Book Reviews : The Theory and Method of Political Analysis. By EUGENE J. MEEHAN. (Home- wood: The Dorsey Press, 1965. Pp. x, 277. $5.50.)
| Author | W. Wayne Shannon |
| Published date | 01 March 1966 |
| Date | 01 March 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591296601900140 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
181
of
newly
formed
nations
to
criticism
by
their
ejected
but
not
rejected
mentors.
And
he
very
nicely
shows
how Marx
and
Freud,
in
their
different
realms,
became
heroes
of
the
insecure.
But
on
two
matters
he
is
uncharacteristically
orthodox
in
his
analysis,
and
his
comments
sound
different
only
in
vocabulary
from
others
that
have
proven
inade-
quate.
He
explains
the
growth
of
Nazism
on
too
rigidly
class
terms,
overemphasizing
the
petit
bourgeois
origin
of
National
Socialist
support.
At
another
point
in
the
book
he
dichotomizes
too
easily
in
saying
that
the
class
struggle
is
being
replaced
by
the
skill
struggle.
As
lines
between
classes
become
less
distinct
but
persist,
the
ease
of
movement
from
one
to
another
surely
softens
the
political
controversy
in
developed
nations,
but
the
interclass
strife
in
nations
moving
from
feudal
land-tenure
systems
to
semi-feudal
factory
systems
is
still
intense.
Such
revolutions
as
the
Chinese
and
Egyptian
and
the
turmoil
in
Argentina
before
and
since
Per6n
cannot
be
explained
without
using
class
terms,
and
a
skill
struggle
explanation
sounds
too
contrived -
too
simply
like
Michels,
Mosca,
and
Burnham -
to
explain
the
deep
anger
that
has
attended
intranational
politics
in
even
the
dictator-governed
semi-modern
nations
now
emerging
into
prominence.
The
book
is
not
very
systematically
written.
But
this
is
a
rather
minor
fault
in
a
work
that
is
so
deeply
insightful.
What
is
really
lacking
is
the
systematic
use
of
psy-
chological
theory
and
experimentation
that
have
developed
in
the
last
generation.
There
is
not
a
systematic
consideration
of
those
needs
of
individuals
which,
when
denied,
induce
personal
insecurity.
There
is
not
much
specifying
of
how
insecurity
can
be
good.
For
these
shortcomings
the
fault
is
not
in
Lasswell,
the
stars,
or
our-
selves,
but
in
the
state
of
the
art
and
science
when
he
wrote.
For
its
continuing
merit,
even
after
the
new
psychological
developments
that
it
could
not
foresee,
the
book
is
probably
as
much
worth
reading
now
as
it
was
in
1935.
JAMES
C.
DAVIES
University
of
Oregon
The
Theory
and
Method
of
Political
Analysis.
By
EUGENE
J.
MEEHAN.
(Home-
wood:
The
Dorsey
Press,
1965.
Pp. x, 277.
$5.50.)
Eugene
J.
Meehan
offers
us
a
first-rate
account
of
our
methodology
in
the
broadest
sense
of
that
much-abused
word
in
The
Theory
and
Practice
of
Political
Analysis.
Fittingly,
this
is
not
a
polemical
book,
and
precisely
for
this
reason
it
can
be
predicted
that
our
&dquo;hawks&dquo;
of
both
camps
will
find
it
not
entirely
to
their
liking.
This
is
not
a
brief
for
&dquo;behavioralism.&dquo;
In
fact,
the
author
consciously
attempts
to
avoid
even
the
use
of
the
word,
which,
he
contends
is
insufficiently
precise
&dquo;to
make
discussion of
principles
a
real
possibility.&dquo;
On
the
other
hand
there
will
be
little
comfort
here
for
the
advance
guard
of
the
&dquo;traditionalist&dquo;
counter-revolution,
who
are
likely
to
consider
Meehan
only
a
somewhat
less
convinced
&dquo;behavioralist,&dquo;
de-
voted
no
less
than
his
purer-minded
brethren
to
what
Professor Strauss
has
labeled
&dquo;fiddling
while
Rome
burns.&dquo;
If
polemics
can
be
left
aside,
the
beauty
of
this
volume
is
its
relevance
to
our
present
professional
anxiety
about
our
status
as
a
&dquo;science.&dquo;
Hard
thought
on
this
matter
abounds
in
the
present
volume,
and
for
that
reason
it
is
very
useful.
The
purpose
of
the
book
in
the
author’s
words
is
&dquo;to
determine
what
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