Table Of ContentThe Tragedyo f PoliticalS cience
The Tragedy of Political Science
PoliticsS, cholarshipa,n d
Democracy
DAVID M. RICCI
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
This publication was prepared under a grant from the
\\'oodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
\\'ashington, D.C. The statements and views expressed
herein are those of the author and are not necessarily
those of the Wilson Center.
Copyright© 1984 by Yale University.
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Ricci, David M.
The tragedy of political science.
Includes index.
I. Political science. I. Title.
JA71.R48 1984 320 84-3510
ISBN 0-300-03088-6
!098765432
For my mother and father,
who deserveth is bookv ery much;
for Iry, Ronit, and Anat,
who haveb eenm y supporfto r so long;
and for Tali,
who camel ast, but not least.
Contents
Preface IX
Acknowledgments Xlll
Introduction
1. Political Science as a Profession 3
The Early Years
2. The Locus of Higher Education 29
3. The Contradictions of a Political Discipline 57
The Mid-Century Liberal Matrix
4. The New View of Science and Politics 99
5. The Behavioral Persuasion 133
6. The Decade of Disillusionment 176
The Community of Political Scholars
7. Politics, Publishing, Truth, and Wisdom 209
8. Political Laws, Community Power, and Critical Theory 249
Conclusions
9. The Tragedy of Political Science 291
Epilogue on Political Theory 319
Index 325
Preface
This book originated in my perception of two important trends that have charac
terized the development of modem political science. The first emerged in the
history of political thought. For the most part, the ideas which form the basis of
that history are found in writings of men like Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aqui
nas, Bodin, Locke, Burke, and Marx, whose works are considered to be part of
the corpus of great books that come down to us as a legacy of Western civiliza
tion. For centuries, those books served in the academic world as the touchstone
of teaching about politics, but they were not themselves mainly the product of an
academic environment. Some of their authors taught for a living, but most were
busy with practical affairs, and their tradition of discourse therefore owed more to
experience in the realms of culture and society than to enthusiasm for a narrow
and scholarly view of public life.
Who, then, are the great thinkers of today? To ask this question is to become
aware of the first trend that marks the development of modem political science,
because, according to most political scientists, the line of first-rate thinkers in the
Western tradition came to an end around the close of the nineteenth century.
Thus on the subject of, say, liberalism, not since John Stuart Mill, roughly
speaking, has a really impressive political thinker appeared. Now oddly enough,
just at about the time that men like John Stuart Mill were presumably becoming
so scarce, universities were unquestionably growing into the enormous centers of
learning that they are today. Here was a second trend relevant to political sci
ence, because, as the universities expanded and provided academic appoint
ments for political scholars, they stressed the importance of a scientific approach
to natural and social affairs, in fields ranging from biology and physics to anthro
pology, sociology, and political science.
The longer I thought about the declining number of great thinkers and the
IX
x Preface
growing prominence of universities, the more I was convinced that these two
trends must be significantly related. What happened, or so it seemed to me, was
that people teaching politics in the ever-expanding universities managed to re
place the old tradition of political thought with their own work. This they did by
expounding the virtues of a scholarly way of analyzing politics, whereupon, by
comparison, any more traditional sort of speculation about public affairs ap
peared to be either less incisive or plainly mistaken. As the years passed, great
quantities of that scholarly work accumulated, while more and more prestige
accrued to the universities in return for the scientific knowledge which their
faculty members, in various fields, produced and placed at the service of society.
Eventually, the new expertise of academicians as a class became so highly
regarded that, for political scientists at least, it seemed reasonable to honor the
older tradition of political ideas more for its historical stature than for any recent
representatives. Ergo the present situation, where most college courses on poli
tics arc designed to stress not an aggregate wisdom of the ages but the contempo
rary conclusions of political science professors regarding what, on the basis of
scholarly research, appears to them true of the political world.
The peculiar consequence of all this is that, beginning quite recently, large
numbers of American citizens have come to learn about public life from a
particular aggregation of academic specialists rather than, as in the past, from a
tradition based upon the works of great men in many walks of life. Yet we know
very little about those specialists and about how shared vocational circumstances
may affect the quality of their teachings. What if, for example, the conditions of
work in universities direct the findings of political research in some specific
directions and not in others? And what if, as a result, political scientists, as a
group, tend to endorse certain views of the polity as opposed to others? In short,
what is the nature of political science as a learned discipline, and what is the
impact of that character on the form and content of political education in
America today?
Such broad questions may indicate the need for an inquiry larger than any
one investigator can handle comprehensively, because thousands of political
scientists have taught and written in America since universities emerged a cen
tury ago, and no one can possibly read, or otherwise acquaint himself with, all
they have said. I will concede this point even before my critics make it. I will also
add that, having attempted the job, I probably know better than anyone else just
how painfully limited one researcher's talents are in relation to the enormous
quantity of materials that might be surveyed. Nevertheless, operating under the
assumption that if nothing were ventured, nothing would be gained, I decided
that a basic overview of the discipline's development, and of representative works
which its members published in several eras, could lead at least to some enlight
enment on the subject of political studies. And that is what I set out to achieve.
Preface xi
In its final form, one written aspect of The Tragedy of Political Science
deserves explanation. With no male chauvinism intended, the book refers more
frequently to men than to women. Part of this imbalance I caused by avoiding
stylistic awkwardness while dealing with matters entailing gender, especially in
the singular. Most of the disparity, however, stems from my concern for human
beings taken collectively. Men and women all belong to the species of man, as in
Charles Darwin's Descent of Man and Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man, and no
other term but that one, and its derivatives, can yet evoke so powerfully the
qualities of grandeur and achievement that lie within our grasp as members of
the human race. In the text, I sometimes speak of individuals, persons, and
people, in order to preclude being written off as an incorrigible troglodyte. But I
have not yielded to modem usage entirely, because replacing the older terms
with newer expressions on every occasion means losing some of the historical
and emotional connotations still conveyed by the former. And some of those
connotations I wished to retain because this is, after all, a book about tragedy,
which encourages readers to recall and reaffirm the ideals of a great civilization
where those are embodied, as the term tragedy itself, in an age-old tradition of
humanistic discourse. I therefore ask the same readers for forbearance and hope
that they will tolerate what may be rated, nowadays, an eccentric ratio of mascu
line to feminine references.
Acknowledgments
Some of the early research for this book was conducted while I spent a sabbatical
leave at the University of Pennsylvania dming the academic year of 1976-77. I
am grateful to the Penn-Israel Exchange Program for financial support received
during that year. Drafting of the manuscript took place mainly from September
1981 to September 1982, when I was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Interna
tional Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Members of the staff there
provided library facilities and administrative services that made possible the
completion of the writing within its appointed time. Moreover, conversation
with other Fellows, and attendance at the Center's many seminars and collo
quia, provided intellectual stimulation throughout the year and contributed
many ideas that found a place in my writing.
For their critical reading of the manuscript, I am grateful to my father,
Thomas A. Ricci, to Marian Neal Ash of Yale University Press, and to Robert E.
Brown. James C. Scott and Richard J. Bernstein were very helpful for uncovering
some unexplained assumptions in my work, and these I strove to explicate fully
before going to press. For tracking down many detailed citations, I owe a special
note of thanks to J. David O'Donnell, my research assistant in Washington.
For whatever merit this book enjoys, all those who helped me are entitled to
share the credit. The errors I accept as mine alone.
Xltt
