Politics and Progress: The Emergence of American Political Science

In Politics and Progress, author Dennis J. Mahoney describes the emergence of American political science as a separate academic discipline in the era between the Civil War and the First World War, with the pivotal event of the founding of the American Political Science Association in 1903. His book, a testament to the integrity of American political science, chronicles its intellectual and cultural development. According to Mahoney, American political science borrowed its ideas from European, especially German, political science. Subsequently, it was influenced by the notion of scientific progress as exemplified in the writings of American pragmatists and progressivist politics. Mahoney notes that institutionalization in the American academy necessarily required the displacement of earlier approaches to politics, including the tradition of political philosophy and the political science of the American founding. As the discipline grew, it was characterized by its drive toward organization and professionalism, the study of administration (as contrasted with policymaking) and a seemingly ceaseless quest for a distinctive scientifically oriented methodology. These characteristics are maintained in contemporary mainstream political science. Politics and Progress marks an important chapter in American intellectual history and is a vital resource for political scientists researching their roots.