Further Readings
Dahl, R. A Preface to Democratic Theory.Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1956.
Huntington, S. The Promise of Disharmony.Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981.
Pocock, J. G. A. (1924– ) British-U.S. political
theorist and academic
Pocock, who spent most of his academic career at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, is
the principal founder of the “CLASSICAL REPUBLICAN
paradigm” in early American historical studies. In
his book The Machiavellian Moment(1975), Pocock
reinterpreted most of Western political philoso-
phy through the civic republicanism of ARISTOTLE,
CICERO, MACHIAVELLI, James HARRINGTON, and Thomas
JEFFERSON. According to this theory, the dominant
themes in Western political IDEOLOGYare: an econom-
ically independent, participatory-citizenry, small-
scale (POLIS) DEMOCRACY, and civic or public VIRTUE
(individual sacrifice to the common good). This
REPUBLICANideal, then, continually resists ABSOLUTIST
government (MONARCHY, TYRANNY, oligarchy), concen-
trated political and economic power (national banks,
PATRONAGE), and military IMPERIALISM. All such “cor-
ruption” the republican tradition resists with appeals
to the sturdy yeoman farmer, direct democracy, and a
citizens’ militia. In its MODERN manifestation, this
takes the form of PURITANsimplicity and decentral-
ized English virtuous, agrarian self-governance
against the corrupt king, parliamentary ministry
(political patronage), standing army, high taxes, Bank
of England, stock companies, and royal EMPIRE.In
America, this theory explains the colonial Revolution
in terms of virtuous republican resistance to British
imperial corruption. Jeffersonian democracy contin-
ues the republican ideal, while HAMILTON’S FEDERALISTs
exhibit British corruption.
Pocock’s comprehensive reinterpretation of the
entire Western intellectual tradition offered an
alternative to the prevailing British LIBERALISM of
John LOCKE(explaining the American Revolution in
terms of NATURAL RIGHTS) and the CHRISTIANhistor-
iography of St. AUGUSTINEand Calvinism. Like most
brilliant reassessments of an entire tradition, Pocock’s
theory is overdrawn in places (especially his writ-
ing out of Lockean SOCIAL-CONTRACTtheory and his
identification of Machiavelli as a classical thinker), but
it has illuminated an entire area of Western political
thought (civic humanism or classical republicanism)
that had not been adequately appreciated. His “civic
republican paradigm” is probably the greatest discov-
ery in historical scholarship in the 20th century.polis
The small democratic community in ancient Greece
(particularly Athens) that formed the CLASSICALmodel
for Western self-government. ARISTOTLEextols the wis-
dom, citizen participation, and public VIRTUEof this
form of government, where every citizen knows every
other citizen and shares in ruling. To Aristotle, the
active involvement of each person in governing pro-
vided an education in civic duty and responsibility and
developed the unique human telosor purpose in rea-
soned speech and ethical action. This idealized Greek
“city-state” probably never performed as nobly as Aris-
totle conceived it, but it became the ideal of Western
civilized DEMOCRACYin the Roman Republic, the early
church government, MEDIEVAL CORPORATISM, and MOD-
ERN REPUBLICANISM. Thomas JEFFERSONapplied this clas-
sical republicanism to the “ward republics” in Virginia:
small self-governing communities or townships of a
few thousand people. The “small town” ideal in Amer-
ica grows from this concept.
A negative consequence of this ideal polis, for large
modern republics (according to MONTESQUIEU), is its
limited population and geographic size. This required
adapting the small democratic polis to a large country
through republican FEDERALISM, as in America. But the
ancient polis ideal—that real citizenship requires
active participation and that weak or apathetic citizen-
ship leads to TYRANNY—continues to exert a powerful
influence in Western political theory (as, for example
in the COMMUNITARIANthought of Benjamin BARBER).political science
The academic study of politics, especially in U.S. col-
leges and universities. The beginning of the “scientific”
study of politics in the United States is usually dated at
1903 when the American Political Science Association
was formed under the leadership of Professor Charles
Merriam. Prior to this, the “politics” or “government”
field had concentrated on the study of political history,
LAW, political institutions, and POLITICAL THEORY. The
rise of political science signified a BEHAVIORISTapproach234 Pocock, J. G. A.