Seven (Disputable) Theses Concerning the Future of ‘Tranatlanticised’ or ‘Globalised’ Political Sciencea

SEVEN (DISPUTABLE) THESES CONCERNING THE FUTURE OF ‘TRANSATLANTICIZED’ OR ‘GLOBALIZED’ POLITICAL SCIENCE* Philippe C. Schmitter Istituto Universitario Europeo October 2001 [revised version] * An earlier version of this essay was written for a conference organized by Luigi Graziano on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the International Political Science Association. The panel at which it was presented was asked to address the issue: “Political Science: A American Science?” Although I was unable to attend the conference, I gather that it was not well received by the assembled cast of international luminaries. Not only did I imply that IPSA might have been complicit in the effort to americanize the discipline, but I also expressed the opinion that political science is not and cannot ever be “American” and that, if current trends persist unchanged on the other side of the Atlantic, it will become less so in the future. I thank the editor of this review, James Newell, for having rescued this piece from obscurity and. Therewith, absolve him of any responsibility for its content. In this slightly revised version, I have not changed two things: (1) I have abjured recourse to extensive footnotes, hence, almost all of my factual claims remain undocumented; and (2) I have not toned down its manifestly polemic and personal tone, despite repeated suggestions that I do so. 1 The one thing no one questions is that the disciplined study of politics is in flux. Political scientists, politologues, Politischewissenschaftler, politólogas and politologi seem, even more than their brethren in the other social sciences, to have to deal with a major crisis in their discipline and, hence, to be “condemned to live in interesting times” – as the Chinese proverb puts it. I can sympathize with those who find their pet paradigms in ruins or their area of specialization virtually eliminated in a burst of “creative destruction,” but I am confident that in the long run this turbulence will improve the discipline. Of course, those of us now in the midst of this crisis may not be around to benefit personally or professionally from these improvements when they are finally realized. It is tempting to view this turbulence from the perspective of “globalization,” i.e. as the product of a rather vast (if mysterious) array of changes in scale that tend to cluster together, reinforce each other and seem to be accelerating in their cumulative impact. In our field, they all have something to do with encouraging exchanges between individual scholars and academic institutions – compressing their exchanges in time and space, lowering their transaction costs and overcoming previous restrictions posed by national political or cultural barriers. Political science has always been, in principle, a cosmopolitan enterprise. Its practice, however, has been strongly conditioned by the very parochial concerns of the national compartments in which it has heretofore been confined. Since its “invention” in ancient Greece, the center of innovation in political thinking has shifted several times, but its concepts, assumptions and methods have eventually diffused from one place to another. 2 Its cumulative development as a distinctive scholarly discipline has been relatively recent and closely associated with the emergence of stable republican/democratic governments, hence, the longer any given polity has had rulers who have been systematically accountable to their citizenry in some form or another, the more likely it is that political science will have prospered within it. In short, there is reason to believe that the evolution of political science is isomorphic with the evolution of its subject matter. As goes the practice of politics, so will (eventually, if belatedly) go the science of politics. None of the individual changes presently affecting the discipline is novel. What is unprecedented is their volume, variety and cumulative impact. Moreover, despite the label, “global,” the distribution of this temporal and spatial compression is neither universal nor even. It is very much concentrated on the scholarly exchanges between America and Europe. The former is seen by many observers (and, especially by its fans) as playing the compound role of coach, goal-keeper, striker and referee, with the latter at best occupying the mid-field and the rest of the world setting on the bench waiting to be called into the game. From this “transatlanticized” perspective, the future of political science is clear – and it is already on display on the western side of the Atlantic. It is merely a matter of time before national and regional resistances are overcome and the entire discipline will converge upon an identical set of concepts, assumptions and methods. In the first part of this essay, I have attempted to formulate and formalize this perspective in a set of seven “theses.” They are stated without nuance or respect for national/regional sensitivities – hence, I do 3 not expect that most non-American political scientists would overtly subscribe to them or that most American political scientists would admit openly to such an “imperial” attitude. What I do expect is that very many in both groups would, at least covertly, agree with them – although I have no independent proof of this. Until I came across the introductory chapters to A New Handbook of Political Science! Especially in the essay by Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann on “Political Science: The Discipline,” I found a massive confirmation of my hunch. While none of my seven theses is explicitly stated there, they can all be inferred from its text. Moreover, in their celebratory style, Goodin and Klingemann seem to welcome unconditionally this skewed transatlantic convergence toward American concepts, assumptions and methods and to regret whatever resistance to it might still be residing in national or regional practices within Europe. In the entire chapter, there is not a single hesitation or critical remark about how Americans do their political science. “Rapprochement” with the victors on the other side of the Atlantic is described as taking place “gladly” and not “grudgingly” according to them. i Since the Goodin & Klingemann volume bears very prominently the imprimatur of the International Political Science Association, anyone reading it is likely to assume that it is the policy of IPSA not only to promote more universalistic standards of training and accomplishment in the discipline, but also to serve as the agent of its Americanization-cum-Transatlanticization. Indeed, considering the composition of topics and invitees to the 50th Anniversary Conference at which this essay was initially presented, it does not seem far- 4 fetched to describe that meeting as part of such an “imperial” campaign. Scholars from the United States