Raymond Seidelman - Böcker

James Farr and Raymond Seidelman bring new historical reflection to the "state of the discipline" debate in political science. This anthology offers a panorama of views about the state of the discipline that have been sketched by leading political scientists and disciplinary historians from the late nineteenth century to the past.The essays in this volume explore four distinct periods in the development of the discipline, with special emphasis on the subfields of American politics and political theory, revealing that the identity of the discipline is constituted not so much by agreements over fundamental principles as by the history of debates about the meaning of politics, the methods of science, the theories of behavioralism and the state, and the responsibilities of public professionals and civic educators.Contributors are Terence Ball, Charles A. Beard, John W. Burgess, Robert A. Dahl, David Easton, John G. Gunnell, Norman Jacobson, Harold D. Lasswell, Francis Lieber, Charles E. Merriam, David M. Ricci, William H. Riker, Dorothy Ross, Helene Silverberg, Leonard D. White, Woodrow Wilson, and W.W. Willoughby.Its unprecedented treatment of the history of political science makes Discipline and History essential reading for political scientists and their students. Historians of the social sciences will also find much to consider.

New edition of the provocative history of the tenuous relationship between the scientific study of politics and the real world of American democracy.When it first appeared three decades ago, Raymond Seidelman's provocative study of the history of political science both attracted a great deal of attention and generated vibrant controversy. Where prior studies of the history of political science had concentrated on the evolution of the scientific study of politics, Seidelman placed his focus on the tenuous relationship between the scientific study of politics and the real world of American democracy. Examining paired sets of political science luminaries over a century, he finds recurrent hopes that a "science of politics" can be a "science for politics," and recurrent frustrations that neither elites nor democratic publics respond to the findings of political science or defer to its claims of scientific authority. Analyzing the reasons for political science's limited impact on democratic reform, Seidelman raises the prospect that the progressive dreams of American political science, rising and falling over the course of a century, may finally be exhausted.For this new edition, Bruce Miroff and Stephen Skowronek have written a foreword that relates the genesis of the book and the career of the late Ray Seidelman, while James Farr, a distinguished scholar of political science history, has contributed an extensive afterword. Whether readers concur with or dispute Seidelman's conclusions about the practical significance of political science, they will be challenged by the scope and power of Disenchanted Realists. The book invites a new generation of political scientists to examine the problematic development of the discipline they practice and to reflect on the public meanings of what they do in their own careers.