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Some Contributions of Sociology to Modern Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Harry Elmer Barnes
Affiliation:
Clark University

Extract

The fact that a sociologist has been requested to appear upon the program of the American Political Science Association is in itself far more significant than any remarks which may be made upon the subject of the relation of sociology to political theory. It is an admission that some political scientists have at last come to consider sociology of sufficient significance to students of politics to be worthy a brief survey of its contributions to modern political theory.

Many of the more liberal and progressive political scientists will doubtless ask themselves if this is not erecting a man of straw, and will inquire if there was ever a time when political scientists were not willing to consider the doctrines of sociology. One or two brief reminders will doubtless allay this suspicion. It was only about twenty years ago that a leading New York daily is reputed to have characterized a distinguished American sociologist as “the fake professor of a pretended science.” About a decade ago an ex-president of this association declared in a twice published paper that sociology was essentially worthless and unscientific and that all of its data had already been dealt with more adequately by the special social sciences.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1921

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References

1 Ford, , American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 15, pp. 96104.Google Scholar The desirable historical introduction to this article is provided by my article on “Sociology before Comte,” in the American Journal of Sociology, September, 1917; and Dunning's, Political Theories from Rousseau to Spencer, pp. 345–7, 377–407.Google Scholar Much the best brief survey of modern sociological doctrines is to be found in Ross, , Foundations of Sociology, pp. 256352.Google Scholar The most satisfactory history of sociological theory in English is L. M. Bristol, Social Adaptation.

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4 Ward, , Pure Sociology, p. 91.Google Scholar The Dewey library classification also gave sociology a generic and comprehensive significance which few sociologists have ever had the audacity to approve, but it helped to alarm the political scientists and economists.

5 Hobhouse, , The Sociological Review, I (1908), p. 8.Google Scholar This also is the position of Durkheim.

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9 Cf. Small, General Sociology; Beard, Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, ch. i.

10 Cf. Spencer, Social Statics, and Man Versus the State; Novicow, Les Luttes entre sociétés humaines; Le Bon, La Psychologie politique; Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to each Other.

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16 For names, titles and contributions of the psychological sociologists, see section X below.

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43 See especially the introduction to his Erdkünde. His significant doctrines have been translated by W. L. Gage as Ritter's Geographical Essays.

44 His important contributions to this specific subject are Der Staat und sein Boden, and Politische Geographie.

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89 Giddings, , The Responsible State, p. 65.Google Scholar Graham Wallas has also emphasized this point of view in Our Social Heritage, Ch. viii.

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124 Trotter, Instincts of the Herd.

125 Ross, Social Control, chs. xiii–xv; Social Psychology, ch. ii; Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion; Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals; Wallas, Human Nature in Politics.

126 McDougall, Social Psychology; The Group Mind.

127 Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct.

128 Kidd, Social Evolution.

129 Fouillée, L'Evolutionisme des idées-forces, especially introduction.

130 In addition to the works of these authors which have been mentioned above, see Galton, Hereditary Genius; Inquiries into the Human Faculties; Mumford, “The Origins of Leadership,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 12.

131 See their works as cited above.

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136 Giddings, , “Concepts and Methods of Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 10Google Scholar; “A Theory of Social Causation,” Publications of the American Economic Association, third series, V, No. 2; Article “Sociology,” in New International Encyclopedia; American Journal of Psychology, July, 1913, pp. 360–77; Ibid., April, 1918, pp. 159–81; Psychoanalytic Review, January, 1921, pp. 22–37.

137 Small, , American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 15, pp. 1415.Google Scholar

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139 Political Science, II, p. 365. Cited by Merriam, , American Political Ideas, p. 155.Google Scholar Small wonder that Professor Burgess was not succeeded by the author of Social Reform and the Constitution.

140 Those who care to follow further a more detailed consideration of the contributions of leading sociologists to political theory will find articles in the American Journal of Sociology, September, 1917, July and September, 1919, September, 1921, to July, 1922; the Journal of Race Development, April, 1919; the Philosophical Review, May, 1919; the Political Science Quarterly, June, 1920; the American Journal of Psychology, October, 1920; the Encyclopedia Americana (1920) Vol. 25, pp. 166–86; the Journal of International Relations, October, 1921; and the English Sociological Review, 1921–2.

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