and “foreigners” educated or teaching there comprised the vast bulk of its participants. SEVEN THESES Let us then convert this implicit notion of American superiority into explicit theses that could eventually be tested: I. The Convergence Thesis: Scholars specializing in the study of politics will increasingly converge in their use of concepts, assumptions and methods. Previous national and regional differences will diminish and eventually disappear. Political scientists, wherever they find themselves, will eventually perform virtually the same operations on the same variables for the same purposes and arrive at shared conclusions about causality based on the same criteria of inference. The increasing dominance of English within the discipline, no doubt, promotes this outcome, but even those writing in other languages will be compelled into “convergent translation” or risk being relegated to obscurity. II. The Asymmetry Thesis: This convergence in concepts, assumptions and methods will not involve “splitting the difference” or “regressing to the mean” as it is presently distributed across nations and regions, but movement toward the standards set previously in the discipline by its most hegemonic player, i.e. the United States of America. Most innovations will come from mainstream “leading” American political scientists, and their diffusion to practitioners in lesser nations and regions is only a matter of time. “Dissident” American political scientists will first be marginalized at home and, then, have little or no impact outside their country. III. The Sequential Thesis: The initial core area for this process of diffusion consists of the North Atlantic. All things being equal, American concepts, assumptions and methods will first have an impact upon Northern (and later Southern) Europe – and only then will they “travel” to more peripheral settings. The fact that political science has long been practiced in relatively self-contained national compartments within Europe is an impediment to the smooth functioning of “transatlanticized” political science; therefore, strong pressures will be exerted to promote increased convergence among Europe’s national disciplines, but only as a prelude to the eventual convergence of all of them with American political science. Analogous processes of sequential convergence at the regional level 5 seem also to be developing among Latin American and some African practitioners. In Asia, regional aggregation seems almost non-existent and more direct forms of dependence upon the United States seem to be the rule. IV. The Professionalization Thesis: The primary mechanism behind this process of staggered but irrevocable convergence will be that of professional standardization. Norms with regard to how political science should be practiced will be set, monitored and policed initially by American professional associations and institutions of higher learning and, subsequently, these will be adopted by national and regional organizations in more peripheral locations. Political scientists who refuse to conform to these norms will be discriminated against in hiring, promotion, access to journals, invitations to scholarly congresses and leadership positions in national and international associations – with IPSA, incidentally, likely to play a key role in this process. The obvious analogy is with the discipline of economics which succeeded within a few decades in driving out of all of its major university departments almost all “dissident” practitioners – first in the United States and, more recently, elsewhere. V. The Efficiency Thesis: A secondary but very important mechanism in this process consists of the insertion of principles of market competition into this increasingly transatlanticized and eventually globalized profession. Because the practice of political science in the United States is already more sensitive to market pressures and, hence, more capable of adapting its incentive structure to changes in supply and demand, it will be more successful in rewarding those who conform to its norms than will competing national or regional producers. As one result, there will be a permanent “brain drain” from Europe and the periphery to the United States. Even the most dynamic and critical practitioners of “nonAmerican” political science will find it hard to resist these rewards – especially when they have to cope with more formalized, hierarchically structured and publicly regulated work environments in which salaries and status bear little relation to the teaching or research performance of individual scholars. Needless to say, this draining-off of talent will only further enhance the disciplinary hegemony of American political science – at least until saturation and crowding-out effects set in. VI. The Universality Thesis: In addition to all of the above, the superiority of American political science is further ensured by the fact that the moeurs of American culture are becoming increasingly universal. This permits its practitioners to base their generic assumptions about political behavior upon observations (and presumptions) that are specific to the immediate 6 setting with which they are familiar: individualism (social and political, as well as methodological), spontaneously “opportunistic” and “selfregarding” behavior, “non-Tuism,” maximization at the margin, basic material satisfaction, weak ideological motivation, low degrees of interest in politics, lots of “slack” in citizen participation, respect for the law and existing practices, “normal,” i.e. uni-modal and non-skewed, distributions of preference on most issues, relatively legitimate institutions, established national identity, high tolerance for social and economic inequalities, absence of over-riding or over-whelming cleavages, e cosí via. In short, it can be presumed that what seems rational in American political behavior must also be rational elsewhere – hence, an enormous saving on time and effort in that it allows American political scientists to forego the high cost of learning foreign languages and conducting field research. The data, so to speak, come to them without effort on their part (and, increasingly, it even comes in English!). When they don’t, positions can always be “simulated” or preferences can be safely “inferred” on the basis of American precedents. VII. The Ahistoricity Thesis: Given the presumption of universality built into American political science, its practitioners can also afford to be indifferent to specificities of time and space. Whatever happened long ago or came before can be safely ignored, either because current outcomes can be explained by relatively short-term calculations of utility maximization that are not sensitive to previous choices, or because whatever the preferences may have been in the past they are being increasingly overridden by the global diffusion of common norms and expectations in the present. To the extent that time is