Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Cornell Our Enemies and US-America's Rivalries and The Making of Political Science Mar 2003
Cornell Our Enemies and US-America's Rivalries and The Making of Political Science Mar 2003
IDO OREN
Oren, Ido, 19 58 -
Our enemies and US : America's rivalries and the making of political
science / Ido Oren,
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8014-3566-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Political science— United States— History— 20th century. 2. United
States— Politics and government. 3. United States— Foreign relations.
I. Title: America's rivalries and the making of political science. II.
Title.
JA84.U5 O 73 2003
320 ' .0973— dc2i 2002009409
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
IHN ü » ™ ,>ttN
Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the
pedigree of ideas.
L ord A cton , History of Freedom
Since World War II, American historians and social scientists have tended
to interpret the German past as a prelude to Nazism and to emphasize the
divergence between the (special) political development of Germany and
the (normal) developmental path taken by Britain, the United States, and,
to a lesser extent, France. Viewed from this perspective, Imperial Ger
many came to be depicted as a bureaucratic-authoritarian, militaristic so
ciety whose rapid economic modernization was not accompanied by the
flowering of liberal-democratic political institutions.
Versions of this interpretation of modern German history were articu
lated by some of the most influential social scientists of the postwar era.
Economic historian Alexander Gerschenkron depicted the Second Reich
as a "semifeudal monarchy" dominated by the aristocratic Junkers. He
blamed the Junkers for delaying the development of a genuine democ
racy in Germany and characterized their philosophy as "the true fore
runner of the Nazi ideology."1 Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba
presented the political development of Britain as their ideal. They argued
that America had followed the British liberal-democratic path, whereas
in nineteenth-century Germany a "participant" civic culture failed to
strike deep roots, and the seeds of totalitarianism were planted with the
imposition of the Prussian "bureaucratic-authoritarian" pattern on the
entire country Almond and Verba also argued that in the English-speak
ing world the conception of "liberty" meant the protection of individual
freedoms, whereas in Germany it was historically "identified with the
freedom of the state from external limitations."2 Political sociologist Bar
rington Moore sharply contrasted the "capitalist-democratic" path to
modernity taken by England, the United States, and France with the "cap
italist-reactionary" path taken b y Germany and Japan, a path that "cul
minated" in fascism. According to Moore, in the capitalist-democratic
societies successful bourgeois revolutions paved the w ay toward politi
cal liberty, but in Germany and Japan the bourgeoisie sold out to the aris
tocracy, "exchanging the right to rule for the right to make m on ey" Moore
interpreted the parliamentary institutions of Imperial Germany as fa
cades for a "conservative and even authoritarian government."3
In the 1980s British historians, led by David Blackboum and Geoff
Eley, challenged the "special path" interpretation of the German past for
being overly colored by the events of 1933 -45, for unfairly comparing Im
perial Germany with an idealized Anglo-American past, and for neglect
ing to compare the German past with the experience of continental
Europe rather than with Britain's alone.4 It w as time, the critics argued,
to "rescue Imperial Germany from the tyranny of hindsight" by placing
it in its contemporaneous context.5 Blackboum and Eley's critique stirred
a lively debate among historians and stimulated a more balanced repre
sentation of Imperial Germany.6
But the revised image of Imperial Germany among historians has had
little impact on American political science. Recent college textbooks in
comparative politics continue to reflect the interpretations of Gerschen-
kron, Moore, and Almond and Verba. Alm ond's own popular textbook
describes the Second German Empire as "an authoritarian state, with
only the superficial trappings of a democracy," in which "the citizen's role
was to be a law-abiding subject, obeying the commands of government
officials." Charles Hauss's Comparative Politics depicts Imperial Germany
as a militarized nation and as "one of Europe's most authoritarian coun
tries." Michael Curtis's text portrays the Second Reich as an "industrial
feudal society" whose "industrialization failed to produce a modern
polity as in Britain and France---- Human rights or other fundamental
guarantees were conspicuously absent in the imperial constitution."7
Other textbooks similarly portray Imperial Germany as an authoritarian
antithesis of Britain and France.8
Marks of the special path interpretation of German history are as dis
cernible in current research in comparative politics as in college teaching.
These marks are not readily apparent, for they are mediated by ostensi
bly objective data sets such as the popular POLITY. POLITY provides de
scriptive data on the attributes of modern political regimes, including
annual composite scores for "dem ocracy" and "autocracy." Ted Robert
Gurr, the originator of the POLITY project, w as an apprentice of Prince
ton political scientist Harry Eckstein, a Jewish refugee from Germany
whose theory of democracy inspired the Anglocentric "civic culture"
theory of Almond and Verba.9 According to the POLITY handbook, the
construction of the quantitative scales of "dem ocracy" and "autocracy"
w as partly informed by the notion that the modern expansion of politi
cal participation "followed one of two paths, toward plural democracy
or mass-party autocracy." In most of Western Europe the process of de
mocratization "eroded all but a few symbolic vestiges of traditional au
tocracy." In contrast, "The empires of Central and Eastern Europe —
Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary — implemented the trappings but
not the substance of effective democratic participation in the late nine
teenth and early twentieth centuries."10 Not surprisingly, the numerical
democracy scores assigned by POLITY to pre-1914 Germany are signifi
cantly lower than the scores assigned to England, France, and the United
States for the same period; the scoring criteria were selected to produce
precisely this result (Austria-Hungary and Russia are ranked lower than
Germany; the United States receives the maximum democracy scores for
nearly the entire nineteenth and twentieth centuries).
The case of POLITY illustrates the role played by data sets in objecti
fying concepts that were originally rooted in a particular interpretation of
political development. POLITY data are used widely today in compara
tive political research on the causes and effects of democracy, issues that
have no obvious connection to the history of U.S. foreign relations.11
Those using the data set usually take its regime type categories as given;
they display scant awareness of the origins of these categories and of the
historical interpretation embodied in them, an interpretation that hap
pens to associate the trappings of democracy with America's enemies and
the substance of democracy with America's allies. Thus POLITY is a
mechanism by which, to borrow Antonio Gramsci's terms, "traces" of the
historical process of U.S.-German relations are "deposited" into contem
porary political research "without leaving an inventory."12
The scholarship of the leading postwar interpreters of modern politi
cal development was rooted in the formative experience of their genera
tion, in which the struggle against Nazism was crucial. For Gabriel
Almond and Harry Eckstein, for example, both Jews with firsthand ex
perience of the horrors of Nazism, it w as almost unavoidable to view Ger
man political development as the antithesis of America's*
Wilson on Administration
A t the turn of the twentieth century public administration — local and
federal — w as at the center of the agenda of American political science.
Woodrow Wilson w as among the pioneers of the academic study of ad
ministration. In his first essay on the subject, published in 1887, Wilson
lamented "the poisonous atmosphere of city government, the crooked se
crets of state administration," and federal "corruption," which "forbid us
to believe that any clear conceptions of what constitutes good adminis-
tration are as yet w idely current in the United States." The solution was
to study the science of administration "developed by French and German
professors." In France, administrative machinery had been perfected by
Napoleon. In Prussia an "admirable system " of administration had been
"most studied and most nearly perfected" by great kings and reformers
who "transformed arrogant and perfunctory bureaux into public spirited
instruments of just government." The English race, on the other hand,
"has exercised itself much more in controlling than in energizing gov
ernment." Americans must learn from continental administrative wis
dom and "distill aw ay its foreign gases" to suit the American system.79
As Wilson's knowledge of the German language and of the continen
tal literature improved, he modified his view that the continent was "for
eign gas." Especially in the area of city government, Wilson determined
that the Prussian system was not so much foreign as "Pan-Teutonic" in
nature, and that it was the highest form of self-government.80 He also
concluded that the French ideas were more noxious than the Prussian.
