Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 44

Post-behavioralism did not initiate a complete break from behavioralism. Instead, it kept quite a few of behavioralism’s core ideas. These include:

 Explaining and studying human behavior: Post-bevioralists believe that political scientists should study human behavior and not just institutions and constitutions as traditionalists did. In addition, the emphasis on examination instead of description needed to be kept, because you could solve only current problems and help people by trying to analyze, explain, and find solutions.

 Using empirical theory: The use of empirical theory needed to be maintained. Obviously, it wasn’t good enough to just assume and bring your own biases into your research if you wanted to solve current problems. The researcher had to use mathematics, especially statistics, to conduct testable research. Only empirical theory could guarantee explanations to deal with modern-day problems.

 Having a global perspective: Political scientists needed to maintain their emphasis on the newly developing countries in Asia and Africa. Eurocentrism had to be rejected because, by the late 1960s, most nations weren’t in Europe or the Americas but were located in Africa and Asia. Therefore, the study of nation-states had to be moved into the developing world.