a relevant factor in this new “transhistorical” science, it can be reduced to iterative interaction among likeminded actors and discounted across some reliable time period. Another useful, effort-saving device is systematic (if naïve) “presentism.” One can either simply ignore all previous instances of the behavior one is presently studying on the grounds that “preferences” were then different; or one can reconstruct these instances via “stylized facts” in such a way that contemporary motives and calculations will provide a plausible ex post explanation for whatever outcome occurred in the past. Needless to say, this is much easier to get away with in the context of the United States -where formal political institutions have been unusually constant over time and where successive generations of newcomers have been assimilated into a continuously “re-invented mythical national community” -- than it is in all but a very few European countries and none of the ex-colonial ones. Now, let us take a second and more critical look at these seven theses: 7 I. Convergence The evidence on the independent variable in this thesis – globalization -is quite convincing. Any systematic compilation of data would no doubt show that the probability of any two political scientists, randomly selected from different national contexts, meeting each other sometime in their careers has greatly increased over the past two decades. The volume of and attendance at international congresses, the composition of boards of international professional associations, the number of papers jointly authored by persons of different nationality, the extent of cross-citation across political borders on almost any substantive issue, the likelihood of younger graduate students obtaining at least part of their training in another country or being employed at some point in their career in more than one country – all these unobtrusive indicators seem to be pointing in the same, i.e. upward, direction. Moreover, my hunch is that most of them show a cumulative, exponential tendency – especially when plotted over successive generations of political scientists. The more recent one’s training, the more likely one is to have been exposed to concepts, assumptions and methods from a different national tradition. The problem lies in inferring the consequences of this burgeoning “transatlanticization” or “globalization” of academic production and exchange – i.e. in assuming that it must lead to convergence. It is certainly logically possible that, in a fashion analogous to trade and investment in material goods, the actors involved learn to exploit their different mixes of resources. Instead of mimicking their competitors, they specialize even more in what they do best (and, in the 8 process, become more aware of the limitations built into the products of “firstmovers”). Especially when the political science community is relatively small and, hence, its “niche” products do not threaten the status or the market share of the hegemonic producer, this would seem to be an intelligent strategy – as is abundantly illustrated by the relative success in “diversified quality production” of small and medium size firms in small and medium size European countries.ii If nothing else, the historical experience of Europe’s small democracies shows a marked tendency for diversity, innovation and experimentation. I see no reason why this should not be the case for their respective politologues and these qualitative differences may even increase in the future in response to certain characteristics of mass-produced, first-moving American political science. II. Asymmetry Here again, no one can contest certain facts. Of the world’s total number of employed political scientists, as much as 80% are said to work in the United States. iii Measured in terms of words, pages or number of published articles and books, their production is much greater than all others combined – although it is debatable whether this volume of output is proportional to the absolute number of those engaged (and even more debatable whether the quality of output is similarly proportional).iv For example, at the present moment, there are ca. 7,500 regular members of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 scholars are affiliated with the +200 institutions that are members of its European-level equivalent, the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). Considering that the two “regions” 9 are of approximately equal total population, that translates into a relative density some 1,5 to 2 times greater in the case of the United States (most Canadian political scientists are likely to be members of the APSA, but their total number -ca. 500 – does not change the calculation very much). Nor is this so surprising. The lengthy and continuous history of liberal democracy, the proliferation of state universities due to federalism, the parallel existence of a very numerous set of (usually) smaller private universities, the larger proportion of youth who enter post-secondary education – all these factors translate into a greater demand for instruction in the social sciences relative to Europe. When combined with the greater ease with which political science managed to separate itself institutionally from the other academic specializations that often supplied its original practitioners: law, sociology, philosophy and history, the creation of the world’s first private foundations devoted to funding social and political research, and the enormous boost it received when German, Austrian and Italian refugees entered its ranks, the head-start of American political science seems, in retrospect, to have been an over-determined outcome. Seen, however, from the immediate perspective, the rest of the world (and Europe, in particular) is rapidly closing the numerical gap.v Which still leaves the issue of asymmetry in terms of the content and methods of the discipline. More is not necessarily better. Goodin & Klingemann take it for granted not only that American political science is presently hegemonic in virtually every sense of the term, but that it will remain so and that this is a very desirable thing. While noting the resurgence of interest and production in 10 Europe, they do not seem to envisage the possibility that Europeans might surpass their “masters” – not necessarily in quantity, but in quality. For example, I suspect that more political science graduate students from European countries now study in other European universities than go to the United States. Some of this is a simple matter of relative costs, but much of the shift can be attributed to deliberate programs of national governments and the European Union, as well as a growing sense that American political science may have little to contribute to understanding their countries or Europe as a whole. One of the biggest contemporary producers of doctorates in political science is the European University