ABSTRACT
American political science has come a long way in company with other social sciences since the Civil War. If the condition of political science represented the exhaustion of its present potentialities, then there would be little justification in voicing any concern about it. Political research has still to penetrate to the hard core of political power in society. Each revision or reaffirmation of social policy, if it is to be effective, must depend on reliable knowledge about the distribution of social power. The traditions of a discipline as congealed in a professional outlook can explain the closest institutional source of current dominant conceptions of research in political science. Other social sciences are exposed to the same force and yet have not been victimized to the same extent. There is a deeper social reason for the failure of political science to transcend its limitations.
