ABSTRACT
The cultural and political spin-oft" is familiar: diminishing nationalism, greater narcissism, pleasure-seeking, pain-avoidance, and resistance to mobilization, decreased confidence in and more criticism of institutions and elites, declining standards of social responsibility but rising concern for conservation and environmental quality. In the US National Science Foundation the political science discipline did not exist. And within this discipline, the American politics and electoral behavior field continues to dominate not only in research support, the number of teachers, courses, and students but also in the number of endowed university chairs. The measurement of social and political events and conditions may often be more difficult than that of physical and biological phenomena, but more likely than not, the problem is that no one has tried yet, believing that the Lord did not mean it to be done. World politics as a legitimate behavioral science already exists, but has barely begun to realize its potential.