Institute in Florence which recruits from all EU member countries (and then some) and whose graduates increasingly find academic job opportunities outside their country of origin. I also suspect that if it were possible to measure the “consumption” of political science scholarship, rather than its mere production, Europeans would not come out so far behind. vi A very substantial (and growing) proportion of American output seems to be oriented exclusively to those within the discipline (and, increasingly, to a small “club” of like-minded practitioners within it). Much of what European Politischewissenschaftler publish goes into less specialized journals aimed at a broader audience (and, therefore, is often not even counted as “professional output”). It enters into a broad public intellectual domain – much like the New York Review of Books or op-ed articles in major newspapers. Very few American political scientists dare to make such an effort, presumably on the grounds that it would be a waste of their professional skills.vii I do not think it 11 exaggerated to claim that, while American political scientists see their task as exclusively “professional,” their European (and Latin American and African) counterparts see it as equally “intellectual.” Which may be one of many reasons why these political scientists outside of America are much more likely to be engaged in the political struggles of their respective countries and to make a more significant contribution to setting the policy agenda.viii Except for a recent brief flurry around the issue of impeachment, our American colleagues have habitually chosen to stay au dessus de la mêlée. And those who do get involved, such as the occasional TV pundit, are often dismissed for having “acted unprofessionally.”ix III. Sequentiality This thesis is crucial for evaluating the ‘global’ future of the discipline since, given the disparities in absolute numbers and points of departure, it will only be by creating regionally-based “communities” of political scientists that those training and/or working outside the United States will be able to break its hegemonic grip. Only such a strategy can bring together the economies of scale and scope that are needed to develop alternative approaches and to offer attractive career opportunities to those who choose them. And there is considerable evidence that the effort is being made. In Europe, this is manifested by European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) which has grown steadily in the number of its member institutions (significantly, its membership is not of individuals but organizations) and in attendance at its annual meetings.x In Latin America, something analogous is 12 happening via the Consejo Latino-americano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) and in the various branches of the Faculdad Latin-Americana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Ambitious graduate students in political science in both parts of the world are increasingly aware of the need for “cross-national” training and career experience, but a steadily growing proportion of them has chosen to do this within the two regions -- rather than make the previously obligatory pilgrimage to the Meccas of U.S. scholarship: Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, Michigan, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Columbia , Minnesota, North Carolina et ainsi de suite. All this effort would be irrelevant if, ultimately, these points of transnational aggregation proved to be but “way-stations” on the route to a more thorough-going Americanization of concepts, assumptions and methods. If institutions such as the ECPR and its Essex Summer School (and I would include Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute where I am presently employed) merely serve as “academic franchises” peddling the same merchandise as their American counterparts, they will not only have failed in their ostensible purpose, but they will also have added greater legitimacy to the whole process of “transatlanticization-cum-americanization.” If and when their products become indistinguishable from what is done on the other side of the Atlantic, then, it will be impossible to deny that a globalization of the discipline has indeed occurred and on terms set by the American political science community. 13 It is obviously too early to judge whether “regionalization” in either Europe or Latin America is going to be able to challenge “transatlanticization-cumamericanization.” In a fascinating parallel with the more comprehensive process of European economic and political integration, we still do not know whether such policies are going to result in an acceleration of trends that are already under way in other advanced industrial societies, an inversion of them, or simply no net effect at all. xi Seen from the optique of the EUI, I can see both signs of resistance to the hegemony of American concepts, assumptions and methods, and some evidence of the firming-up of an alternative “historical-sociologicalinstitutional” paradigm, but I cannot ignore the contrary evidence – namely, that when our ricercatori are offered the opportunity to spend a year at one of several of America’s major research universities, they jump at it! There is a strong demand for attending the APSA annual convention (although many who do so come back reporting how boring it was) and presenting a paper there is still a major status asset. Especially ironic is the fact that in two fields where one might expect European-ness to assert itself academically – namely, the comparative study of Europe’s “domestic” politics and the analysis of the politics of European integration – very substantial numbers of political scientists cross the Atlantic to attend the bi-annual meetings of the Council on European Studies (CES) and the European Community Studies Association (ECSA). Regardless of these mixed signals, one thing I can affirm with confidence: perhaps the most indispensable element for the eventual success of regional resistance is coming into place, i.e. the creation of a genuinely cross-national 14 market within Europe for political science talent. The United States of America has long benefited from its flexibility in being able to hire “the best” without regard to nationality (not to mention its status as a refuge for distinguished exile scholars). Thanks in part to the directives of the European Union, discrimination in hiring among its members is no longer possible and one can even occasionally observe competition among them to attract the best extra-comunitari talent. It is no longer “axiomatic” that Europeans with doctoral degrees in political science will work in their own country – or, if they do not, that they will emigrate to the States, Canada or Australia. IV. Professionalization Which brings us to the crucial role played by professionalization. Again, no one can deny the trend: persons who engage