Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 3

DEFINITION, MEANING AND USES OF APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF

POLITICAL SCIENCE ..................................................................................................... 6

What is Approach? ...................................................................................................... 6

ETYMOLOGY (ORIGIN/HISTORY) OF BEHAVIOURAL OR SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

........................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

BEHAVIOURAL OR SCIENTIFIC APPROACH: MEANING AND EXPLANATION ......... 7

What Do We Mean By Behavioural Approach? ........................................................... 7

Features ...................................................................................................................... 8

Regularities .............................................................................................................. 8

Verification ............................................................................................................... 8

Techniques .............................................................................................................. 8

Quantification ........................................................................................................... 9

Values ...................................................................................................................... 9

Systematization ........................................................................................................ 9

Pure Science ............................................................................................................ 9

Integration ................................................................................................................ 9

FOUNDERS OF BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH ............................................................. 10

MERITS AND DEMERITS OF BEHAVIOURALISM ...................................................... 12

Merits ......................................................................................................................... 12

Demerits .................................................................................................................... 13

CONTRIBUTIONS OF BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH TO POLITICAL SCIENCE ......... 15

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 16

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 17

Books Referred .......................................................................................................... 17

Articles Referred ........................................................................................................ 17

INTRODUCTION
Before studying different approaches to political science, it must be remembered that
political science is a branch of a larger area of social sciences and is different from
natural sciences.1 The methods and approaches to the study of political science and
other social science discipline are, therefore, different from the methods that are used in
natural sciences. The approaches to the study of political science can be broadly
classified as; Traditional and modern, of which behaviouralism which is our major
concern fall into modern aspect.2

After studying politics with the help of traditional approaches, the political thinkers of the
latter stage felt the necessity to study politic from a new perspective. Thus to minimize
the deficiencies and inadequacies of traditional approaches, a result various new
approaches have been advocated by the new political thinkers. These new approaches
are regarded as the ‘modern approaches’ to the study of political science. These
approaches are mainly concerned with scientific study of politics. In this discourse,
however we are mainly concerned with behaviouralism or scientific approach.

Behavioralism (or behaviouralism) is an approach in political science, which emerged in

the 1930s in the United States as a result of dissatisfaction of the then existing
approaches. Following the Second World War through until the 1960s, behavioralism
was a source of controversy. It was the site of discussion between traditionalist and new
emerging approaches to political science. The origins of behavioralism is often
attributed to the work of University of Chicago professor Charles Merriam, who
emphasized the importance of examining political behavior of individuals and groups
rather than only considering how they abide by legal or formal rules. Prior to the
"behavioralist revolution", political science being a science at all was 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. Behavioralists used strict
methodology and empirical research to validate their study as a social science. The

1 Gurjar, Leela Ram. “TRENDS OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY.” The Indian Journal of
Political Science, vol. 68, no. 4, 2007, pp. 827–834. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41856380.
2 Dr. Eddy Asirvatham and K.K. Misra, Political Theory, S. Chand, 2014
behavioralist approach was innovative because it changed the attitude of the purpose of
inquiry. It moved toward research that was supported by verifiable facts.3

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 them were in agreement. With this in mind, behavioralism resisted a single
definition. Dwight Waldo emphasized that behavioralism itself is unclear, calling it
"complicated" and "obscure." Easton agreed, stating, "Every man puts his own
emphasis and thereby becomes his own behavioralist" and attempts to completely
define behavioralism are fruitless. From the beginning, behavioralism was a political, not
a scientific concept. Moreover, since behavioralism is not a research tradition, but a
political movement, definitions of behavioralism follow what behavioralists wanted.
Therefore, most introductions to the subject emphasize value-free research. This is
evidenced by Easton's eight "intellectual foundation stones" of behavioralism. As we go
further we are going to highlight the Easton’s eight intellectual foundation stones of
behavioralism.4

To understand political behavior, behavioralism uses the following methods: sampling,

interviewing, scoring and scaling and statistical analysis. Behavioralism seeks to
examine the behavior, actions, and acts of individuals – rather than the characteristics
of institutions such as legislatures, executives, and judiciaries – and groups in different
social settings and explain this behavior as it relates to the political system.
Behavioralism studies how individuals behave in group positions realistically rather than
how they should behave. For example, a study of the Nigerian National Assembly might
include a consideration of how members of the house behave in their positions. The

