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Political Science and the Crisis of Authoritarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Lucian W. Pye
Lucian W. Pye*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract

Political science is a discipline in constant danger of fragmentation because of the centrifugal pulls of our subfields and the contradictions in our scientific and humanistic traditions. We are, however, periodically brought together by the need to respond to major developments that are reshaping the political universe. We are today confronted with a unifying challenge in the crisis of authoritarianism that is undermining the legitimacy of all types of authoritarian systems throughout the world, including the Marxist-Leninist regimes. The crisis will not necessarily produce democracies, but rather a variety of part-free, part-authoritarian systems which do not conform to our classical typologies. Although the crisis of authoritarianism stems from profound social, economic, and cultural trends, the outcome in each case will be decided by political responses. Political science, therefore, has the responsibility to lead intellectually other social sciences in analyzing the fundamental change in political life that involves the clash between individual political cultures and the world culture of modernization.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 3 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1990

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