in the study of politics are more likely today than yesterday to do so full-time, to have undergone a specialized type of certification, to have their work evaluated by pre-established standards, to be a member of a specific sub-set of associations, and to be advanced in their careers according to the meritocratic criteria embedded in the previously mentioned process of professionalization. This is just as true in Europe as in the United States in terms of the direction of change, even if specific components may still differ. For example, part-time and irregular forms of employment for young political scientists seem to be increasing everywhere – hopefully, only temporarily -- and, I suspect, the fetish attached to “peer-reviewed articles in major journals” may still be stronger in the United States.xii 15 What is questionable is the inference that the training and standards involved in this process are being set exclusively by the Americans, that this will continue to be true into the indefinite future, – and that this is “gladly and not grudgingly” accepted by the others. One must first begin with the recognition that training and standards are by no means homogenous in the United States. Despite the vested interests of two successive “clans” -- i.e. the behaviorists and the rational choicers -- to ensure that all newcomers acquire their assumptions and techniques, there is still resistance in all but a few faculties to such a monolithic set of theoretical assumptions, measurement techniques and evaluative norms. Ironically, the social science disciplines from which they have so uncritically drawn these assumptions, techniques and norms – first, social psychology and, more recently, liberal economics -- seem to have become aware of their limitations and have expanded their training programs and research paradigms accordingly. Emphasizing internal logical coherence at the expense of empirical reality and substantive relevance has costs, and not just benefits. Like all “late converts,” their acolytes in political science seem not yet to have learned the lesson of “requisite diversity” in concepts and methods. Which has not, however, been lost on Europeans and others. They are not only capable of resisting the latest American fads out of a respect for traditional canons of scholarship, but they also are not subjected to the same competitive pressures to conform. V. Efficiency 16 For if there is one irresistible force driving the process of professionalization in American political science, it is relentless competition between individual scholars and academic institutions. European capitalists at the turn of the century frequently commented on the “extreme” nature of competition between their Americans counterparts. Firms not only tried by all means available to gain market share, but their objective was to drive other firms out of existence or to subordinate them via holdings. Presumably, the conditions that promoted such ruthlessness then are still present in American society – and apply to American political science: a large number of potential suppliers and consumers, the diverse cultural and national backgrounds of an immigrant society, the absence of a national aristocracy or rigid oligarchy, a legal framework regulating “conspiracies against trade,” relatively easy entry into the market/profession, absence of state-imposed bureaucratic coordination, plurality of sources of investment/funding, etc. On virtually all of these scores, European political science communities (especially those in small countries) score low and, hence, whatever competition occurs is strongly limited by social norms and “personal connections.” Some of them even have elaborate formal rules precluding the “raiding” of one faculty by another. The rise in globalization noted in Thesis #1 no doubt has introduced elements of cross-national and even crossregional competition in hiring, research funding, slots on congress panels, participation in collaborative ventures, etc., but my hunch is that even these are quietly “managed” in a more gentile and cartel-like fashion in Europe. 17 The most visible consequence of these deeply-rooted differences in competition is, in my opinion, the propensity for fads to swept through the American profession and for their proponents to use whatever momentary advantage they have gained to seek to drive competitors out of their institution or the profession as a whole. Whether the fad is based on concepts, assumptions or methods (and especially when it contains all three as was the case with behaviorism and is now the case with rational choice), any practitioner who does not succumb to their appeal risks being labeled as “unprofessional” or, worse, “unscientific.” The historical result has often been departments that are “layered” into cliques, each having enjoyed momentary prominence, that have very little to say to each other (and many past resentments that they continue to harbor). European “faculties” of political science have had and continue to have many of the same cleavages, but the less intense competitiveness within them seems to leave less persistent scars.xiii VI. Universality Political science in the United States of America has always labored under a profoundly ambiguous, not to say, schizophrenic pair of assumptions. On the one hand is the notion that this country has been blessed politically by its “exceptionalism.” Thanks to the absence of hostile neighbors and the presence of an open frontier, to the absence of any fierce struggle over feudal privileges and the presence of multiple and overlapping cleavages in an immigrant society, to the absence of profound class conflicts and the presence of a continuous increase in collective wealth, it has avoided many of the “pathologies” of 18 European politics – not to even mention, the bizarreries of belated national liberation from imperial domination. Very few Americans – including virtually all of its political scientists – question the notion that their country has superior political institutions because of its exceptional location and good historical fortune. On the other hand, these same observers are thoroughly convinced that the United States has the most universal political culture and appeal. They take it for granted that foreigners would naturally prefer, not just an American style of life, but an American standard of politics -- if only they could have it. When undergraduates are introduced academically to the study of politics, the first course they invariably take is based not on a comparison with other countries but a unique exposition of American institutions and behavior. The message is clear and seems to stick: American politics are “normal;” those practiced by others are “abnormal” and definitely “inferior.”xiv 19 THE INSTITUTIONAL LOCATION OF FIRST AUTHOR (%) OF ARTICLES(*) in YEARS 1996 to 1999 in American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Revue Française de Science Politique, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, Scandinavian Political Studies Institutional Location of First Author (%) & (Number of articles) Years American Political Science Review 96 97 98 Political Studies 97 98 3 4 4 99 96 3 iss. 7 (2) (2) (2) (2) Continent Region 99 96 3 iss. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 97 98 Revue Française de Sciences Politiques 99 96 2 iss. 2 97 (1) (1) 98 Rivista Italiana Scienza Politica 99 96 2 iss. 97 98 2 Scandinavian Political Studies 99 96 1 iss. 5 97 98 99 3 iss. Canada North America (1) 93 92 97 91 6 18 25 7 4 2 3 15 16 14 15 11 15 13 (42) (50) (48) (33) (3) (9) (12) (2) (2) (1) (1) (2) (3) (2) (3) (2) (3) (2) 2 3 5 10 12 4 14 13 13 25 2 6 15 27 7 26 16 5 6 (1) (2) (2) (5) (6) (2) (4) (6) (2) (10) (1) (2) (2) (5) (1) (4) (1) (1) (1) 76 57 51 64 81 86 71 86 90 69 55 78 73 83 80 83 84 80 (38) (28) (24) (18) (35) (13) (28) (33) (28) (9) (10) (11) (11) (5) (16) (15) (16) (12) 8 3 99 99 (19) (15) USA Western Europe Western Europe National Eastern Europe Others (4) (1) 4 2 2 8 8 6 3 5 (2) (1) (1) (4) (4) (3) (1) (2) 98 98 98 99 98 97 99 99 98 99 99 99 100 99 (47) (28) (43) (15) (39) (38) (31) (13) (18) (14) (15) (6) (20) Others TOTAL • % 99 98 99 98 100 99 Articles (45) (54) (49) (36) (50) (49) Articles, Research Notes, Forum, Book Review Essays, Debates, Review Articles, and Focus. (18) 20 This virtually instinctual parochialism built-into the discipline is well illustrated in Table One, where I have taken the issues from the last four years of the national political science journals of several major producing countries and coded them according to the nationality of the first author of each article, research commentary or bibliographic essay. The American Political Science Review has consistently been the one that has the fewest contributions by scholars in foreign universities or research institutions – 91 to 97% (and that counts Canadians as foreigners!). The closest rival is the Revue Française de Sciences Politiques where French nationals produced between 69% and 90% of its articles. It should be noted that in the cases of Political Studies and Scandinavian Political Studies a substantial proportion of the foreign authors were Americans – as much as 25% in the 1998 volume of Political Studies. Elsewhere, as further confirmation of what we discussed above under the rubrique of sequentiality, the growing cosmopolitanism of such journals as Politische Vierteljahresschrift and Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica is the result of their opening their pages to other Europeans. Defenders of American hegemony will, of course, reply that this constitutes proof of the superiority of its standards and production. Not only does it dominate its “home market,” but also expanding its share in some of the European markets. Obviously, a test of this proposition would hinge upon a much more detailed examination of the pattern of article submissions and peer reviewing, but I would be willing to advance the hypothesis that very few non- 21 Americans even bother to submit their work to the APSR because they know that its editorial board is controlled by a particular clique within the American profession that has no interest in their work (unless, of course, it successfully mimics what is fashionable in the States). Fortunately, for these Europeans, there are more specialized journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics and World Politics that are likely to be more receptive – although, even there, the preference for national contributors still seems to be a factor. My conclusion is that American political science has no especially valid claim to universality; Indeed, its root assumptions and concepts are often thoroughly parochial. Much of the post-war evolution of the sub-field of comparative politics has consisted of country and regional specialists trying to purge the discipline of these distorted elements. The failure of America’s most concerted effort at asserting hegemony over the study of “other people’s politics,” i.e. the structural-functional approach pioneered by Gabriel Almond and the SSRC’s Committee on Comparative Politics, can best be interpreted in this light. As its conservative notions about the interdependence of “functions” and its static assumptions about equilibrium became increasingly apparent, it sought refuge in a more European-style of historical institutional analysisxv – but it was too late and that fad has been completely exorcised from the profession. VII. Ahistoricity It is certainly inaccurate to characterize the United States of America any longer as a “new nation” and, hence, not responsible for the astonishing 22 ahistoricity of the two most recent fads in its political science. Both behaviorism and rational choice have been (and still are) flagrantly unconcerned with the role played by “memories” of previous conflicts, by unusual sequences of events, by the intervention of particular forces or persons, by complex patterns of interaction under conditions of high uncertainty, by twists and turns of ideological fortune, by diffusion from one case to another, by acquired habits and instincts that are not subject to rapid attitudinal change or momentary calculation, by the arcane processes whereby preferences have been formed and transformed, e così via. The best that they have had to say about political change has been limited to notions of “realigning elections,” “iterative games,” “path dependencies” and “punctuated equilibria” – and even these are often invoked only to “explain away” outcomes that would otherwise be inexplicable or irrational. My hunch is that it is precisely the protracted stability, the sheer “taken-for-grantedness” of American political institutions when compared to virtually any other polity in the world, that allows its students of politics to exclude so programatically the unavoidably complex patterns embedded in any historically specified notion of causality. It is not because the United States has no history, but because it has had too long and too continuous a history that students of its politics can be so ahistorical. Elsewhere, political scientists cannot afford such a luxury. Change in political status, regime, values, rules and behaviors are much more omnipresent features of their respective environments and they have to be “explained,” not “explained away.” What happened long ago or just came before cannot be safely ignored – and this is not just the case within a given polity but across a 23 sub-set of polities within an interdependent “region.”xvi However, once one has made the formation of preferences endogenous to one’s paradigm or introduced the possibility that similarly situated actors might have very different propensities for risk-taking or alliance-formation due to their past experiences, the potential for a parsimonious and self-contained explanation diminishes considerably – as