The administrative state envisioned by Wilson was patterned upon the
statist German model, which performed many tasks that for the govern
ment in Washington still lay far in the future (some of them still do). These
included "poor relief, insurance (pensions and other); savings banks;
forestry, game and fishing law s"; promoting the "economic and other ac
tivities of society by means o f . . . posts, telegraphs, telephones etc; Main
tenance and supervision of railw ay s. . . Establishing of institutions of
credit."81 Wilson also admired the model of the University of Berlin, a
university harnessed in the service of the nation.82 In sum, with regard to
the functions of the state Wilson unambiguously wished that the United
States would become more like Germany than like Britain.83 In this he
was by no means a maverick among American political scientists of the
time.
With regard to governmental structure, Wilson customarily classified
states into three categories based on their "type of headship." In "auto
cratic" polities such as Russia and Turkey, "there is an entire absence of
any constitutional means of controlling the acts of the head of the state."
In "republican" polities such as the United States, France, and Switzer
land, "the Head of the State is made subject to complete subordination to
the laws, and is besides held to a personal responsibility for his obser
vance of them." In the third category — "constitutional" systems — the
head of state was subject to "constitutional control," although "there is no
personal liability on his part to arrest or other punishment." Both Britain
and Prussia exemplified the third category (along with Bavaria, Spain,
and Italy). In constitutional states, royal sovereignty "is nowadays medi
ate; and mediate sovereignty is no sovereignty at all. The modem
monarch is consequently sovereign only representatively and b y reason
of his participation in the determinations of the highest body of the
State/'84
To explore the status of the head of the "Federal State/' Wilson com
pared US with Germany, The U.S, head of state was "the executive agent
of the central government," whereas in Germany he was a "member of
the sovereign body [Bundesrath] as head of a presiding member state
[Prussia]/' Yet "in all these cases the head of the State is strictly subject to
the laws, to constitutional rule and procedure; though in some cases the re
sponsibility is direct and personal, while in others it is only through min
isterial proxy/'85 The last phrase shows that in 1894 Wilson perceived the
German emperor as an indirectly responsible executive. Overall, Wilson's
lectures and The State present a picture of the kaiser as a hereditary chief
executive who "possesses no slight claim to be regarded as the most pow
erful ruler of our time" yet who w as nonetheless bound by a fine consti
tutional machinery, "There are distinct limits to his power as Emperor,
limits which mark and emphasize the federal character of the Empire and
of it a state governed by law, not by prerogative,"86
Nowhere in Wilson's writings from that period did I find references to
the emperor — whether in his capacity as federal president or as king of
Prussia — as an autocrat. That label was reserved for absolutist czars and
caliphs, and it was not counterposed to democratic rule but rather to re
publican and constitutional forms of government,
Wilson w as as interested in local as in national government, for the "lo
cal organs of self government a r e . , , after all, the most important to the
life and vigor of political liberty,"87 American city government lacked
vitality and w as "conspicuous chiefly because of its lack of system ."88
In France, centralized "interference in local affairs. . . more and more
minute and inquisitive, results in the strangulation of local govern
ment."89 Prussia offered by far the best model of local self-government.
Whereas the highly centralized French system "misses the principle of
life, which is not uniformity but variety," the Prussian model of "concen
tration" (centralized oversight, but not control of local government) se
cured "local variety and vitality without loss of vital integration,"90 In a
framework such as Wilson's, which emphasized organic national life, the
term vitality was the ultimate compliment.
Self-government w as not about mass voting, but rather "consists in
taking part in the government: If w e could give, say, to the better middle
class the whole power of government then we should have discovered
self government___ What we should seek is a w ay to harness the people
to the great wagon of state and make them pull it."91 Wilson regarded
Berlin — "the most perfect flower of the Prussian municipal system " —
as the best example of this ideal system, where the "better" citizens (but
not the demos) actively participated in administration, and where rights
were tied to service,92 In Berlin "over 10,000 people [are] associated in the
Government, besides the paid officers of the civil service/' They must
serve without pay "or else lose [their] franchise and have [their] taxes
raised." Berlin's electoral system w as "characteristic of the Prussian sys
tem. The voters are divided into three classes, according to their contri
bution to the taxes." Though unequal in size, "each of these classes elects
an equal number to the Board of Alderm an." These facts were recounted
with Wilson's highest stamp of approval, namely with a certification of
English origins. Berlin was not a foreign example but "just as truly an En
glish example. It is a Pan-Teutonic example of processes that seemed to
inhere in the ancient policy of the people to which we belong . . . so we
shall not find ourselves on unfamiliar ground by going back to Berlin."93
Berlin, in sum, embodied the highest form of self-government: a most
successful blend of popular participation with great administrative effi
ciency, a shining model to be emulated by American reformers.
World War I not only crystallized the autocratic image of Imperial Ger
many; it also brought into discredit two major political science theories:
Teutonic/ Aryan nationalist theory and the doctrine of the state.
The central intellectual task of the founders of modem American po
litical science involved laying intellectual foundations for national cohe
sion in the aftermath of the Civil War. John Burgess w as by no means
unique in attempting to locate those foundations in the heritage and cul
ture of Germany. Herbert Baxter Adam s, Burgess's counterpart at Johns
Hopkins University, had imbibed Sir Henry Maine's Aryan theory while
studying in Germany.112 Upon returning to America Adam s adopted Ox
ford professor Edward Freeman, a thoroughgoing Teutonist, as a mentor
and embarked on a search for "The Germanic Origins of N ew England
Towns/'113 Adam s sought to embed American institutions in a history
older than America's and to establish their links "with the mother coun
try [England], with the German fatherland, with villages and communi
ties throughout the Aryan w orld /'114
Although the influence of the Teutonic theory of American political in
stitutions decreased after the turn of the century, the theory remained
within the bounds of acceptable political science discourse until the Great
War. In 19 10 m any political science students were still being taught that
"the principles of representation and the national state are the work of the
Teutons" and that "of all the nations the Teutons have manifested, per
haps, the greatest political ability."115 Even Woodrow Wilson, in succes
sive revisions of The State, as late as 19 18 clung to the notion, imbibed
from Herbert Baxter Adams, that Anglo-American institutions were
Aryan in character.116 After 1918, however, the notion that the United
States w as part of a greater Teutonic (or Aryan) civilization vanished from
American intellectual discourse. Political science journals and textbooks
from the 1920s made no mention of the Germanic origin of American in
stitutions except to ridicule the idea.117
The doctrine of state sovereignty, the other major theoretical casualty
of the war, conceptualized the state as a natural organism with "absolute,
unlimited power over the individual subject and over all associations of
subjects."118 The doctrine of the state w as central to the political theory of
Burgess, Wilson, and other leading political theorists of the late nine
teenth century, and it continued to dominate disciplinary discourse
through World War I.119 Arthur Bentley's The Process of Government,
which sharply attacked the theory, had virtually no impact at the time of
its initial publication in 1908. But just a decade later the hegemony of the
doctrine of the state gave w ay to a widespread perception that "the old
landmarks no longer retain their validity" and that "a new and more ad
equate [pluralist] social theory is rapidly evolving."120 In the early 1920s
the theory of the state was already being described as "antiquated abso
lutism," and it was rapidly eclipsed by pluralist theories that depicted the
state as "only one of the innumerable group units possessing corporate
personality."121 Only then did Bentley's book begin garnering acco
lades.122
Critics of the theory of the state attributed its demise to its inability to
account for "the fact that in recent times human society has been becom
ing infinitely more complex," with new forms of industrial and social
organization asserting themselves at the expense of the state.123 This crit
icism w as not without merit, but it failed to explain adequately w hy the
widespread dissatisfaction with the old theory crystallized in 1919 and
1920 instead of a decade earlier. Indeed, the hegemony of the theory was
undermined by the w ar against Germany no less than by the theory's an
alytical flaws. The theory had been popularized in America b y scholars
trained in Germany, some of its framers were German scholars whose
works had been mandatory reading for American graduate students, and
one of its chief defenders, John Burgess, had become notorious for his pro-
German sym pathy The doctrine of the state thus spoke with a German
accent, and its decline was precipitated as much by the changing patterns
of America's foreign relations as by the changing nature of industrial so
ciety.
