On Conjecture in Political Science

UNDER the impetus of Bertrand de Jouvenel’s recent writings‘ and the a p F n c e , since 1961, of the Futuribles series of essays: the question is now being asked with increased frequency: should, or should not, political science assume a novel responsibility and engage in conjectures or-as others prefer to call it-prognostications concerning future developments. On the occasion of the international political science congress in Geneva, in September 1964, a special discussion group took up the matter and gave it careful m t i n y . Thus formulated, the question lacks substance. For’ the fact is that political science always has been engaged, and continues to be engaged, in prognostication, though its exponents may not have been quite aware of it. Monsieur Jourdain, so to say, has been speaking prose without knowing it. To demonstrate this fact, there is no need to cite the classics, whose names are spoken with reverence, but whose methods of observation and analysis, whether rightly or wrongly, are regarded by many of presentgeneration scholars as defective. It will suflice to consider the routine preoccupations of today’s political scientists. Let us take, as a first example, current research into public administration. We study personnel recruitment on the basis of party patronage and compare it with recruitment on the basis of various job-fitness tests; we compare various methods of budgeting, of preliminary and on-the-job training, of internal and external control, of authoritarian and permissive attitudes toward staff and public, of delineation of administrative units, of collegial and individual decision-making. As a result, we conclude that a given system has proved more adequate, or less adequate, than other competing systems in terns of speed, costs, manpower or space utilization, ideological or technical reliability, and so forth. These findings we transmit, via textbooks, monographs, articles, and the lecture-room, to our students, colleagues, and other interested parties. What have we done? Have we merely stated a sequence of observed facts for our own edification, our colleagues’ enlightenment and the satisfaction of our students’ and the general public’s curiosity? Of course not. This would make us into