Behavioralism (not to be confused with the learning theory, behaviorism) is an approach in political science which seeks to provide an objective, quantified approach to explaining and predicting political behavior.[1][2] It is associated with the rise of the behavioral sciences, modeled after the natural sciences.[3] Behavioralism seeks to examine the behaviour, actions, and acts of individuals – rather than the characteristics of institutions such as legislatives, executives, and judiciaries[4] – and groups in different social settings and explain this behaviour as it relates to the political system.[5]
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Prior to the "Behavioralist revolution", political science being a science at all was being disputed. Critics saw the study of politics as being primarily qualitative and normative, and claimed that it lacked a scientific method necessary to be deemed a science.[6] Behavioralists would use strict methodology and empirical research to validate their study as a social science.[7]
To understand political behavior, behavioralism uses the following methods: sampling, interviewing, scoring and scaling and statistical analysis.[8]
David Easton was the first to differentiate behavioralism from behaviorism in the 1950s. In the early 1940s, behaviorism itself was referred to as a behavioral science and later referred to as behaviorism. However, Easton sought to differentiate between the two disciplines[9]:
Behavioralism was not a clearly defined movement for those who were thought to be behavioralists. It was more clearly definable by those who were opposed to it, because they were describing it in terms of the things within the newer trends that they found objectionable. So some would define behavioralism as an attempt to apply the methods of natural sciences to human behavior. Others would define it as an excessive emphasis upon quantification. Others as individualistic reductionism. From the inside, the practitioners were of different minds as what it was that constituted behavioralism. [...] And few of us were in agreement.[10]
Easton further defined eight "intellectual foundation stones" of behavioralism[11][12]:
A journal in this field is Political Behavior, described this way by its publisher, Springer:
Political Behavior publishes original research in the general fields of political behavior, institutions, processes, and policies. Approaches include economic (preference structuring, bargaining), psychological (attitude formation and change, motivations, perceptions), sociological (roles, group, class), or political (decision making, coalitions, influence). Articles focus on the political behavior (conventional or unconventional) of the individual person or small group (microanalysis), or of large organizations that participate in the political process such as parties, interest groups, political action committees, governmental agencies, and mass media (macroanalysis). As an interdisciplinary journal, Political Behavior integrates various approaches across different levels of theoretical abstraction and empirical domain (contextual analysis).[13]
Subsequently, much of the behavioralist approach has been challenged by the emergence of postpositivism in political (particularly International Relations) theory.
According to David Easton, behavioralism sought to be "analytic, not substantive, general rather than particular, and explanatory rather than ethical."[14] In this, the theory seeks to evaluate political behaviour without "introducing any ethical evaluations";[15] Rodger Beehler cites this as "their insistence on distinguishing between facts and values."[16]
The approach has come under fire from both conservatives and radicals for the purported value-neutrality. Conservatives see the distinction between values and facts as a way of undermining the possibility of political philosophy.[16] Neal Riemer believes behaviouralism dismisses "the task of ethical reccomendation"[17] because behavioralists believe "truth or falsity of values (democracy, equality, and freedom, etc.) cannot be established scientifically and are beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry."[18]
Christian Bay believed behavioralism was a pseudopolitical science and that it did not represent "genuine" political research.[17] Bay objected to empirical consideration taking precedence over normative and moral examination of politics.[17]
Radical critics believe that the separation of fact from value makes the empirical study of politics impossible.[16]
   | Behavioralism, Postbehavioralism, and the Reemergence of Political Philosophy - Behavioralism, Postbehavioralism and the Reemergence of Political Philosophy |
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