Introduction
The mid-20th century witnessed intense methodological debates within political science, famously captured by Peter Laslett in 1956 when he declared that 'political philosophy is dead.' This perception stemmed from the belief that classical normative inquiry, preoccupied with transcendental values and historical exposition, had lost touch with empirical realities and contemporary social dilemmas.
The Perceived 'Death' of Traditional Theory
Traditional political theory, rooted in classical, historical, and normative approaches, faced severe criticism from mid-century scholars who deemed it unscientific, speculative, and sterile.
- Historicism and Mere Chronicle: David Easton argued that traditional theorists, exemplified by George Sabine, reduced political theory to historicism by merely chronicling the ideas of past thinkers rather than addressing prevailing systemic crises.
- Moral Relativism and Hyper-factualism: Traditional approaches were critiqued for relying on subjective, non-verifiable value judgments and uncritical narrative accounts lacking causal explanations.
- Positivism and Ideological Reductionism: Dante Germino identified extreme positivism and ideological reductionism (such as dogmatic Marxism) as key factors stifling open-ended, genuine philosophical inquiry.
Resurrection via Behavioral and Post-Behavioral Paradigms
The subsequent methodological shifts transformed political theory into both an empirical discipline and a socially relevant framework.
- The Behavioral Revolution: Behavioralism resurrected political inquiry by reconstructing it as an empirical, data-driven science. By focusing on observable human behavior, rigorous quantification, and value-free methodology, scholars sought to formulate explanatory and predictive generalizations.
- The Post-Behavioral Critique: Pure behavioralism soon faced backlash for its obsession with technical sophistication at the cost of addressing real-world crises such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement.
- The 'Credo of Relevance': In response, David Easton introduced post-behavioralism, anchored in the twin pillars of substance over technique and action-oriented relevance. This movement resurrected the normative essence of political theory—values, justice, and ethics—without discarding empirical tools.
The Final Synthesis
The discipline did not witness the absolute death of traditional political philosophy, but rather its methodological maturation. The definitive revival of normative theory arrived with John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), which combined analytical rigor with substantive questions of distributive justice, demonstrating that empirical methods and normative ideals are fundamentally complementary.
Conclusion
Ultimately, political theory did not perish; it underwent a profound paradigm shift. By moving from speculative historicism through empirical behavioralism to value-conscious post-behavioralism, the discipline established a resilient framework capable of evaluating both factual realities and moral imperatives.