TITLE

History and Political Science: Together Again?

AUTHOR(S)

Zelizer, Julian E.

PUB. DATE

April 2004

SOURCE

Journal of Policy History;Apr2004, Vol. 16 Issue 2, p126

SOURCE TYPE

Academic Journal

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

There was a period in America when the political science and history disciplines were not that far apart. Both approaches to analyzing civil society had evolved out of an old Anglo-American tradition where these two subjects, along with philosophy and literature, were all considered in relationship to one another. After the 1920s, the siblings of political science and history remained in close contact. During the 1970s, however, the disciplines went their separate ways. Political science became less historical and historians became less interested in politics. At the same time that the importance of historical analysis declined among political scientists, historians lost their interest in government institutions and public policy after the 1970s. Policy history, a subfield that emerged in the 1970s which aimed to apply historical analysis to contemporary public policy problems, maintained close links to policy analysis scholarship. The situation changed in the 1980s and 1990s as the field of American Political Development took hold among political scientists who were not fully engaged by rational choice scholarship and who were interested in using their disciplinary tools to tackle larger questions than the ones that interested their colleagues.

ACCESSION #

12694932

Tags: POLICY sciences;  SOCIAL sciences -- History;  SOCIAL sciences;  POLITICAL development;  NINETEEN seventies

 

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