World War I, then, severely damaged the theory of the state and de
stroyed the Aryan theory of American nationalism. It would take a sec
ond w ar against Germany to wreck another central doctrine of early
American political science: the "efficiency" doctrine of public adminis
tration.
Nazi Germany
Whereas Albert Lepawsky belongs to the cohort that entered the study of
administration in the 1930s, and Clarence Ridley represents the "m iddle"
generation — those who reached the peak of their career at that time —
William F. Willoughby (b. 1867), a member of the founding generation of
the field, w as at the twilight of his career, having retired from the Brook
ings Institution in 1933. Willoughby, brother of the political theorist Wes-
tel W. Willoughby, graduated from Johns Hopkins University and was a
federal public servant during the 1890s, before becoming professor of po
litical science at Princeton University under Woodrow Wilson. Willoughby,
like Wilson, w as ambivalent toward majoritarian democracy. Throughout
his life he essentially sought to insulate wide areas of decisionmaking
from the vagaries of partisan politics by entrusting those areas to edu
cated, impartial, efficiency-minded specialists. In 19 10 - 12 Willoughby
pursued this agenda as a member — along with Frank Goodnow — of
the Taft Commission, whose report called emphatically for efficiency in
government; in 1916 Goodnow became chairman of the newly estab
lished Institute for Government Research (IGR), a precursor of the Brook
ings Institution, and he brought Willoughby to direct the organization.
Willoughby spent his first few years at the IGR campaigning for the Bud
get and Accounting Act of 1921, then turned his energy to producing re
search monographs on the organization of various federal agencies. The
monographs were so sanitized of any "political" content and so focused
on "efficiency" that they struck a historian of the Brookings Institution as
"incredibly d ull."144 Willoughby was honored with the presidency of the
A PSA in 1932.
In light of W. F. Willoughby's lifelong crusade for administrative effi
ciency and staunch commitment to the separation of politics from ad
ministration, it should not be surprising that in the 1936 edition of his
book The Government of Modern States, Willoughby urged Americans to
"make a searching examination" of the revolutionary institutions erected
in Italy Germ any and Russia, "apart from the abuses as m ay be practiced
under them/' with an eye toward "the possible incorporation in popular
government of the advantages of autocracy" Americans had much to
learn, for example, from the N azis' recognition of "the superior advan
tages of the unitary over the multiple [that is, federal] form of govern
ment" and from their move, "at a stroke," to dismantle the constituent
states of the Reich,
More than this, it is the avowed intention of the Hitler government to
re-subdivide the Reich into a system of administrative areas which w ill
ignore existing boundaries and be based upon geographic, demo
graphic, administrative and individual needs, rather than historical
traditions---- There can be no question that this revolutionary action
by the Nazis w ill have the result of enormously strengthening the
power of the government, of greatly simplifying the governmental
structure and of bringing about a corresponding increase in the effi
ciency and economy with which public affairs can be conducted.145
Thus, like Lepawksy and Wells, the older Willoughby apparently saw the
centralization of power in Germany as a potential model for shifting the
balance of power in America from the states toward Washington.
In the early 1930s the United States, after initially refusing to recognize
the Soviet Union, moved to establish diplomatic relations with Moscow
that, though never cordial, were far from Cold War-like. In this chapter
I compare the mutually constituted images of the Soviet Union and US as
they evolved in political science discourse from the interwar years to the
height of the Cold War. I begin by exploring the "totalitarian" consensus
that emerged in Soviet studies in the 1950s, and the concomitant emer
gence of an "antitotalitarian program" in the study of American politics.1
Together these research programs reflected a nationalist ideological ori
entation, delineating the identity of US as the superior antithesis of the
totalitarian Other. In the interwar years, however, some members of the
profession's two top-ranked departments were reluctant to characterize
Stalin's regime as a totalitarian dictatorship. They welcomed what they
regarded as the Soviet Union's move toward greater liberty and hoped
that America would learn a lesson in economic equality from Russia.
Other members of these leading departments, though they harbored no
illusions about Stalin's democratic potential, believed that the Soviet ex
periment in central planning might offer valuable lessons for depression-
stricken America. Thus, in the interwar years political scientists viewed
Russia/A m erica through accommodationist as much as nationalist
lenses.
The totalitarian image of the Soviet Union and the "antitotalitarian pro
gram " in American politics were articulated by groups of scholars who
did not necessarily maintain close ties. Still, in light of the fact that both
Soviet studies and American political theory were shaped in significant,
if different, w ays by the Cold War, it is not surprising that these research
programs mutually produced a portrait of a world sharply divided be
tween "democratic" and "totalitarian" poles, reflecting and reproducing
the political bipolarity of the Cold Wan
This bipolar representation w as nationalist in its ideological orienta
tion. To be sure, this nationalism lacked the triumphal tone that would
characterize later classics such as Seymour Martin Lipset's Political Man
(i960) and Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's The Civic Culture (1963),
for the works of Dahl, Truman, Friedrich, and Fainsod were hatched dur
ing the most tense period of the Cold War, when an American triumph
was not easily imaginable. Thus, Fainsod and Friedrich entertained lit
tle hope that the Soviet Union would become more like America in the
foreseeable future. Dahl clearly expressed an exceptionalist variant of
nationalism when he cautioned that probably "the normal American po
litical system is not for export to others."38 Truman, too, concentrated
more on defending American democracy from "m orbific" predators
than on teaching it to others. But these scholars implied that, though the
world had little to learn from America, the American system also had lit
tle to learn from the world, and nothing at all from its totalitarian an
tithesis.
As we saw earlier, in 1956 Carl Friedrich insisted that the totalitarian dic
tatorships of the twentieth century were "historically unique and sui
g e n e r is and that one must not "flatter" them by analogizing them to dic
tatorships of the past, such as "the absolutist monarchies of Europe."
Rather than being merely a new form of old-fashioned absolutism, "to
talitarian dictatorship is a logical extension of certain traits of our mod
em industrial society (oftentimes called 'capitalism')/'78 Friedrich thus
regarded totalitarianism as a postindustrial developmental form, one in
which modem technology perversely facilitated total social control b y a
narrow bureaucratic elite. In the West, Friedrich implied, industrializa
tion took its normal course, whereas in totalitarian countries it took a de
viant path.
In the mid-1950s, however, Friedrich appears not to have seen Soviet
development as unique. His earlier view of Stalin's Soviet Union is best
revealed in "Some Thoughts on the Politics of Government Control," a
defense of the N ew Deal which Friedrich originally delivered as a lecture
in 1935 at Johns Hopkins University. Unlike other supporters of the N ew
Deal, who defended it as a welcome departure from the historical norm
of laissez-faire capitalism, Friedrich sought to demonstrate the historical
continuity of the N ew Deal by showing that laissez-faire capitalism had
never been more than a myth. "History shows . . . that our modem in
dustrial life has grown up under and has been maintained by a govern
ment holding an undisputed monopoly of legitimate power. In breaking
down the feudal privileges, the great monarchs and their ministers, the
founders of modem territorial states, like Elizabeth and Burghley in En
gland, Henry IV and Sully in France, broke the ground for modem indus
trialism and capitalism." These modernizers wisely pursued mercantilist
policies: they unified national economies, broadened national markets,
supported emergent industries and centralized national government.
