The Nature of Political Theory

58 The Nature of Political Theory

Weber raised the question: could there be any rational foundation for our basic
values? For Weber the fact that he could not answer this question was a matter of
anxiety. The other positivist manifestation—which we are most familiar with—is
what might be termed the Anglo-Saxon ‘liberal social science perspective’, which
adopts the positivist position, often on consequentialist grounds. There is something
more Comtian and utilitarian, than neo-Kantian, in this latter approach. However,
it still contains all the expected positivist components. The separation between facts
and values, particularly, is foundational. David Easton’s contemporaneous comment
here is quite typically positivist, ‘The factual aspect of a proposition refers to a part of
reality; hence it can be tested by reference to the facts. In this way we check its truth.
The moral aspect of a proposition, however, expresses only the emotional response
of an individual...Although we can say that the aspect of a proposition referring
to a fact can be true of false, it is meaningless to characterize the value aspect of a
proposition in this way’ (Easton 1953: 221).
In summary, the concept of political theory aimed at by behaviouralists was seen
to be value free and objective. The overt aim was to emulate the natural sciences,
namely, to collect empirical data, discover correlations, draw up generalizations,
and formulate testable theories, which allowed prediction. As one exponent, George
Homans, put it, ‘As we have come to accept...the standards of natural science
for testing the truth of propositions, so we should take more seriously [in the social
sciences] the standards of natural science in explanation. In that we have been laggard’
(Homans 1967: 28). It is no surprise in this context that political behaviour could
take on the alluring shape of the natural world—embodying empirical facts, which
could be described and studied.
The general conception of the theorist here was that of a neutral observer who care-
fully describes and explains the objective world. The function of the theorist was not
to interpret the world, but rather to explain it through rigorously-tested categories. In
general, empirical theory resisted any historical, normative, metaphysical, or ethical
presence. Values were seen in the context of emotive responses. Facts were regarded as
preconstituted givens—that is, prior to theory and representation. Empirical theories
observe, explain, generalize, and establish causal relations. Theories, in effect, order
the empirical facts in a comprehensible manner. The substance of such empirical the-
ories was often initially drawn from behavioural psychology, neo-classical economics,
systems theory, mathematical modelling, and the like. Such theories explain political
behaviour outside the framework of political ideas, ideologies, or institutional frame-
works. This tendency became the more dominant method of the discipline up until
the late 1960s, although, as stressed, it has always had a much stronger following in
North American political studies.
Yet, it is also important to emphasize here that, in the understanding of empirical
theory, everything that was of importance in normative classical and historical notions
of political theory, namely, a clear perception of the reality of politics, an understand-
ing and explanation of its processes and a unambiguous set of prescriptions for how
society should be organized, wereallpresent in the aspirations of empirical theory.
Social change and reform were an integral part of the vision of empirical theory.