ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the "behavioral approach" in political science is the ambiguity of the term itself, and of its synonym "political behavior". Historically speaking, the behavioral approach was a protest movement within political science. The rapid flowering of the behavioral approach in the United States no doubt depended on the existence of some key attitudes and predispositions generated in the American culture—pragmatism, factmindedness, confidence in science, and the like. In addition to the targets-of-opportunity that occur in historical studies, a problem that obviously needs the joint attention of historian and "behavioral" political scientist is the matter of political change. After all, as the names of Socrates, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Tocqueville remind us, from time to time in the past the study of politics has been altered, permanently, by a fresh infusion of the spirit of empirical inquiry.
