The Perestroika Movement is a loosely organized intellectual tendency within the discipline of political science that emerged in the United States during the mid‑1980s. Its members advocated for methodological pluralism and contested the tendency among some scholars to model political science after the natural sciences, a direction often described as a drive toward a “normal science” in the sense of Thomas Kuhn.
Origins and Development
The movement’s name—borrowed from the Russian term perestroika (“restructuring”)—was intended to signal a call for structural change within the field. In 1987 a group of political scientists circulated a manifesto titled “Perestroika: For an Ecumenical Science of Politics,” which critiqued the dominance of quantitative, positivist approaches and urged greater openness to qualitative, historical, normative, and interdisciplinary methods. The manifesto was quickly disseminated among scholars and sparked a series of debates at major conferences and in academic journals.
Core Tenets
- Methodological Pluralism – Promotion of a diversity of research designs, including case studies, ethnography, interpretive analysis, and formal modeling, alongside quantitative techniques.
- Epistemological Openness – Rejection of the assumption that a single scientific paradigm can fully capture the complexity of political phenomena.
- Critique of “Normal Science” – Opposition to the idea that political science should emulate the cumulative, law‑like progress characteristic of the natural sciences, as articulated by Kuhn’s concept of “normal science.”
- Interdisciplinary Engagement – Encouragement of dialogue with related disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and history.
Impact
While the Perestroika Movement never formed a formal organization, its ideas influenced subsequent discussions about methodological diversity in political science. The movement contributed to the rise of subfields such as comparative historical analysis and the increased acceptance of mixed‑methods research. It also helped shape the agenda of professional associations, leading to more explicit statements supporting methodological variety in the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) mission and conference programming.
Criticism and Reception
Critics argued that the movement’s call for pluralism could lead to a lack of theoretical coherence and that the emphasis on methodological diversity might undermine standards of rigor. Nonetheless, supporters maintained that methodological flexibility was essential for addressing the normative and context‑specific questions central to political inquiry.
Legacy
The Perestroika Movement remains a reference point in debates over the direction of political science research. Its legacy is evident in contemporary calls for “methodological openness” and in the continued presence of scholarly work that integrates multiple approaches to understand political processes.
References
- Wikipedia, “Perestroika Movement (political science)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika_Movement_(political_science)
- Robert A. Dahl, “Perestroika: For an Ecumenical Science of Politics”, Journal of Politics, 1987. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1353545
- Daniel J. Myers, “The Perestroika Movement in American Political Science and Its Aftermath”, in The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology, Springer, 2014. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-29590-4_10