Adam Smith and his followers failed to appreciate that it was the great
successes of these early mercantilist policies that made Britain's later
prosperity possible. Furthermore, defenders of laissez-faire failed to real
ize the degree to which the doctrine's ostensible success derived from im
perial domination: "Adam Smith's doctrine of the natural harmony of
interests w as the political myth of imperial exploiters, both in England
and elsewhere. A m erica. . . could not be expected to overlook this fea
ture of the doctrine. Hamilton's famous report on Manufacturers (1791)
started from the assumption that the government must remedy the situ
ation which colonial legislation has engendered."79
Karl Marx, Friedrich proceeded, was "just as blind to the politics of
government control as his more orthodox antagonists." Marx appreciated
more than Smith "the powerful role of the government in maintaining or
der in the community in the past," but his philosophy "touch[ed]" that of
Smith "in the belief that the free development of individuals and groups
joined in the common enterprise of production partakes of a 'natural' har
mony once the antagonism of classes engendered b y the existence of pri
vate property is eliminated." Indeed, Stalin's rule, which "consists in a
new bureaucracy," proved the fallacy of the Marxists' anticipation of the
withering aw ay of the state. The future belonged, Friedrich argued, nei
ther to laissez-faire capitalism nor to utopian socialism — both of which
wished the state aw ay — but rather to bureaucratic-industrial statism.80
The Soviet Union, like the West, was moving toward bureaucratic in
dustrialism, but its semifeudal recent past and the "corrupt to the core"
nature of the czarist regime compelled it to move faster. Russia's com
munists had the example of "modern industrialism right before their
eyes."
in his 19 3 1 book, The Making of Citizens, Charles Merriam wrote that the
Soviet Union "is the w orld's most interesting and suggestive experiment
in civic education, rich in materials for the student of civic processes." He
claimed that one of the keys to the success of the Soviet experiment was
"the adoption of a democratic social system." Unlike the czarist tyranny,
which recruited much of its leadership from the hereditary nobility,
the new civil service is recruited largely from the workers, with, of
course survivals from the old order, but emphasis is placed upon mass
participation in government. The most impressive parts of the gov
ernment are the Communist party and the Red army, while wide sup
port is sought for the whole [civil] service through the democratic
appeal and through the democratic practice of organizing industrial
life in the factory and agricultural life in the rural Soviets___ Mass re
sponsibility in economics and politics and popular education have
produced a form of democratic nationalism, quite unexpected by the
founders of communism and in a sense unwelcome to some of them.137
In the early 1930s Merriam believed that the Soviet Union was evolving
in a democratic direction, and held fast to the accommodationist view
that Russia offered US valuable lessons in nation-building methods.
After the Illinois legislature cleared the University of Chicago of the
charge of communist subversion, Merriam helped persuade Charles Wal
green, whose allegations had triggered the legislative investigation, to en
dow a lecture series in defense of American institutions. Merriam was one
of the early beneficiaries of this endowment.138 In 1940 he delivered five
lectures sponsored by the Walgreen Foundation, which were published
in a book titled What Is Democracy?139 The lectures largely reproduced the
content of other publications by Merriam in the late 1930s, a period in
which he rallied to develop a normative defense of American democracy.
At that time Merriam no longer regarded the Soviet Union as an "exper
iment"; he abandoned his illusions about Russia's "democratic national
ism " and viewed it as a form of "new despotism."140 Still, his reply to
"what is democracy?" is of interest here for its contrast with another
prominent answer to this question, provided fifteen years later under the
auspices of the same foundation. In his 1955 Walgreen lectures, published
as A Preface to Democratic Theory, Robert Dahl sought to ground demo
cratic theory in reality rather than in ideals. Dahl, as I noted above, fol
lowed Schumpeter in defining democracy largely in procedural terms.
Merriam began his 1940 Walgreen lectures with a definition of democ
racy as "a form of political association in which the general control and
direction of the commonwealth are habitually determined by the bulk of
the community in accordance with appropriate understandings and pro
cedures providing for popular participation and the consent of the gov
erned." But he insisted that "democracy is not a mere form, a mere
mechanism---- Democracy is a spirit, an attitude toward fellow-men, a
mode of political cooperation through which the human personality m ay
find the finest and richest expression of human values. The form is not
the end; it is the means towards an end — the happiness of mankind." In
deed, Merriam's defense of democracy consisted largely in elaborating
the ends — "assumptions," in his parlance — of democracy.141
The ends of democracy, according to Merriam, included the advance
ment of "the dignity of man," the consummation of the "constant trend
in human affairs toward the perfectibility of mankind," and the notion
that "the gains of civilization are essentially mass gains and should be dif
fused throughout the people as promptly and equitably as possible."142
"Fair participation in the gains of civilization" entailed the following:
"For everyone equal access to minimum security.. , . For everyone food,
shelter, clothing, on an American minimum standard. For everyone a job
at a fair wage . . . and a guaranty against joblessness. For everyone a guar
anty of protection against accident and diseases. For everyone a guaran
teed education---- For everyone a guaranty of protection against old age.
For everyone an opportunity for recreation and the cultural activities ap
propriate to his time."143 Merriam thus articulated an idealist, substan
tive vision of American democracy that differed rather sharply from the
realist, procedural vision articulated by Dahl in his 1955 Walgreen lec
tures.
Merriam tirelessly championed intelligent "planning" as the best route
to the realization of democracy's ideals. "There is reason to believe," he
emphatically claimed, "that systematic, forward-looking planning would
facilitate the adoption of such policies regarding our natural and human
resources as would best serve this basic purpose of our system, increas
ing our output and providing for sounder distribution." Merriam not
only wrote about national planning as a scholar but actively practiced it
as vice-chairman of the National Resource Planning Board. His service on
the board and on the President's Committee on Administrative Manage
ment (the "Brownlow Committee") gave Merriam access to President
Roosevelt and established him as an important figure in the New Deal.144
Merriam w as pleased that the doctrine of laissez-faire "has now been
generally repudiated," but he was aware that "in diluted form [this doc
trine] still survives as a nucleus of opposition to forms of social control,
and especially to any movement labeled as a 'p lan .'"145 To Merriam's cha
grin, during World War II this "diluted" opposition intensified in both the
congressional and academic arenas. In 1943 Congress dealt a blow to Mer
riam's vision of a democratically planned society when it killed the Na
tional Resource Planning Board. The rhetoric of the board's congressional
opponents equated planning with communism and totalitarianism. On
the academic front, too, the progressive worldview epitomized by Mer
riam w as coming under attack, especially from conservative émigré
scholars. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Austrian-born economist Joseph
Schumpeter, fearing that N ew Dealism would degenerate into bureau
cratic socialism, developed a minimalist, procedural conception of democ
racy that w as anathema to Merriam's democratic idealism. Closer to
Merriam's home, conservative critics of progressivism gained a platform
on the University of Chicago campus with the 1941 founding of the Com
mittee on Social Thought. A s Merriam's biographer observed, the com
mittee served as a center for guest European intellectuals, "w ho tended
to see N ew Dealers like Merriam as misguided provincials, caught in a
naïve interpretation of the nature of m an."146
One of those visiting intellectuals, Austrian economist Friedrich
Hayek, touched Merriam's raw nerves when he forcefully argued, in The
Road to Serfdom (1944), that governmental economic and social planning
were incompatible with liberty and inevitably led to totalitarian dictator
ship. Merriam, who took pains to differentiate planning for democratic
ends from fascist and Soviet planning, naturally took exception to
Hayek's view. In an extremely heated debate, broadcast nationally on
NBC radio in April 1945, the aging Merriam charged that Hayek had mis
interpreted the meaning of "planning" and underestimated the efficacy
of democracy. Hayek angrily responded that "people like you, Merriam,
are inclined to burden democracy with tasks which it cannot achieve, and
therefore are likely to destroy democracy." Merriam was incensed. Sev
eral months later he wrote in the A PSR that "H ayek's cynical and con
fused appeals are not fundamentally directed to reason at all, but to fear
and distrust. His volume is addressed to non-rational forces and against
forms of conscious social control." Merriam characterized The Road to
Serfdom as a "dism al" and "over-rated work of little permanent value."147
A s it turned out, however, The Road to Serfdom made the bestseller lists
and continues to sell steadily.148 Merriam's What Is Democracy? had years
earlier gone out of print.
