Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T05:39:42.739Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Terminal Prognosis? The Study of US Politics in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2013

EDWARD ASHBEE
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study of US politics in Europe has always been small-scale. In the UK, it is often tied to contemporary history. In much of continental Europe, it is distanced from political science (which largely eschews area studies) and is instead, intellectually and institutionally, an adjunct to American studies. Whereas many other fields within political science have been compelled to consider the methodological underpinnings of their work, US politics has yet to do this. In contrast, within the US, political science has, since the behaviouralist revolution, been largely structured around quantitative forms of analysis. There is therefore a significant gulf between the study of US politics in Europe and political science in both Europe and the US. Furthermore, American studies is itself under long-term threat in some European countries because, forecasters suggest, the demand for English-language teaching (to which American studies is generally tied) will decline in the long term. As a consequence of these developments, those who study US politics at university level are not being replaced as they retire and there are few new entrants into the profession. The article suggests that US politics should, as a subdiscipline, seek out openings that might bring the subject back towards political science. In particular, it argues that US politics researchers in Europe should look more closely at developments within historical institutionalism, American political development (APD) and comparative politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4: The “Un-American” , November 2013 , pp. 1197 - 1213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 McKay, D., “Is European Political Science Inferior to or Different from American Political Science?”, European Journal of Political Research, 20 (1991), 459–66, 466CrossRefGoogle Scholarn. 4.

2 Political Studies Association, Preliminary Report on the PSA Survey of the Profession 2009 (2009), 10, available at www.psa.ac.uk/QuickLink.aspx?title=PSA Survey of the Profession 2009&fn = PSAPubs/PSA_Survey_of_the_Profession_2009.pdf&rtn =.

3 Lees, Charles, “We Are All Comparativists Now,” Comparative Political Studies, 39, 9 (2006), 1084–1108, 1085CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Political Studies Association, Transforming Politics: New Synergies – 61st Annual International Conference, (2011), available at www.psa.ac.uk/2011/forms/PSA%20Conf%202011.pdf.

5 Quoted in Jack Hayward, “Political Science in Britain”, European Journal of Political Research, 20, 3–4 (1991), 301–22, 301CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Kavanagh, Dennis, “The Emergence of an Embryonic Discipline: British Politics without Political Scientists,” in Adcock, Robert, Bevir, Mark and Stimson, Shannon C., eds., Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges since 1880 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 97–117Google Scholar.

7 Kavanagh, Dennis, “British Political Science in the Inter-war Years: The Emergence of the Founding Fathers,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5, 4 (2003), 594–613, 597CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 McLean, Iain, Blais, André, Garand, James C. and Giles, Micheal, “Comparative Journal Rankings: A Survey Report, 2009,” Political Studies Review, 7, 1 (2009), 18–38, 24–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Quoted in Alpheus Thomas Mason, “Review: Laski on American Democracy,” Law and Contemporary Problems, 14, 2 (1949), 394–404, 394CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Ware, Alan, “Nelson Polsby, The ‘Great Facilitator’ in Trans-Atlantic Scholarship,” The Forum, 5, 1 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Article 2, 1–5, 2.

11 Polsby, Nelson W., “Review: The British Science of American Politics,” British Journal of Political Science, 2, 4 (1972), 491–99, 498CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Ibid.

13 Crick, Bernard, American Science of Politics: Its Origins and Conditions (Florence, KY: Routledge, 1959), 157Google Scholar.

14 Adcock, R., and Bevir, M., “The History of Political Science,” Political Studies Review, 3, 1 (2005), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 For a broad and sensitive treatment of behaviouralism see Robert Adcock, “Interpreting Behavioralism”, in Adcock, Bevir and Stimson, 180–208.

16 Rational-choice theory did, however, raise questions about the formation of political preferences and the setting of contexts.

17 Quoted in NYO Staff, “How Cult Internet Character Mr. Perestroika Divided N.Y.U.'s Political Science Department,” New York Observer, 1 July 2000, available at http://observer.com/2002/01/how-cult-internet-character-mr-perestroika-divided-nyus-political- science-department.

18 Cambridge Journals, Perspectives on Politics (2012), http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?iid=PPS.

19 The comment was, I believe, made by Tim Hames at a conference organized by the American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association (UK).

20 Quoted in Aspinwall, M. D. and Schneider, G., “Same Menu, Separate Tables: The Institutionalist Turn in Political Science and the Study of European Integration,” European Journal of Political Research, 38, 1 (2000), 1–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 4.

21 Thelen, Kathleen, “The Explanatory Power of Historical Institutionalism,” in Mayntz, Renate, ed., Akteure – Mechanismen – Modelle Zur Theoriefähigkeit – makro-sozialer Analysen (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2002), 92Google Scholar.

22 Pierson, Paul, “Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political Processes,” Studies in American Political Development, 14 (2000), 72–92, 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Schattschneider, E. E., Politics, Pressures and the Tariff: A Study of Free Private Enterprise in Pressure Politics, as Shown in the 1929–1930 Revision of the Tariff (Hamden: Archon Books, 1963Google Scholar; first published 1935), 288.

24 Ibid.

25 Pierson, Paul, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Ross, Fiona, “Policy Histories and Partisan Leadership in Presidential Studies: The Case of Social Security,” in Edwards, George C. III and King, Desmond, eds., The Polarized Presidency of George W. Bush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 419–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Jacobs, Lawrence R. and King, Desmond S., “Varieties of Obamaism: Structure, Agency, and the Obama Presidency,” Perspectives on Politics, 8, 3 (2010), 793–802, 794CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 The word “state” always poses difficulties when US political structures and processes are considered. It is easy to understand it as a reference to any of the 50 individual states. However, if the term “state” is employed more broadly it is often used to refer to the governing institutions (administrative, legal or military) within a particular territory.

29 Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), ixCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Balogh, Brian, “The State of the State among Historians,” Social Science History, 27, 3 (2003), 455–63, 458–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Steinmo, Sven, Thelen, Kathleen and Longstreth, Frank, Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Ashbee, Edward, “Fiscal Policy Responses to the Economic Crisis in the UK and the US,” in Casey, Terrence, ed., The Legacy of the Crash: How the Financial Crisis Changed America and Britain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 79–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Amberg, Stephen, “Liberal Market Economy or Composite Regime? Institutional Legacies and Labor Market Policy in the United States,” Polity, 40, 2 (2008), 164–96, 196CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Orren, Karen and Skowronek, Stephen, The Search for American Political Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.