ABSTRACT

During the past thirty years political science, as an academic discipline, has experienced an enormous growth throughout the worldin the number of persons involved, in the research tools available and in the sheer volume of productivity. Since World War Two, along with the other social sciences, it has undergone what can legitimately be called an extraordinary expansionist revolution. But there has been little systematic attention devoted to the historical development of the field as a whole and to the peculiarities of its evolution in specific countries-particularly outside the United States.