In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, American political science
swung strongly toward ideological nationalism. Robert Dahl, as w e saw
in the preceding chapter, expressed an exceptionalist form of this nation
alism when he declared that the pluralistic democratic process f unctioned
remarkably well in America but w as probably "not for export to others."
In its triumphal form, the nationalism of the era w as most glaringly evi
dent in Seymour Martin Lipset's claims that America "is the good society
itself in operation," and that with "the most developed set of political and
class relationships. . . [the United States] has presented the image of the
European future." Lipset also proposed that "to clarify the operation of
Western democracy in the mid-twentieth century m ay contribute to the
political battle in Asia and A frica."1
It is hard to determine which of the two strands of nationalism enjoyed
greater popularity in the discipline at the time. However, it is clear that a
number of important political scientists actively participated in the poli
tics of shaping the "European future" and the "political battle in Asia and
Africa." A s consultants, advisers, associates, or beneficiaries of various
national security agencies, some leading scholars consciously and ac
tively took part in the campaign to defend democracy against its totali
tarian enemies even as in their writings they sought to "clarify the
operation of Western democracy" in a scientific, dispassionate fashion.
Lipset himself, for example, received two sizable grants from the U.S. Air
Force in the late 1960s, one to examine "implications of comparative na
tional development for military planning," another to study "emergent
leaders in developing nations."2 Thus the professed identity of the disci
pline as a detached science of politics, an identity vigorously championed
by the behavioral revolution that swept the discipline during the Cold
War, w as at odds with the reality of political scientists' enmeshment in
the politics they studied.
This chapter, unlike the preceding three, is concerned not with politi
cal scientists' images of a particular enemy regime but with documenting
their involvement in Cold War politics. This involvement w as large, and
analyzing it comprehensively would require a separate book. Here I nar
rate only a small but significant part of the story by presenting four
sketches, each dealing with an important political scientist or group of po
litical scientists and the institutions with which they were associated.
A ll four sketches illustrate the incongruity between the discipline's
claim to be a disinterested science and its actual intimacy with political
interests. None of them calls into question the character or integrity of the
protagonists. All, however, raise the question: How valid is the presup
position that the subject is separate from the object of research — a
bedrock assumption of the scientific approach to the study of politics —
if the subject is implicated in the politics being researched?
The battle for the hearts and minds of the peoples of the Third World
is the context of all four sketches; three touch specifically on the Vietnam
conflict, describing the involvement of political scientists in the w ar's
prosecution and / or the Vietnam-era turmoil in the internal politics of the
APSA. The sketches are followed by an account of the intense, if imper
manent, impact of the Vietnam War on the profession, including the tilt
toward ideological accommodationism and the delegitimation of collab
oration with national security agencies.
In chapter 1 , 1wrote that the POLITY data set, inspired by the political de
velopment theories of Harry Eckstein and Gabriel Almond, "is a mecha
nism by which, to borrow Antonio Gramsci's terms, 'traces' of the
historical process of U.S.-Germ an relations are 'deposited' into contem
porary political research 'without leaving an inventory.'" The same ob
servation, with Cold War politics substituting for U.S.-Germ an relations,
applies to the data sets and data analysis methods developed at MIT with
the generous support of the U.S. government. The MIT political scientists
themselves did not quite hide their government connections; they were
in fact rather proud to serve their country. But the current practitioners of
political science qua science are at best dimly aware of the embeddedness
of their methods, data sets, and research institutions in the politics of the
Cold War.
Viewed in the context of this type of political science the internal diffi
culties of the APSA become less surprising. It was an interest group
with oligarchic tendencies, but that is nearly inevitable in private
groups and it also makes them more effective in the group struggle.
Within the Association there w as apathy and a low voter turnout, but
too much mass activity upsets the delicate stability of political systems,
so perhaps that is for the best. A power structure existed, but strong
leadership is needed in any political system___ Elections tended to be
meaningless, but that really isn't correct because the purpose of elec
tions is only secondarily to elect people. They are much more impor
tant indicators of trends. The entire atmosphere of the APSA was
apolitical, in which case we are lucky because political controversy is
a bad thing which smart people should avoid. The membership, ac
cording to the only survey taken, seemed to be extremely alienated
from the leadership, but they are only expressing their own authori
tarian perceptions. A n intensive examination w ill show that they re
ally are happy.
The survey Wolfe alluded to showed, according to its takers, that "un
doubtedly a sizable majority of political scientists perceive the existence
of an Establishment which wields substantial influence over at least some
aspects of professional life."117
The notion that a narrow power structure developed in the association
under Kirkpatrick's regime receives added support from the memoirs of
David Easton, author of the foundational text of the behavioral move
ment, who displayed sympathy toward the dissenters within the associ
ation during the Vietnam War.118 During his terms as vice-president
(1967-68) and president (1968-69) of the association, Easton had an op
portunity to observe its inner workings closely. In one of the first meet
ings of the APSA's Executive Committee Easton attended, Kirkpatrick
explained that his retirement plan was underfunded, then left the room
and sent in his personal attorney to make the case for him. Into the room
walked M ax Kampelman, who simultaneously served as the associa
tion's legal counsel, and proposed that APSA make a substantial lump
sum payment to Kirkpatrick's pension fund. The committee promptly
approved the grant, notwithstanding the apparent conflict of interest, and
the matter w as never formally taken up by the business meeting.
Easton observed that Kirkpatrick was, quite appropriately, in the habit
of identifying scholars who were doing what he interpreted to be good
work, and facilitating their projects. This practice inadvertently created a
"coterie of people around him who felt very favorably disposed toward
him, and whom he in turn could lean on in order to get things done in the
profession." Kirkpatrick thus became
a very influential person within the discipline. Influential enough so
th at. . . those of us who were behaviorally inclined recognized very
quickly that w e had a sympathetic soul in Kirkpatrick, and he w as of
enormous help to us in reshaping the agenda, the programs of the as
sociation, seeing to it that the right people got on the program com
mittees and were invited to participate in the work of the association.
And that ultimately the editorship of the A PSR fell in hands that were
more sympathetic to the changes that were taking place.
both professions feel themselves a bit under siege in these days. Both
fill a role that was highly valued by society in the 1950s and early
1960s.. . . A decade ago was the great time of academic advisors with
the fruits of their "policy science." . . . Scholars thought they could
solve any problem: war, cancer, poverty.
Of course, they could not. It w as clearly a bad mistake for either the
scholarly producers or their enthusiastic consumers ever to allow
themselves to be persuaded that quick solutions were at hand.
N ow . . . many people are profoundly disillusioned with scholars' abil
ity to come up with any answers to the great questions before u s .. . .
Similarly, in their public statements most military men left the im
pression that victory in Vietnam was achievable because it was a po
litical-military problem they could solve. A disastrous war has proved
the opposite.. . . The perceived failures of both soldiers and scholars,
combined with the perceived diminution in external threat, leaves
both of us on an outgoing tide. Both professions face the fact of de
clining resource allocations from society and the prospect of further
declines. Our budgets are stagnant; our real share of the gross national
product is declining.
