis no longer free to divorce the life of the mindfrom the life of social action. Weber's differen-tiation between the vocation of the scientistand that of the politician no longer whollysuffices.This new image leads to the politicization ofthe profession. If the individual professional iscalled upon to utilize his knowledge on behalfof society, those collectivities of experts thatwe call the professional associations are them-selves equally culpable if in their corporatecapacity they fail to challenge the purposes towhich their expertise may be put or if they failto act when their knowledge warns them ofdanger. Herein lie the moral and intellectualroots of the constant pressure of the profes-sional associations to take positions on publicissues about which their competence may givethem special knowledge.The politicization of the profession

This post-behavioral tendency to politicizethe professional associations has met withgreat resistance. Objection arises less fromprincipled argument than from the practicalfear that our professional associations will nolonger be able to fulfill their normal scientificpurposes. Let us grant the plausibility of thispractical consideration. Even so, do we need toreject entirely the new moral image being de-veloped by post-behavioralism?One fact is clear. The crisis of our timesspares no group, not even the social sciences.The pressures to utilize all of our resources incritically evaluating goals as well as in providingeffective means are too great to be denied. Forincreasing numbers of us it is no longer practicalor morally tolerable to stand on the politicalsidelines when our expertise alerts us to disaster.In accepting this new (but ancient) obliga-tion of the intellectual, however, we need torecognize that the professional political scien-tist may engage in three distinguishable kinds

of activity. These are teaching and research onthe one hand and practical politics on theother. Somewhere between these the politicalscientist acts as a consultant and an adviser.Each of these kinds of activity-as a scholar,politician, and consultant-shapes and influ-

ences the other. Is it feasible to construct asingle organization that will serve the collectivepurposes of the profession for facilitating allthree of these kinds of activities? It seemshighly unlikely. Can we provide some sensibledivision of labor among different organizationsthat will permit the fullest expression for allthose activities into which these critical timesare pressing the professional political scientist?This seems possible.We can conceive of some professional organi-zations being devoted largely to that kind ofaction that helps to add to our store of basicknowledge and that eases communication amongourselves and among succeeding generations ofpolitical scientists. These we already have inour professional associations. They are designedto aid both teaching and research. We can,however, also conceive of other types of pro-fessional organizations that would be concernedwith structuring the application of our exper-tise to ongoing critical social problems. Thiskind of organization we do not yet have inpolitical science, or, for that matter, in thesocial sciences as a whole.But here if we consider the matter only aspolitical scientists we create insurmountabledifficulties for ourselves. Social problems do notcome neatly packaged as economic, psycho-logical, political and the like. Our crises ariseout of troubles that involve all aspects ofhuman behavior. Our professional associationsare oriented toward the disciplines, and theseare analytic fields. Of necessity they piece upreality into specialties that have meaninglargely for the pursuit of fundamental under-standing. For purposes of setting goals anddetermining means for solving social problems,however, we need to draw the disciplines to-gether again into a single organization, onethat can mobilize the resources of all the socialsciences and bring them to a focus on specificissues.To this end it is time that we accept ourspecial responsibility as students of politics.We must take the initiative by calling for theestablishment of a Federation of Social Scien-tists, a proposal that has already been ad-vanced by one of our colleagues.14The tasks ofsuch a Federation would be to identify themajor issues of the day, clarify objectives,evaluate action taken by others, study andpropose alternative solutions, and press thesevigorously in the political sphere.Without collectively politicizing ourselves in

14 David Singer of the Mental Health ResearchInstitute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,Michigan, in personal correspondence.




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1969 THE NEW REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE 1061this way, by the very act of standing by whilethe problems of the world continue to increasein numbers and intensity, we thereby uncriti-cally acquiesce in prevailing policies. We in factadopt a political position. By acting collec-tively in our professional capacities through aFederation of Social Scientists, we will havean opportunity to justify our policies intellec-tually and morally. Thereby we may begin tosatisfy our growing sense of political responsi-bility in an age of crisis. At the same time weshall be able to preserve our historic institu-tions, the professional associations, for thecontinuing pursuit of fundamental knowledge.

Such a Federation would fail in its responsi-bilities, however, if it became merely an echoof national goals, an instrument of officialpolicy, or a bland critic of things as they are.If Mlannheim is correct in describing the intel-lectual as the least rooted of all social groups,the professional social scientist ought to viewhimself as committed to the broadest of hu-mane values. These need to be the touchstonethat he brings to bear on social isuses. Yetmany barriers block the way. Of these identifi-cation with the goals and interests of one'snation is prominent. Political scientists havestill to escape the crippling effects for scholar-ship of unwitting commitment to nationalgoals and perspectives. Just as science as a setof disciplines has pretensions to being inter-national in scope, so the social scientist himselfneeds to be denationalized. Some day, like theideal international civil servant, the profes-sional social scientist too may be permitted toachieve maximum freedom from national com-mitments by being obliged to carry an interna-

tional passport and to conduct himself accord-ingly.For the profession, therefore, the emergingpost-behavioral phase is encouraging the de-velopment of a new norm of behavior. It seespolicy engagement as a social responsibility ofthe intellectual whatever the institutionalform through which this may be expressed.Some day it may also require the release of thesocial scientist from bondage to the uniqueneeds and objectives of his own national politi-cal system.

It is clear that changing times require radicalre-thinking of what we are and what we want tobe both as a discipline and as a profession.Post-behavioralism is a pervasive intellectualtendency today that reveals a major effort todo just this. Its very pervasiveness prevents itfrom becoming the possession of any one groupor of any one political ideology. It supports andextends behavioral methods and techniques byseeking to make their substantive implicationsmore cogent for the problems of our times.Post-behavioralism stands, therefore, as themost recent contribution to our collectiveheritage. For that very reason, as an intellec-tual tendency it is not the threat and dangerthat some seem to fear. Rather, in the broadhistorical perspectives of our discipline, thepost-behavioral revolution represents an op-portunity for necessary change. We may chooseto take advantage of it, reject it, or modify it.But to ignore it is impossible. It is a challengeto re-examine fearlessly the premises of our re-search and the purposes of our calling.

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