of their role, with philosophically trained writers exploring concepts
and the history of ideas, historians limiting themselves frequently to
small periods of time and limited geographical areas, and students of
political institutions specialising in electoral systems, UK parlia-
mentary select committees or the politics of privatisation. There is no
doubt that such academic specialisation may reap benefits in terms of
specific discoveries (and in terms of obtaining rapid publication in
academic journals). But this gain is also undoubtedly at the cost of
some loss of perspective and the loss of a non-academic audience –
who often fail to see the relevance of much of this work to current
policy issues.
Within British university politics departments much admirable
scholarly work continues to be produced on political theory and
‘political institutions’ without any systematic attempt to relate
findings to general theories of political behaviour or ‘social science’. A
few holders of professorial chairs may still describe themselves as
historians or philosophers rather than ‘political scientists’.
Students of ‘political theory’ in this mode have tended to divide
roughly into two main camps. One group are the philosophers who
see their main task as the elucidation of political concepts (such as
justice and democracy) with at least an eye to their relevance to
contemporary concerns. A second group are the historians of ideas
who have been concerned to trace the evolution of writings on politics,
the intent of the writers of these texts and their influence on events.
Those who have written on ‘political institutions’ have often been
less explicit in their theoretical intent, but writers such as Ridley
(1975) and Rhodes (1997) have articulated the rationale and assump-
tions of much of this writing. In established and relatively stable
democracies like Britain and the United States, it is evident that much
of what we call politics centres around important governmental
institutions like parliaments, elections, government departments,
local authorities and the like. The study of how these institutions
have evolved, the rules and practices surrounding them, and con-
sideration of how they may be improved, is clearly of the utmost
importance. As citizens, and possibly future public employees or even
politicians, we may feel that such activities scarcely need elaborate
justification.
However, the sceptical and the ambitious may combine to throw
doubt upon the academic credentials of such activities. Is the result
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