3 Dr. Eddy Asirvatham and K.K. Misra, Political Theory, S. Chand, 2014
4 Andrew Heywood, Political Theory- An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
subject of interest constitutes their behaviors because the state has no behavior of its
own but reflects the behavior of the individuals who ran it. Attention is focused on the
individuals (public officials) who act in the name of the state, and are believed to be and
movers of most national and international actions.
DEFINITION, MEANING AND USES OF APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE

What is Approach?
Approach today, particularly as it relates to political science has so many connotations
and denotations. It is a word which means different things to different people. An
approach is closely related to theory, the nature of a theory is determined by the
approach but the character of an approach determines the character of generalization,
explanation, prediction which is the main functions of a theory.5

The most important thing to note having noted the aforementioned approaches is that,
all have their own perception which deals with some specific instances, but are however
linked to the general principle of political science. These approaches are also known as
frame work, methods, and paradigm, theories etc. used to analyze political events or
phenomena, depending on one’s area of study. The approaches are set up by the
political scientists according to their own view and field of study in politics. The aim of
these approaches is to give a classical meaning to the study of political science by
examining political ideologies and to familiarize those studying politics with the key
concept in normative political theory, and to imbibe theoretical thinking and
understanding of politics. These approaches also provide the theoretical framework and
tools for political discourse, analysis and empirical political research. However it
wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that these approaches are the building blocks or
tools of political science.6

Haven mentioned the approaches in political science, our major concern in this
discourse is concentrated on behaviouralist or scientific approach, but it is worthy of
note that this approaches can be used as well to analyze domestic politics, foreign
policy, diplomacy, international politics and international relations.

5 J.C. Johari, Principles of Modern Political Science, Sterling Publishers, 2009

6 J.C. Johari, Principles of Modern Political Science, Sterling Publishers, 2009
BEHAVIOURAL OR SCIENTIFIC APPROACH: MEANING AND EXPLANATION

What Do We Mean By Behavioural Approach?

This is one of the main approaches to the study of political science. For better
comprehension, let us critically look at the meaning of the word ‘behavior’ it means
someone’s attitude or the way one behaves, especially towards other people. According
to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, it means the way a person behaves or
functions in a particular situation. Behaviouralism as an approach was driven by an
extreme impatience with people’s speculation or with what people say or thought,
armed with the newly developed tools of survey research, it turned away from the study
of constitutions and from saying how states ought to be the study of the behavior of
political actors and to statements about how states actually were ruled. It refers to the
body of knowledge that aspires to provide verified principles of human behavior through
the use of methods similar to those of natural science.

According to David Easton (1998; 10) “Behavioural research seeks to elevate the actual
human being to the centre of the attention. Its premise is that the traditionalists have
been focusing on institutions and virtually looking at them as entities apart from the
components”. The behavioural approach is an attempt to improve understanding of
political science using systematic method with emphasis on empirical data, so that
political process could be interpreted scientifically. Behaviouralist adopt a science
oriented approach in studying political science and try to favor an interdisciplinary
approach in analyzing and predicting political phenomena. This study stand in studying
political situation can be justified by observing the ubiquitous nature of political science.

Behaviorists were mostly drawn to subject about whom quantitative data could be
obtained and thus the study of mass political behavior was promoted at the expense of
studying just the state. Their argument is based on the explanation that individuals run
the state and in order to understand state behavior one needs to understand the
behavior of these individuals that run the state: their reasons, emotions, prejudices,
intuition, and dispositions. In international relations attention should be focused not on
the state, organizations, and state power as such, but on the reasons, motivations,
feelings, interest of personalities and on the role contributions. An important
consideration of behaviouralism has been the study of political behavior, as an area of
study within political science. Its focus is on the individual as voter, leader,
revolutionary, party member, etc., and the influences of the group or the political system
on indvidual’s political behavior. The growth of behavioural movement in political
science is one of the important landmarks in the history of political science. The rise of
behaviouralism clearly introduced a scientific vigor in the study of political science.7

Features8
According to one of the notable behaviouralist David Easton, there are some salient
features of behaviouralism which are regarded as its intellectual foundations. Viz;

Regularities This approach believes that there are certain uniformities in political
behavior which can be expressed in generalization or theories in order to explain and
predict political phenomena. In a particular situation the political behavior of individual
may be more or less similar. Such regularities of behavior may help the researcher to
analyze a political situation as well as to predict the future political phenomena. Study of
such regularities makes political science more scientific with some predictive value.