does the intellectual distance from one’s “less scientific” colleagues in history and the other social sciences. To Europeans and their Third World brethren this may not seem so threatening (if only because so many of their political scientists came from these disciplines), but to those Americans avidly bent on establishing their distinctive professional credentials (and imitating their economist colleagues), the prospect is not likely to be welcomed. AN ACADEMIC CONCLUSION Political science cannot be “an American science.” No country, no matter how many professionals it has employed or how much of a head-start it has gained, can expect to be the hegemonic producer of the concepts, assumptions and methods that will guide this increasingly globalized discipline in the future. Moreover, the United States of America is singularly (one might say, exceptionally) ill-equipped to play this role since the basic parameters that have conditioned and continue to condition its political life are so different from those that operate elsewhere. Its state-, nation- and regime-building experiences have few parallels in Europe or the Third World. What most of its political scientists take for granted is quite often what is regarded as most problematic by scholars working on the politics of other countries. And the contemporary gap between 24 what is driving American politics and what is driving “other peoples’ politics” is growing wider, not narrower. If, “as goes the practice of politics, so will (eventually) go the science of politics,” then there is every reason to expect a decline in U.S. hegemony in the future – no matter how hard its political scientists try to prevent it. Precisely because they are so numerous and self-contained, American political scientists have an unfortunate tendency to ignore what is happening academically and intellectually elsewhere. Precisely because they sincerely believe that the norms and behaviors they study are universal and timeless, they find it difficult to incorporate spatial and historical factors in their work. But there are two “saving graces” of major significance at work within the American profession of political science: (1) its diversity in recruitment; and (2) its insatiable competitiveness. Together, they will ensure that, whatever zealousness and parochialism may characterize it at a given moment, their joint impact will be short-lived. Hopefully, this time the demise of these excesses will be hastened by insights and criticisms coming not just from inside but also from outside the American profession. Only once this has happened and the “American” science of politics has been put in its proper (comparative) place will one be able to speak of an authentically globalized science of politics. A PERSONAL CONCLUSION In the United States, ambitious or frustrated persons have been traditionally advised to “Go West, Young Man” where they could expect to find greater freedom to act, receptivity for innovation and tolerance of diversity. 25 Admittedly no longer a young political scientist, I went West (or, better, returned West) and I there found conformity to power, rampant careerism, hostility to alternative paradigms and a scholasticism indifferent to the concerns of the real world. I am convinced that the maxim should, at least for the moment, be inverted. For those who want to practice a political science that is critical of established power, sensitive to the distinctive nature of its subject matter and capable of explaining the complexities of political life to real people, they would be better advised to “Go East … and, if possible, now and then, South.” That is where you will be free to question prevailing assumptions, to develop innovative concepts and methods, to address issues of significance and, maybe, even to influence the course of political events. You will also be more likely to make a significant contribution to a globalized science of politics. * ENDNOTES * i It should be observed that this Handbook is an enormous improvement upon its (English language) predecessors that merely presumed that only U.S. political science was worth considering when assessing “the state of the art.” Goodin and Klingemann are manifestly proud that “just under half of our 42 contributors (have) non-American affiliations” (p. xiii). I cannot resist pointing out, however, that almost all of them are Northern Europeans (German, Scandinavian or British) and the two that are not (Mattei Doggan and Giandomenico Majone) both were either holding or had shortly before held appointments in the United States. As for political science and political scientists not on the transatlantic circuit, one could read the entire essay and not even know that they existed! ii On this issue of convergence, political scientists could profit from reading an important analysis written collaboratively by an (Austrian) economist and a (Dutch) sociologist: Brigitta Unger & Frans van Waarden (eds.), Convergency or Diversity? Internationalization and Economic Policy Response (Aldershot: Avebury, 1995). iii This figure is cited by Dirk Berg-Schlosser who refers to David Easton et al., The Development of Political Science (London: Routledge, 1991) as his source: “Vergleichende europäische Politikwissenschaft – Ansätze einer Bestandaufnahme,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 38, 4 (1998), p. 829. My hunch is that this is an exaggeration and, moreover, I am convinced that the relative numerical superiority of the United States is declining. 26 iv One must not confuse the exponential increase in the use of English with the spread of American (or, for that matter, British) versions of political science. Needless to say, Americans and Brits do have an initial linguistic advantage and most conceptual innovations will appear first in English simply because of its use as a lingua franca, but this is insufficient to ensure that the content and the assumptions behind it will conform to American (or British) usage. More and more national journals within Europe are routinely publishing articles in English as well as their native language – except, of course, for the Revue Française de Sciences Politiques – but I would not interpret this as an indicator of growing American hegemony in the profession. v A similar observation can be inferred from the review article by Kenneth Newton and Josep M. Valles, “Introduction: political science in Western Europe, 1960-1990,” European Journal of Political Science, Vol. 20, Nos. 3-4 (December 1991), pp. 227-238. They make the intriguing suggestion that “once over the threshold requirement of open and democratic government and a relatively high standard of living, political science is not particularly dependent upon a special configuration of social and political circumstances” (p. 229). Europe took longer to get to that threshold – and Newton & Valles specifically note the factor of its “rigid and centralized university systems” in