Behavioural approach - Lecture notes 1 PDF

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Lecture notes on Behavioural approach to Political science...

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Modern approaches The Behavioural Approach With the beginning of the 20th century there was a drastic change in the study of Political Science. Social Sciences began to adopt the methods of natural sciences like observation, survey and measuremen. The notable exponents of this ‘scientific politics’ were Charles Merriam, Harold D. Lasswell, George Catlin and Arthur Bentley. They looked especially to statistics and psychology as relevant tools for politics. To give an anti-Marxian orientation to political analysis in the post-war political context was their motive force. The behavioural approach based on the assumption that political institutions and nature of political events are largely determined by the nature and behaviour of people -both elites and masses. According to the Behaviouralists, although the central theme of Political Science is the state, exclusive attention to it tends to make political analysis static, formalistic and institutional. Thus the essence of Behaviouralist approach is its central focus on political behaviour The goal of behavioural Political Science is not the achievement of good life but to understand political phenomenon realistically and to predict things. That means the creation of a systematic casual theory and not value theory According to Robert A. Dahl, behavioural approach in Political Science is “an attempt to make the empirical content of Political Science more scientific”. The ‘intellectual foundations’ for this attempt, according to David Easton is based on regularities, verifications, techniques, quantification, values, systematization, pure science and integration. The important criticism against behaviouralism is that it has preferred to work within the limits set by the established institutions and values. Thus C. Wright Mills calls it a science of the “narrow focus, the trivial detail and abstract fact”...