ABSTRACT
Introduction From the appearance of the first works that were avowedly ‘biopolitical’, proponents have been advocating the need for a theoretical ‘paradigm shift’ in political science from traditional and behavioural approaches to a life science based, evolutionary framework or paradigm. But the suggested strategies for achieving this goal have varied, as have the core problems and preferred methods. Some have advocated the use of evolutionary theory and general systems theory, the intellectual forebear of David Easton’s (1965a) systems theory, in their quest for a general theory of political change as a foundation on which to build their framework. Others, seeking an explanation for social co-operation in the face of self-interested behaviour, have been drawn to sociobiological theory. Still others who are focused on specific types of political behaviour are most concerned with the extension of the behavioural paradigm to take fully into account the human body and the brain, specifically, in the shaping of that political behaviour. Yet another group of biopolitics scholars have drawn heavily upon the work of ethologists and are seeking fruitful comparisons among and between primates, again as part of a strategy for expanding upon the behavioural research programme. However, it must be said that even when not fully articulated, all of these theorists are lagging as a backdrop the theory of evolution, albeit updated and contemporary, to be sure, but historically indebted to the original work of Charles Darwin and to the modern evolutionary synthesis.