To overcome the problem, Russett called upon soldiers and professors to
maintain and strengthen our links with the broader society. One small
instance of these links is the contact between scholars and soldiers both
at military institutions and at civilian universities. Neither those who
expelled ROTC from the universities nor those who, in pique, then for
bade military officers to attend those universities served their society
well. Professionals cannot live in ghettoes, particularly not in ghettoes
of their own making.153
This excerpt is indicative of the dual nature of the relationship between
political science and the national security establishment in the 1970s and
1980s: on the one hand, scholars such as Russett, who developed ties to
the state before or during Vietnam, were reluctant to sever these ties. On
the other hand, after Vietnam, moral opprobrium w as attached to such
ties within the broader academic community. Several scandals that
erupted in the 1970s and 1980s demonstrate both that collaboration with
national security agencies did not stop after Vietnam and that it met with
disapproval. In 1976 Soviet specialist Myron Rush of Cornell University
openly accepted a scholar-in-residence position at the CIA, on leave from
Cornell. The appointment evoked a stormy protest by Cornell graduate
students, who charged that faculty involvement with the C IA "under
mines the trust necessary for the survival of the academic community and
basic academic freedoms." In 1984 the New York Times reported that Rut
gers University officials admonished two political scientists for using re
search papers submitted by unwitting students in their own research
project for the CIA. And in 1985-86 newspaper reports revealed that the
CIA had secretly financed two scholarly publications b y Harvard politi
cal scientists: an article on "Dead Dictators and Rioting M obs," published
in International Security, coauthored by Samuel Huntington; and a book
on Saudi Arabia authored by N adav Safran. The revelations stirred up a
controversy on campus, and Safran resigned from his post as director of
Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. A resolution condemning
Safran's actions was passed by a vote of 193 to 8 at the 1985 conference of
the Middle Eastern Studies Association.154
But the norm, often observed in the breach, against collaboration with
the intelligence bureaucracy appears to have evaporated since the end of
the Cold War. A recent investigation of the state of cloak-gow n relations
in international studies found that "the opprobrium that used to attach
to any relationship with government intelligence agencies has more or
less vanished." According to Bradford Westerfield, a Yale University po
litical scientist with ties to the CIA, cooperation between professors and
U.S. intelligence agencies "is now very much to the fo re .. . . There's a
great deal of actually open consultation, and there's a lot more semi-open,
broadly acknowledged consultation/'155
The w ar on terrorism launched in response to the September 2001 at
tacks on N ew York and Washington m ay increase the intimacy between
political science and the intelligence bureaucracy. An October 2001 arti
cle in the New Yorker explained how analyses of civil wars produced in
recent years b y prominent political scientists could be useful to the gov
ernment in the current war. One of these analyses, the "state failure"
project, directed by Ted Gurr of the University of Maryland (who also di
rected the POLITY project), was commissioned by the CIA. Other lines of
internal w ar analysis may have been launched independently of the gov
ernment, but their future growth and development are likely to be fa
vored by generous government funding.156
But even if individual political scientists were suddenly to renounce
their ties to power, such a move would not necessarily erase traces of
power from disciplinary scholarship so long as scholars, distant from
power though they might be themselves, continue to rely, as they in
evitably must, on concepts, data sets, and findings produced by other
scholars intimate with political interests. Moreover, it is hard to see how
political science scholarship can be made disinterested, notwithstanding
the good intentions of its producers, so long as the profession remains
embedded in the institutional structure of American higher education,
whose sustenance depends heavily on government and corporate inter
ests. The obvious falseness of the presupposition that scientific knowl
edge of politics is distinct from politics is not easily evaded. Nor do I think
it can be.
CONCLUSION
Lord Acton shrewdly observed that "few discoveries are more irritating
than those which expose the pedigree of ideas ."211have featured Acton's
aphorism as an epigraph for this book because I suspect that some fellow
political scientists might not entirely welcome my exposé.22 But rather
than reacting with irritation, political scientists m ay wish to consider an
other shrewd statement, by Friedrich Nietzsche: "great truth wants to be
criticized, not idolized/'23 If American political science is the great, thriv
ing, democratic science that its leaders portray it to be, then its practi
tioners should at least listen to, if not agree with, m y criticism* While I do
not expect m y critique to meet with instant approbation, I hope that it w ill
provoke a long-overdue debate on the identity of American political sci
ence.
NOTES
I NT RODUCT I ON
1. The transcripts of the APSA oral history interviews are archived at the Uni
versity of Kentucky Library. The quotations are from p. 34 of the Dahl transcript.
2. Charles Merriam, William E Willoughby, and William B. Munro served as
president before 1933; James Pollock and Carl Friedrich were elected to the post
after World War II.
3. Dahl oral history transcript, 34.
4. See Lewis S. Feuer, "American Travelers to the Soviet Union, 1917-1932:
The Formation of a Component of New Deal Ideology," American Quarterly 14
(summer 1961): 119-49; Peter Filene, Americans and the Soviet Experiment, 19 17 -
1933 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967); Robert A. Skotheim,
Totalitarianism and American Social Thought (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Win
ston, 1971); John Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Prince
ton: Princeton University Press, 1972).
5. Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German
National Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
6. Marie Kopp, "Legal and Medical Aspects of Eugenic Sterilization in Ger
many," American Sociological Review 1 (1936): 761-70; quotations from 770.
7. Leonard Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism,
1860-1925 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1955), 277-86.
8. Robert E. Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War (New York: Paragon,
1989), 122.
9. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 277-86.
10. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the Ameri
can Historical Profession (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 173. See
also Andrew Winston, "'A s His Name Indicates': R. S. Woodworth's Letters of
Reference and Employment of Jewish Psychologists in the 1930s," Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences 32 (1996): 30-43.
11. Harold Lasswell to his parents, March 29,1923, Harold Dwight Lasswell
Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, box 56.
12. Lasswell to his parents, July 2,1924, and November 14,1928, Lasswell Pa
pers, box 56.
13. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, to Lass
well, December 3,1963, Lasswell Papers, box 34.
14. Kate Pinsdorf, "Nature and Aims of the National Socialist German Labor
Party," American Political Science Review (hereafter APSR) 25 (May 1931): 377-88;
quotations from 377,378,384.
15. Ibid., 381,387,378-79,380.
16. Marion Pinsdorf, German-Speaking Entrepreneurs: Builders of Business in
Brazil (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).
17. During the 1930s APSR submissions were not peer-refereed; the journal's
current peer-review system was not systematized until the late 1960s. Ogg was
relieved of his editorship as a result of mounting dissatisfaction with his quasi-
autocratic style. But in none of the accounts of the episode that I have read is
there an indication that the discontent with Ogg and his eventual departure had
anything to do with his acceptance of uncritical articles about Nazi Germany
See Samuel Patterson, Brian Ripley, and Barbara Trish, "The American Political
Science Review: A Retrospective," PS: Political Science and Politics 21 (1988): 908-
25; oral history interviews with Taylor Cole and Austin Ranney, in Michael Bear,
Malcolm Jewell, and Lee Sigelman, eds., Political Science in America: Oral Histo
ries of the Discipline (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991).
18. See American Political Science Association (APSA), Biographical Directory
(Washington, D.C: APSA, 1968); George Carey, "Obituary: Francis Graham Wil
son," PS: Political Science and Politics 9 (1976): 393«
19. See John G. Gunnell, The Descent of Political Theory (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1993), 136.
20« Carey, "Obituary: Francis Graham Wilson/'
21. Francis G, Wilson, The Elements ofModem Politics: An Introduction to Polit
ical Science (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936), 650-51.
22. Ibid., 653.
23. Ibid., 655.
24. Ibid,, 662.
25. APSA, Biographical Directory (1968); Albert Somit and Joseph Tanenhaus,
The Development of American Political Science (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1967),
105-8.
26. Carey, "Obituary: Francis Graham Wilson,"
27. Social Science Research Council, Fellows of the SSRQ 1925-1951 (New
York, 1951)/ 439; Carey, "Obituary: Francis Graham Wilson,"
28. Remarks Made at the Presentation of the Seymour Thomas Portrait of William
Bennett Munro (Pasadena: California Institute of Technology, 1947).
29. William Bennett Munro, The Governments of Europe, 3d ed. (New York:
Macmillan, 1938); Munro to Carl Friedrich, December 2,1931, Carl Friedrich Pa
pers, Harvard University Archives.
30. Munro, Governments ofEuroper 633-35.
31. Ibid., 635.
32. Ibid., 635-36,
33. Ibid., 636.
34. Woodrow Wilson, "The Study of Administration," 1887, in The Papers of
Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link et al., 69 vols. (Princeton: Princeton Univer
sity Press, 1966-94), 5:359-80.