which other, better established, disciplines could better resist the assertion of a distinctive role for political science, in addition to the delay in political freedom and economic affluence compared to the United States. vi One can forget about using the Social Science Citation Index as a possible test for the relative attractions of U.S. and European political science. The list of journals included is skewed. With few exceptions, anyone having the misfortune of writing or being translated into “non-English” is simply not considered to have made a contribution to knowledge. Only 9% -- 10 out of the 111 journals in political science and international relations monitored by it -- are not published in English. As someone who makes a regular practice of publishing in non-US journals (admittedly, sometimes in English), I can only testify that these are the pieces that often seem to attract the most attention – perhaps, precisely because it so unusual for a non-national to do so. vii On the inconsequentiality of recent American political science for American politics, see Charles Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). viii I leave out of this generalization the rather special case of Harvard’s Government Department, several members of which have used their connections with American diplomatic, security and intelligence services to both facilitate their academic advancement and obtain important positions in the policy-making apparatus of the country. Yale’s (former?) relation with the American “intelligence community” was another (less public) exception. ix For a similar conclusion, see David McKay, “Why is There a European Political Science?” PS: Political Science and Politics, (Fall 1988), p. 1053. McKay does, however, note that Great Britain is an exception in which “the national and local political world is more closed to academics than is the American.” In this and many other regards, British political science is much closer to American practices than to those of the continent. x The number of affiliated institutions has climbed steadily from 157 in 1992 to 235 in 1998, although one should note that among its “associate members” there has been a growing number of U.S. universities. Recently, participation in its annual “Joint Sessions” has fluctuated from a high of 570 at Madrid in 1994 to a low of 325 at Bochum in 1990, with some 400 attending the last one at Warwick in 1998. It is significant that when it was created in 1970, the ECPR founders chose not to imitate the “threering-circus” format of the APSA, but required all participants to choose from a dozen or so options a single, five day workshop on a specific topic. The manifest intent was to assist in the creation of Euro-centric networks and to bring together a critical mass that was often not possible within any one country. Given the subsequent proliferation of sites at which European politologues meet routinely, as well as the increase absolute numbers wishing to participate, one can question whether this format has not reached the limit of its utility. 27 xi See Richard Breen and Daniel Verdier, “Globalization and Europeanization—Part I,” unpublished paper presented to the Workshop on Europeanization, Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, 31 March 1999 for this conceptualization of the possible outcomes of the integration process and some evidence that what they call “globalization minus” has occurred in some key political arenas. xii Especially when “major” is so frequently defined as “the one in which my clique publishes.” Needless to say, American political scientists rarely consider non-American journals as “major” – and those not published in English are not even taken into consideration. xiii The legacy seems to vary with the type of fad. Behavioralists succeeded in producing a lot of very useful data about the real world so that their decline in academic prominence was mitigated by their finding important (and well-remunerated) employment as pollsters, consultants, TV pundits around election time, etc. “Area Specialists” were never so threatening since their competitive advantage was primarily conceptual and topical – not methodological or epistemological – and they, too, have settled into relatively comfortable enclaves in the profession where they produce important information and analysis about “exotic” countries. One of my worries about the aftermath of the inevitable bursting of the rational choice bubble is that it is going to be much more difficult to find a satisfactory niche for its enthusiasts since they have produced virtually no substantively useful information or findings. One might hope that they would be taken in as “academic refugees” by Departments of Economics, although I doubt this will happen since the assumptions and methods they are applying in political science are already out of date in this discipline. On the issue of vacuousness, see Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice: A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). xiv More than in Europe or elsewhere, the American profession of political science tends to be dominated by “Americanists,” i.e. by those who specialize in “their own” politics and policies – whether domestic or foreign. Except for a brief period in the 1960s and 1970s when comparativists seemed to be in the ascendence, most departments and virtually all the journals and associations (except for the “area studies” or “comparative” ones) have been dominated by persons who have had little or no professional experience outside of the United States and who virtually never read, cite or contribute to “foreign” political science. As Gianfranco Pasquino has noted, European political scientists have long been obliged “to go comparative” and would not think of trying to understand their own politics without reference to any other country. “Comparative Politics in Comparative Perspective,” APSA-CP Newsletter, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 1998), p. 8. xv Its last volume edited by Charles Tilly, The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) is not only European in subject matter, but in conceptual orientation – and almost diametrically opposed to the Committee’s previous work. xvi This may help to explain another particularity of American political science, namely, its rigid distinction between “American – not to mention, comparative -- politics” and “international relations.” Coming from a polity that has always considered that it had nothing to fear or to learn from its neighbors, it must have seemed especially plausible to separate the two so radically and, hence, to presume that they were governed by completely different principles and relatively immune from each other’s influence. In the rest of the world, the persistent effects of imperialism, foreign intervention, economic interdependence and policy diffusion made this assumption manifestly implausible. 28