“Post-behaviouralism is not a negation of the behavioural revolution but only its corrective.” How does it seek to raise the status of the discipline of Political Science? (2000)
The statement restates David Easton‘s own framing in “The New Revolution in Political Science” (APSA presidential address, 1969), where he presented the post-behavioural revolution as a reform carrying behaviouralism forward rather than reversing it. It is persuasive about method, less so about philosophy; and the correction was made precisely to restore a status the discipline had lost.
Why “corrective” and not “negation”
What it kept. Most of Easton’s foundation stones survived: the search for regularities, verification, rigorous techniques, quantification where apt, systematic theory and integration with the social sciences. The survey, the statistical test and the comparative dataset were never repudiated, and the reform’s author was behaviouralism’s own architect.
What it corrected.
- Value-neutrality gave way to value-conscious research; the fact–value separation was loosened, not the facts abandoned.
- Technique-worship gave way to substance before technique.
- Pure science gave way to applied, problem-solving knowledge.
- Micro, status-quo analysis gave way to macro questions and social change.
- Detachment gave way to the scholar’s responsibility.
The qualification. The correction struck at behaviouralism’s positivist core, so it negated a philosophy while retaining a toolkit. The Caucus for a New Political Science found it too timid; traditionalists such as Leo Strauss doubted that a discipline built on positivism could recover values by resolution. “Corrective” is accurate about practice and understates the shift in self-understanding.
How it seeks to raise the discipline’s status
Behaviouralism had bought scientific respectability at the price of public usefulness: in the 1960s crises political scientists had little to tell citizens or governments. Post-behaviouralism tried to recover standing in five ways.
- Relevance: judging research by the importance of its problem restores the public’s reason to heed the discipline.
- Action: reviving the policy sciences first proposed by Harold D. Lasswell and Daniel Lerner (The Policy Sciences, 1951), it recast the political scientist as a problem-solver whose knowledge informs choices.
- Social responsibility of intellectuals: as guardians of humane values, scholars claim a moral authority no technician can.
- Value-conscious research: stating premises openly makes findings more credible, not less, because readers can see what is assumed.
- Future orientation: studying alternatives and emerging crises gives the discipline a foresight role, beyond cataloguing the present.
India supplies a concrete case. Rajni Kothari, founder of the survey-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, set up Lokayan (“dialogue of the people”) in 1980 as a forum linking intellectuals with grassroots activists; it received the Right Livelihood Award in 1985. Globally, the 2019 economics Nobel to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for experimental approaches to poverty, now widespread in political science as field experiments, shows rigorous method turned to urgent problems commanding public esteem.
Limits of the strategy
Relevance can mean dependence on governments or causes, and advocacy can cost the authority it seeks. The discipline’s later gains in standing came as much from sharper causal methods as from commitment.
Conclusion
Post-behaviouralism is best read as a corrective that kept behavioural rigour but changed its purpose. It raised the discipline’s status by insisting that political science earns respect not by resembling physics but by illuminating the choices a society actually faces.