Verification The behaviouralist do not want to accept everything as granted.

Therefore, they emphasize testing and verifying everything. According to them what
cannot be verified is not scientific.

Techniques The behaviouralist put emphasis on the use of those research tools and
methods which generate valid, reliable and comparative data. A researcher according to
them must make use of sophisticated tools like sample surveys, mathematical models,
simulation etc.

7Dr. Eddy Asirvatham and K.K. Misra, Political Theory, S. Chand, 2014
8THEORY AN APPRAISAL.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 42, no. 3, 1981, pp. 35–47.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ Jhulka, K. L. “EMPIRICAL POLITICAL 41855095.
Quantification This is simply the express or measure of the quantity of data. After the
collection of data, the researcher should measure and not just measure but also
quantify those collected data.

Values This is the standards of behavior. The behaviouralist put heavy emphasis on
separation of facts from values. They believe that to do objective research one has to
do be value free. This means that the researcher should not have any pre conceived
notion or a biased view.

Systematization This simply has to do with considering the importance of theory in

research. But according to the behaviouralists, research in political science must be
systematic. Theory and research should go together.

Pure Science Another characteristic of behaviouralism has been its aim to make
political science a ‘pure science’. It believes that the study of political science should be
verified by evidence. As a matter of fact there are forces or factors that militate against
the actualization of this aim which include; Problem of measurement, Bias, Complexity,
Inability to experiment, self fulfilling and self defeating prophesies.

Integration According to the behaviouralists, political science should not be separated

from other social science disciplines like History, Sociology, and Economics etc. This
approach believes that political events are shaped by various other factors in the society
and therefore, it would be wrong to separate political science from other social science
disciplines.
FOUNDERS OF BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH9

There are people who made the emergence of behavioural approach a success. They
are thus called the founding fathers or behaviouralists. This people are the elites of
behavioural approach. In this part if the discourse we are going to take a detailed study
of the founders of this approach and how they contributed to the emergency of the
approach.

David B. Truman; was born in June 1913 and died on 28, 2003. He was an American
academia who served as the 18th president of mount Holyoke. He is known for his role
as a Columbian university administrator during the Columbian university protest of
1968. He was a representative of the elite within the discipline during behavioural era.
He was the one who took command of behavioural research. For number of reasons the
elite was at the beginning of 1960’s through their strategic position, his behaviouralist
group was able to raise behaviouralism into a legitimate and hegemonic position within
the discipline. (August Campbell, Olive Garcean, Alexander Heard, Samuel J. and Elder
Sueid) all of them were members of the committee on political behavior.

Pendelton Hering; was born in October 1903 and died in August 2004(Aged 100yrs). He
was an American political scientist who served as director of the bureau of the budget,
as secretary of graduate education at Harvard University. He served as the 48th
president of the American political science association. From 1846-1946 he was an
executive associate of the Carnegie Corporation.

Peter H. Odegard; was born in Montana in 1901 and died in 1966. He was born in
Montana in1901 of Norwegians immigrant parents. Odegard studied at university of
Washington. And received his doctorate degree at Columbia University. He published a
booked titled “in the American public mind” when he was not yet thirty. He was a
member of Ford foundation study committee (1948-1980) which planned the foundation

9Shiviah. “THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH IN POLITICAL SCIENCE: An Essay on the Meaning and
Orientation of a Movement.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 30, no. 1, 1969, pp. 50–67.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41854307
and activity for the social science. Both Odegard and Herring were presidents of social
science research council over twenty years (beginning in 1948).
MERITS AND DEMERITS OF BEHAVIOURALISM

Merits10
With the emergence of behaviouralism a new thinking and method of study were
evolved in the field of political science. Therefore, we can list the merits of behavioural
approach as follows:

 It attempts to make political science scientific and brings it closer to the day to
day life of the individuals.
 Behavioural approach affords the opportunity to analyze and explain different
political phenomena. It offers explanatory tools for studying the different political
system of the world, especially in developing countries, based on the peculiar
circumstances prevalent in each country.
 It facilitates comparative politics. This is done by comparing the different political
institutions and systems in different countries and their handling of issues. For
instance, it could compare the actions taken by the military regime in Nigeria over
a seditious publication with the actions of the United States government on a
similar issue, or it could compare the operation of the rule of law in a particular
democracy with its operation in a military dictatorship.
 Adherents of behaviouralism believe that it is a more dynamic approach than
traditionalism because it relates thought on social order to changes in the political
order.
 Behaviouralist believe in the use of ‘models’ (theory or hypothesis on behavior in
the global community) to explain the oligarchic content of human society where
the ‘privileged minority’, the world over, control the political fortunes of the
majority.
 This approach helps in predicting future political events.
 Behaviouralism has first talked about bringing human behavior into the arena of
political science and thereby makes the study more relevant to the society.

10THEORY AN APPRAISAL.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 42, no. 3, 1981, pp. 35–47.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ Jhulka, K. L. “EMPIRICAL POLITICAL 41855095.
 Demerits11

 The behavioural approach has been appreciated by different political thinkers for
its merits as mentioned above. However, the behavioural approach has been
faced with various criticisms. The main criticisms leveled against this approach
are:
 The advocates of this approach were wrong when they said that humans beings
behave in similar ways in similar circumstances.
 As human beings are subject to changes, it is a difficult task to study human
behavior and get a definite result.
 Most of political phenomena are unquantifiable. Therefore it is always difficult to
use scientific method in the study of political science.
 Moreover, the researcher being a human is not always value neutral as believed
by the behaviouralist.

The contributions of the behaviouralists are not entirely their original idea. For instance
replacement of the concept of ‘state’, legislature, executive etc with such modern term
as ‘system’ and ‘input’ are not particularly new innovations as changes in language and
term of politics do not necessary, establishment and operation of government structures
as a prerequisite for the existence of the state. But ironically, nations and people can
exist and function in an orderly manner an operate through laws even without the
existence of a centralist political structure. Instances of this are seen in the cephalous
primordial societies of the Igbo and those of Eskimos of the Antarctica.

The claim of behaviouralist that their approach has an interdisciplinary bent is not
entirely peculiar to them. This is because the traditionalist equally borrow the
contributions of scholars from other field of study including; psychology, philosophy and
sociology in explaining contemporary political problems. Also their emphasis on making

11Gurjar, Leela Ram. “TRENDS OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY.” The Indian Journal of
Political Science, vol. 68, no. 4, 2007, pp. 827–834. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41856380.
the discipline of political science more mathematical than descriptive should be
approached with caution. It has been challenged by some other scholars based on the
premise that the political man cannot be reduced to a mere mathematical formula.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

Despite the criticisms and short comings of behavioural approach its contributions to the
study of political science is so obvious that our discourse wouldn’t have been completed
without mentioning them. The behavioural approach is known to have made remarkable
contribution to the study of political science particularly in the area of:

 Case study and analysis,

 Observations and interviews,
 Use of statistical inputs,
 Content analysis,
 Other approaches like structure functionalism and systems approach
CONCLUSION

The existing polarity between the traditional and behavioural approach is based on the
views shared by the proponents of each approach in term of research interest,
advancements of generalization in the sub discipline, subscription to ethical values and
devotion to academic excellence. However, both approaches and so many other
approaches to the study of political science are equally committed to creating an
understanding for political process, identifying and improving on the ‘perfect’ political
system and generally purifying the study of politics.
REFERENCES

Books Referred
 Andrew Heywood, Political Theory- An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
 J.C. Johari, Principles of Modern Political Science, Sterling Publishers, 2009
 Dr. Eddy Asirvatham and K.K. Misra, Political Theory, S. Chand, 2014

Articles Referred
 Gurjar, Leela Ram. “TRENDS OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY.”
The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 68, no. 4, 2007, pp. 827–834.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41856380.
 THEORY AN APPRAISAL.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 42, no.
3, 1981, pp. 35–47. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ Jhulka, K. L. “EMPIRICAL
POLITICAL 41855095.
 Shiviah. “THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH IN POLITICAL SCIENCE: An Essay
on the Meaning and Orientation of a Movement.” The Indian Journal of Political
Science, vol. 30, no. 1, 1969, pp. 50–67. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41854307.

Websites Referred
 Brittanica.com
 Jstor.org
 Dictionary.cambridge.org
 Merriam-webster.com