in a book called "Political Science in the United States" which was released in 1956.

It was David Easton

however who popularized the term. It was the site of discussion between traditionalist and new
emerging approaches to political science.

Prior to the "behaviouralist 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. David Easton was the first to differentiate
behaviouralism from behaviourism in the 1950s. In the early 1940s, behaviourism itself was referred
to as a behavioural science and later called behaviourism. The two disciplines were given distinct
meanings by Easton.

Behaviouralists used strict methodology and empirical research to validate their study as a social
science. The behaviouralist approach was innovative because it changed the attitude of the purpose
of inquiry. It moved toward research that was supported by verifiable facts.

However, the longevity of behaviouralism was of just two decades. After the WWII it surfaced in the
American continent and one of its exponents was David Easton who in the 1960s brought post-
behaviouralism revolution in order to revise the basic tenets of behaviouralism that seemed to be it’s
disadvantages. According to Easton, “political scientists were in their ivory towers perfecting their
methodology unconcerned with the normative and relevant issues that had arisen.”

Issues with the Behavioural approach:

● The 1960’s America saw numerous movements for black rights, environmental concerns,
improvement of inequality and reduce differences, etc.
● Behaviouralists gave too much focus to methodology and were in a race to prove political
science a science through giving more objectivity and value-neutrality and this harmed the
inherent value based and normative nature of political science.
● Wrong concept of political behaviour was understood by the behaviouralists.

In his speech to the APSA (American Political Science Association), he introduced them post-
Behaviourlism based on “Credo of relevance” i.e. creative theory, with its focus on

a) Action

b) Relevance

He laid the base of 8 intellectual

foundation stones ->

1. regularity,
2. technique,
3. systematization,
4. verification,
5. measurement,
6. value neutrality,
7. pure science
8. and integration.

This helped in shaping the Modern Comparative Politics approaches.

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