35. Vincent Ostrom, The Intellectual Crisis of American Public Administration,
rev. ed. (University: University of Alabama Press, 1974)/ 9.
36. Frank Goodnow, Municipal Government (New York: Century, 1909), 387,
386. On Goodnow's career, see Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Sci
ence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 8.
37. Albert Shaw, Municipal Government in Continental Europe (New York: Cen
tury, 1895), 290,289.
38. Wilson, "Study of Administration," 379.
39. See Roger Wells, German Cities: A Study of Contemporary Municipal Politics
and Administration (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1932), 3.
40. William Bennett Munro, The Government of European Cities (New York:
Macmillan, 1909; rev. ed., 1927); both editions cited in Bertram Maxwell, Con
temporary Municipal Government of Germany (Baltimore: Warwick and York,
1928), 129.
41. Frederick Blachly and Miriam Oatman, The Government and Administra
tion of Germany (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1928), 641. Other complimen
tary, though less comprehensive, studies of Weimar administration included
Maxwell, Contemporary Municipal Government of Germany; and Wells, German
Cities.
42. E.g., by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship
and Autocracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956).
43. See, e.g., John Diggins, "Flirtation with Fascism: American Pragmatic Lib
erals and Mussolini's Italy," American Historical Review 71 (1966): 487-306; Fi-
lene, Americans and the Soviet Experiment; Skotheim, Totalitarianism and American
Social Thought.
44. 1 elaborate on the uncritical attitudes of American political scientists to
ward Fascist Italy in Ido Oren, "Uncritical Portrayals of Fascist Italy and of
Iberic-Latin Dictatorships in American Political Science," Comparative Studies in
Society and History 42 (2000): 87-117.
45. Somit and Tanenhaus, Development ofAmerican Political Science, 105.
46. Barry Karl, Charles Merriam and the Study of Politics (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1972); oral histories of David Easton and Heinz Eulau, in Bear,
Jewell, and Sigelman, Political Science in America.
47. See, e.g., Herbert Simon, Models of My Life (New York: Basic, 1991), chap.
4; Gabriel A. Almond, A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science
(Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990), app. B.
48. Charles E. Merriam, New Aspects of Politics (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1925); quoted in Ross, Origins of American Social Science, 455.
49. Merriam, New Aspects.
30. Merriam privately characterized his wartime experience as a "ship
wreck," which led him toward an intellectual "reorientation." See Karl, Charles
Merriam, 184.
31. See Higham, Strangers in the Land, chaps. 8,9.
32. See George Blakey, Historians on the Homefront: American Propagandists
for the Great War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970); David M.
Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1980).
33. Charles E. Merriam, "American Publicity in Italy," APSR13 (1919): 341-33.
34. Ross, Origins of American Social Science, 434.
33. Charles Merriam to Paul Kosok, April 3,1927, Charles E. Merriam Papers,
Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library (hereafter
MP), box 33.
36. Merriam to Shepard Clough, April 9,1928, MP, box 37.
37. Merriam to Paul Kosok, April 3,1927, MP, box 33.
38. Draft of Merriam's remarks in SSRC conference, undated, p. 131, MP, box
139.
59. Charles E. Merriam, The Making of Citizens: A Comparative Study of Meth
ods cf Civic Training (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931), ix.
60. Merriam to Herbert Schneider, December 23,1927, MP, box 39; Merriam
to Shepard Clough, April 9,1928, MP, box 37.
61. Paul Harper, edv The Russia I Believe In: The Memoirs cf Samuel Harper
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945).
62. Samuel N. Harper, Civic Training in Soviet Russia (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1929), xiv.
63. Harper, Russia I Believe In, 156.
64. Herbert W. Schneider and Shepard Clough, Making Fascists (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1929).
65. Herbert W. Schneider, "Italy's New Syndicalist Constitution," Political
Science Quarterly 42 (1927): 161-202; Herbert W. Schneider, Making the Fascist
State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928).
66. Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism, 226.
67. Schneider, Making the Fascist State, v; Merriam to Schneider, July 26,1929,
and October 11,19 27 , and Schneider to Merriam, January 3,1928, MP, box 39;
Merriam to Schneider, December 13,1927, Schneider Papers, Columbia Univer
sity Library.
68. Charles E. Merriam, "Review of 'Making the Fascist State/" Journal of Po
litical Economy 39 (1931): 132-33.
69. Schneider and Clough, Making Fascists, 203-4,74-75,204.
70. Merriam to Schneider, February 27,1929, MP, box 39; Merriam to Clough,
November 14,1929, MP, box 37.
71. Merriam, Making of Citizens, 222,224,223,232.
72. Ibid., 220,227,349,310.
73. Harper, Russia I Believe In, 181.
74. Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism, 147; William Dodd Jr. and Martha Dodd,
eds., Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 1933-1938 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941),
13 1; Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler, 128.
75. Charles E. Merriam, Political Power: Its Composition and Incidence (New
York: Whittlesey, 1934), 325.
76. Ibid., 184.
77. Ibid., 229,286-87,293,292-93.
78. Ibid., 299.
79. Merriam was conspicuously inspired by Karl Mannheim's Ideologie und
Utopie; see ibid., 73 n., 243 n. On the legal realists, Mannheim, and the historical
profession in the 1930s, see Novick, That Noble Dream, chap. 6.
80. Ibid., 3 11,3 16 .
81. Ibid., 303,42,41,95,39.
82. Ibid., 310,305,237,311.
83. In the book, Merriam explicitly repudiated Machiavelli's ideas. Machia-
velli entered Florentine politics shortly after the execution of Savonarola, and
his counsel that the prince must rely on arms was a reaction to the preacher's
downfall. I thank Mary Dietz for clarifying this matter to me.
84. Gulick to Merriam, September 18,1933, and Merriam to Gulick, October
4,1933, MP, box 99.
85. Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary; 114.
86. Chicago Tribune, August 16,1934.
87. Merriam to William Dodd, August 17,1934, MP, box 34.
88. Charles Merriam, Spencer Parratt, and Albert Lepawsky, The Government
of the Metropolitan Region of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933).
89. See Karl, Charles Merriam.
90. Louis Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity, vol. 2 of The Autobiography of
Louis Brownlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 472,225. See also
Karl, Charles Merriam, 147; Simon, Models of My Life; Leonard White, "Training
for Public Service at the University of Chicago," National Municipal Review 28
(July 1939): 570-72.
91. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 262.
92. Ibid., 302,307.
93. Louis Brownlow, "Planning and Cooperation among International Orga
nizations," National Municipal Review 25 (September 1936): 480.
94. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 307.
95. Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 155.
96. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 310.
97. Roger Wells, "Review of Dr. Jeserich's 'Jahrbuch,'" National Municipal Re
view 23 (November 1934): 639.
98. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 231-32.
99. Rowland Egger, "Review of Dr. Jeserich's 'Jahrbuch,'" National Municipal
Review 24 (May 1935): 286.
100. Rowland Egger, "Hinky, Dinky, Parlez Vous?" National Municipal Review
26 (October 1937): 478.
101. APSA, Biographical Directory (1973); Paul David, "Obituary: Rowland
Egger," PS: Political Science and Politics 12 (1979): 545-46.
102. Lepawsky to Hy (probably Hyman Cohen, another student and assis
tant of Merriam), August 6,1934, MP, box 34.
103. Lepawsky to Merriam, August 7,1933, MP, box 34.
104. Gabriel A. Almond, "Obituary: Albert Lepawsky," PS: Political Science
and Politics 27 (1994): 282-84. Lepawsky was Almond's brother-in-law.
105. Ibid.; Albert Lepawsky, "The Nazis Reform the Reich," APSR 30 (April
1936): 324-50. See 331 n. 44, referring to material published in "Sept.-Oct., 1935."
