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Development in the United States

  • Political science emerged in the United States as a separate field of study in the late 19th century. The new breed of political scientists, often college professors, insisted that a genuine understanding of governments could be gained only through study of the actual process of politics, using careful methods to observe, gather, organize, and explain the facts.

  • Many political scientists believed that if they developed explanatory [Ik'splxnqt(q)rI] theories, the study of government and politics could become as much a scientific endeavor as the established laboratory sciences. These scholars joined researchers in the fields of sociology and psychology.

  • From sociologists they borrowed statistical methods of collecting and analyzing data on people's political behavior. From psychologists they took definitions, propositions, and concepts to help in understanding why human beings act in certain ways.