International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Behavioralism is a paradigm that became predominant in American social sciences from the 1950s until well into the 1970s. Grounded in a belief in the unity of science and the unity of human behavior, behavioralism developed scientific, quantitative methodologies for the study of political processes, and opened up the discipline to a wide range of theories and methods imported from the social and pure sciences. Because they believed that political phenomena could be subjected to the methods of science, behavioralists turned their back on the normative legacy of the discipline and replaced political philosophy with the philosophy of science, thereby setting new standards for the formulation of concepts, hypotheses, theories, and protocols for empirical testing. Although behavioralism's paradigmatic reign did not last beyond the 1980s, it transformed the discipline so profoundly that it remains to this day an essential, albeit implicit, component of its identity. Because of behavioralism's inscription in different socio-intellectual contexts that are all relevant for understanding its emergence, development, content, and impact on political science and international relations, and for the understanding of which it is also relevant, a reference essay on behavioralism necessarily takes multiple risks and has to avoid several pitfalls. The first is to present the tenets of this school ... log in or subscribe to read full text