106. Lepawsky, "The Nazis Reform the Reich," 324,348, 349,350,342, 345.
107. Harold D. Lasswell and Dorothy Blumenstock, World Revolutionary Pro
paganda: A Chicago Study (New York: Knopf, 1939).
108. Almond, "Obituary: Albert Lepawsky"; APSA, Biographical Directory
(1968); APSA, APSA Membership Directory (Washington, D.C.: APSA, 1988).
109. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 222; Simon, Models of My Life; White,
"Training for Public Service," 571,
110. Clarence Ridley, "The Information Bureau in German Cities," National
Municipal Review 23 (April 1934): 209-11,214.
1 1 1 . Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 465-66.
112. See Michael Zalampas, Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich in American Mag
azines, 1923 -1939 (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Press, 1989),
96-97.
113. Brownlow, Passion for Anonymity, 360-61.
114. Ibid., 362-70.
115. See Tang Tsou, "Fact and Value in Charles E. Merriam," Southwestern So
cial Science Quarterly 36 (1955): 9-26.
116. "Civil Service Assembly Makes Chicago Its Headquarters," National
Municipal Review 24 (March 1935): 175.
117. James K. Pollock and Alfred Boerner, The German Civil Service Act
(Chicago: Civil Service Assembly of the U.S. and Canada, 1938).
118. Dennis Anderson, James Kerr Pollock: His Life and Letters (Ann Arbor:
Michigan Historical Society, 1972).
119. About fifty academics participated in the tour, including professors from
the University of Chicago, Columbia, and Princeton. The tour's itinerary is in
the James Pollock Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan (hereafter
PP), box 85; Pollock to Dr. K. O. Bertling, May 22,1934, PP, box 1. On the Carl
Schurz society see Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 156,261.
120. Pollock to Arnold B. Hall, August 30,1934, PP, box 1.
121. Kurt Wilk, "Review of Pollock's 'The Government of Greater Ger
many/" National Municipal Review 28 (June 1939): 485.
122. Henry Lichtenberger, The Third Reich (New York: Greystone, 1937).
123. James K. Pollock, "Review of Lichtenberger's 'The Third Reich,'" APSR
33 (February 1939): 120-21.
124. Newspaper clip titled "Declares Elimination of Spoils System Essential,"
PP, box 95. Neither the name of the newspaper nor the date appears on the clip.
125. Pollock to Belsley, June 30,1937, and Belsley to Pollock, July 9,1937, PP,
box 3.
126. Pollock and Boerner, German Civil Service Act, 6 ,9 ,11.
127. James K. Pollock, The Government of Greater Germany (New York: Van
Nostrand, 1938), 105.
128. Roger Wells, "Review of 'The German Civil Service Act/" APSR 32 (Oc
tober 1938): 1008; Pollock to Wells, July 18,1938, PP, box 7.
129. Wells to Pollock, September 13,1938, PP, box 7.
130. Alfred V. Boemer, "Towards Reichsreform — The Reichsgau," APSR 33
(October 1939): 853-59; quotations from 853,854,858-59.
131. William Shirer, Twentieth Century Journey; vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown,
1984), 204.
132. Boerner was last listed, with no academic affiliation, in the APSA's Bio
graphical Directory of 1945.
133. Anderson, James Kerr Pollock
134. Rowland Egger, "Review of 'German Cities/" National Municipal Review
22 (February 1933): 75.
135. Wells, German Cities, 13.
136. Wells to James Pollock, June 21,1934, PP, box 3.
137. Frederick L. Schuman, The Nazi Dictatorship: A Study in Social Pathology
and Politics of Fascism (New York: Knopf, 1935); Roger Wells, "Review of 'The
Nazi Dictatorship/" APSR 29 (August 1935): 678.
138. Roger Wells, "Municipal Government in National Socialist Germany,"
APSR 29 (August 1935): 653-59; quotations from 658,653.
139. Roger Wells, "The Liquidation of the German L ä n d erAPSR 30 (April
1936): 350-61; editor's note on 324.
140. Ibid., 350,357.
141. Elsa Wells Kormann, "Obituary: Roger Wells," PS: Political Science and
Politics 28 (1995): 123.
142. Roger Wells, "The Revival of the German Union of Local Authorities af
ter World War II," APSR 41 (1947): 1182-87; quotation from 1182.
143. Kormann, "Obituary: Roger Wells."
144. Donald Critchlow, The Brookings Institution, 1916-1952 (De Kalb: North
ern Illinois University Press, 1985), 30-40; quotations from 40.
145. W. F. Willoughby, The Government of Modern States, rev. ed. (New York:
D. Appleton, 1936), vi, 111,18 2 -8 3.
146. "History of the Kennedy School of Government," www.ksg.harvard.
edu /kennedy / history.
147. Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, 5, 3.
148. Carl J. Friedrich, "Review of Michels' 'Sozialismus und Faschismus in
Italien/" APSR 22 (1928): 197-99; quotation from 199.
149. Carl J. Friedrich, "Review of Emil Lengyel's 'Hitler,'" APSR 27 (Febru
ary 1933)* MS-
150. Carl J. Friedrich, "The Development of the Executive Power in Ger
many," APSR 27 (April 1933): 185-203; quotations from 200, 203.
151. Quoted in Gunnell, Descent of Political Theory, 138.
152. Carl J. Friedrich, "Responsible Government Service under the American
Constitution," in Problems of the American Public Service: Five Monographs on Spe
cific Aspects of Personnel Administration (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935), 74*
153. Karl F. Geiser, Democracy versus Autocracy (New York: D. C. Heath, 1918).
154. Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler, 78.
155. Karl F. Geiser, "Review of 'Germany Twilight or Dawn?' by Anonymous,
and 'My Battle' by Adolph Hitler," APSR 28 (February 1934): 136-38.
156. Anonymous, Germany: Twilight or Dawn? (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1933)/ 7-
157. Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler, 123,130.
158. Johannes Mattem, "Review of Lichtenberger's 'The Third Reich,"' APSR
31 (October 1937): 962-64.
139. APSA, Biographical Directory (1933).
160. James Miller, "Youth in the Dictatorships," APSR 32 (October 1938): 963 -
70.
161. APSA, Biographical Directory (1968).
162. Alfred V. Boerner, "The Position of the NSDAP in the German Constitu
tional Order," APSR 32 (December 1938): 1060-81; quotations from 1081,1061,
1063,1071,1076.
163. John D. Lewis, "Review of 'Staats und Verwaaltungsrecht im Dritten
Reich,'" APSR 30 (Febmary 1936): 172-73.
164. Harlan Wilson et al., "Obituary: John D. Lewis," PS: Political Science and
Politics 21 (1988): 307-8.
163. Gerhard Krebs, "Review of Huber's 'Verfassung,'" APSR 32 (December
1938): 1171-73.
166. APSA, Biographical Directory (1933).
167. Boerner, "Towards Reichsreform — The Reichsgau/'
168. Donald Kettl, "Public Administration: The State of the Field," in Politi
cal Science: The State of the Field, ed. Ada Finifter (Washington, D.C.: APSA, 1993),
407-28.
169. Ostrom, Intellectual Crisis of Public Administration, 26-28.
170. Browrdow, Passion for Anonymity, 463-66.
171. "History of the Kennedy School of Government."
172. Kettl, "Public Administration," 4 11-12 . The quotation is attributed to
Dwight Waldo.
173. Ostrom, Intellectual Crisis of Public Administration, 7; Herbert Simon, Ad
ministrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Or
ganizations, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1997), 29.
174. Ostrom, Intellectual Crisis of Public Administration; Waldo quoted on 10.
173, Kettl, "Public Administration," 408.
176. Ibid., 411.
177. Ostrom, Intellectual Crisis of Public Administration, 6.
178. As Ross, Origins ofAmerican Social Science, 432, observed, "Max Weber's
pessimistic vision of bureaucracy had no impact on American students of ad
ministration until the 1930s."
C HA P T E R 3. S T AL I N ’S SOVI ET UNION
CONCLUSI ON