Behavioral Approach

The roots of behaviouralism can be traced back to the concept of general system theory that had its origin in the writings of L.V. Bertallanty, a biologist (1920s).

Behavioral approach emerged around 1950s in the U.S. It is the most effective approach to the study of politics. Following two influences shaping the behavioral approach in political analysis --- logical positivism: a movement started by a group of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians in Vienna. And, linguistic philosophy: here, the central concept was principle of ‘verification’ or ‘non-falsifiability.’

Methods that let us to know about behavioral approach of people or about attitudes of people are: observation, participate observation, interview, aggregate data or official sources, and process section survey.

In process section survey there are Sample survey and Gallup survey. In sample survey, people in similar conditions are likely to hold similar attitudes. Lots of assumptions and generalizations are there in sample and if one holds wrong assumptions then the whole survey may go wrong. In complex societies sampling can play a vital role. However, one must have clear scientific techniques to use this method. This can be done to study voting behavior. In fact, actual sampling is conducted scientifically. This sample survey is mostly conducted in the West and North America. Gallup survey is also popular. The purpose is to make things statistically structured. Well, survey method was first used in America and then in Europe. This method is important for political science, and it is also used in the field of market and media.

Emergence of behavioral approach, R. Dahl and David Easton are two leading figures in behavioral approach. R. Dahl gives six factors contributed to the emergence of behavioral approach. He calls them six stimuli, as under:

Inspiration and borrowing from other social sciences --- Dahl says that Merriam was a major inspiration behind the growth of behavioral approach. He influenced Laswell, Simon, Almond and his students. Merriam convinced them that political science must study behavioral approach. If one wants to study political behavior scientifically, then he/she has to borrow from other disciplines where behavior is studied, such as: psychology, social anthropology, and sociology. Actually, this borrowing was done between 1950 and 1980.

The contribution of European scholars --- large number of European scholars migrated to the U.S.A, among them were the followers of Max Weber. In fact, Americans came to know about Weber through Weber’s followers. Thus, they took with themselves European ideas to the United States of America and so European ideas were established in the U.S.A. Bendix, Lazarsfeld, Parsons, etc, were among the followers of Weber.

Second World War --- understanding of society was changed. War waged between ideas: liberalism versus authoritarianism, and democracy versus fascism. World war two made social scholars and students more realistic. They realized that first reality must be understood. So, realistic perspective emerged in the social sciences… also called as ‘awareness of reality.’

Related to government resources --- in a sense it is totally un-academic. In the U.S., SSRC granted scholars to conduct research in social sciences. A separate sub-committee with a separate budget was set up to work on political behavior (1945). Since then, some American scholars must have realized the importance of political behavior… Thus, money made available and research conducted more enthusiastically.

Related to private or corporate --- private foundations also started allocating money for the research on political behavior after world war two. This also may appear un-academic, but anyway it has been important.

Rapid growth of survey method --- in 1930s or 1940s survey method was elementary, but afterwards new methods means scientific and statistics methods were added. It is a very complicated method that increased a lot after 1950… Michigan Survey Center is the leading center in the world. 

David Easton has listed down certain characteristics of behavioral approach in the following way.

Uniformity in political behavior: Majority of people in a group may behave in similar way. Uniformity leads to generalization, but one has to remember that generalization does not mean that hundred percent of some thing is true. Rather it shows the likelihood. Behaviorlists believe that political scientists should engage themselves in an unrelenting search for regularities of political behavior and for the variables associated with them, and should give up purely descriptive studies in favor of rigorous and analytical treatment.

Verifications: It is a process whereby one examines the truth of generalization. They believe that knowledge in order to be valid should consist of propositions that have been subjected to empirical tests, and that evidence must be based on observation.

Techniques: Use of sophistical tools is suggested, like multivariate analysis, sample surveys, mathematical models, simulation, etc. The technique should be so refined and validated that rigorous means could be found for observing, recording, and analyzing data.

Quantification and measurement: Data for research in political science as in other social sciences should be quantified and all findings should be based on quantifiable data. Quantification and measurement are methodologically integrated parts of behavioral approach.

Values: They believe that ethical evaluation is different from empirical explanation. Values and facts are two separate things and should be kept analytically distinct. They should not be mixed up with each other. By doing that one can develop pure science first, and then applied science comes next.

Systematization: Behaviorlists claim that research in political science should be systematic by which they mean that it must be ‘theory oriented and theory directed.’

Pure science: They attach great importance to pure research and would be content with it, even if it cannot be applied to specific and minimum social problems.

Integration: integration of political science with other social sciences would help much better to understand the political behavior of man. 

The goal of behavioral political science is to understand and describe the political phenomenon realistically, and as some would put it, to predict things and if possible to control them.

The ultimate objective of behavioral political science, as Easton told us, is the creation of a systematic theory, to be more precise, a casual theory and not value theory. The causal theory seeks to show the relation among political facts.

However, there are some major limitations of behavioral approach, as under:

Silence about values --- it cannot tell us about values, whether they are good or bad. In actual politics these values play influential role.

Politics is explained in non-political terms --- sociological explanation of politics.

It collects lots of data through survey --- collection of information without efficient interpretation.

In studying society one can establish correlations, but causal relations cannot be establish easily.