Back to the Future: How Understanding David Easton Can Give Guidance to the Caucus for a New Political Science

Abstract

Clyde Barrow concludes his informative 2008 account of the intellectual origins of New Political Science with the question “Which way do we go now?” On this 50th Anniversary of the Caucus for a New Political Science, this article will directly engage that question. First, it will be shown that Barrow’s discussion of the intellectual positions informing the founding moment of the CNPS has some serious misconceptions which may obscure the formation of a clear vision of the Caucus’s options for future endeavors. Among the points to be discussed are: certain misunderstandings of David Easton’s systematic political theory; a lack of clarity about what the fact-value distinction means for the conduct of political science as a “profession;” and, Easton’s vision of political science as constituted by three distinct levels. This discussion will further clarify the current context in which Caucus members may make their plans for future action organizationally, intellectually, and politically.

Notes

¹ Both Edmund Burke and George Santayana have been credited with versions of this aphorism.

² Clyde Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins of New Political Science,” New Political Science 30:2 (2008), p. 244.

³ John Gunnell, “The Reconstruction of Political Theory: David Easton, Behavioralism, and the Long Road to System.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 49:2 (2013), p. 198.

⁴ Clyde Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 271.

⁵ David Easton, The Political System (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1953, 1971), pp. 266–307f.

⁶ Ibid., 59.

⁷ Ibid., 272, 274.

⁸ Ibid., 272–73, notes 6–10.

⁹ Ibid., 268.

¹⁰ Ibid., 272.

¹¹ Ibid., 298–99.

¹² Ibid., 299.

¹³ Ibid., 299–302f.

¹⁴ Ibid., 289.

¹⁵ Ibid., 289.

¹⁶ Ibid., 305.

¹⁷ Ibid., 52.

¹⁸ Ibid., 51.

¹⁹ Ibid., 52 emp. add.

²⁰ Ibid., 49.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ For the role of empathy in Easton’s methodology, and the interpretivist elements of his behavioralism, see William J. Kelleher, “David Easton as an Interpretivist,” unpublished (April 2017), available online at: https://www.academia.edu/31337872/David_Easton_as_Interpretivist.

²⁵ Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics," The American Political Science Review 64:4 (1970), pp. 1033–53; and David Collier and John Gerring (eds), Concepts and Method in Social Science: The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori (London, UK: Routledge, 2009).

²⁶ Easton, The Political System, pp. 86–89f, and 350f.

²⁷ Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 244.

²⁸ Ibid., 220.

²⁹ Ibid., 235.

³⁰ Ibid., 230.

³¹ Ibid., 231.

³² Easton, The Political System, p. 223.

³³ Ibid., 223.

³⁴ Ibid., 224.

³⁵ Ibid., 225.

³⁶ Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 221.

³⁷ Easton, The Political System, p. 228.

³⁸ Ibid., 228–29f.

³⁹ The practice of using such mixed methods has a long history in political science running from Charles Merriam, who wrote in the early twentieth century, to Matthew Desmond, an early twenty-first century writer. RE: Merriam’s use of mixed methods, such as statistics and personal observation, see Bernard Crick, The American Science of Politics: Its Origins and Conditions (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press 1959), p. 133f; Albert Tanenhaus and Joseph Somit, The Development of Political Science (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1967), p. 87f.; David Ricci, The Tragedy of Political Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1984), p. 77f. Desmond used a similar mixed methods approach in Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2016). His methods are discussed in numerous footnotes throughout the text. Two reviews of Desmond worth comparing are Sanford Schram, “Political Research Beyond Political Science,” Perspectives on Politics 14:3 (2016), pp. 784–87; and, William Kelleher “Evicted: What would David Easton Say?” Unpublished (2016), available online at: https://www.academia.edu/31990615/Evicted_What_would_David_Easton_Say.

⁴⁰ Easton, The Political System, p. 226.

⁴¹ Ibid., 226.

⁴² Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 215.

⁴³ As noted above, in a Kuhnian analysis, scientific knowledge is never outside the realm of paradigm competition, or “politics” in an informal sense, because paradigms are ultimately chosen as a result of political competition. So Easton’s distinctions between three levels for political science assumes a condition of what Kuhn calls “normal science.” In other words, Easton’s scheme is a social construct which can only be made a reality by the personal commitment to it by a critical mass of political scientists who make their perspective mainstream through collective action. See, Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962, second edition 1970).

⁴⁴ Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 242.

⁴⁵ On the lack of respect for the political science profession among policy makers in the US, its causes, and some remedies proposed by the APSA, see William Kelleher, “The Clarke and Primo Liberating Conception of Good Work in Political Science,” Paper Delivered at the Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting (April 2015), p. 5f, available online at: https://www.academia.edu/10417226/The_Clarke_and_Primo_Liberating_Conception_of_Good_Work_in_Political_Science.

⁴⁶ Except for the ethical obligation of teachers to refrain from advocacy in the classroom. Of course, values are implicated in the choices made for teaching curricula. Somit and Tanenhaus write of “the profession’s continued commitment to education for democratic citizenship.” Somit and Tanenhaus The Development of Political Science, ibid., 171f. However, the instant article is concerned only with the research aspects of political science.

⁴⁷ Barrow, “The Intellectual Origins,” p. 242.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 243.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 223.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Ibid., 241.

⁵² Ibid., 237.

⁵³ Ibid., 224.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 216.

⁵⁵ Ibid., 241.

⁵⁶ See Ibid., 241, 233.

⁵⁷ RE “fragmentation,” see Ibid., 240f.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 241.