The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between history and political science in the study of American government and to examine how the study of American government is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective.
The way history and political science connect to study of American government is that they appear to provide a means by which proposed or enacted government policies, particularly those that are in some manner identified with American ideals or the American character, can be examined and, some would hope, exposed, on their merits as inconsistent with ordinary logic on one hand, and inconsistent with pious declarations of adherence to American ideals of personal responsibility and liberty on the other. The task of the analyst informed by both history and political science would be to present an organized interpretation of the politics and ideology of analogous conditions of history and society to help explain the structure, content, and atmosphere of specific issues, to illustrate what is believed or acted on and why, and the implications of accommodating such beliefs and acts. Formal acquaintance with the imponderables of historical behavior of persons and groups and nations can also tend to put a face of intensely felt human experience on highly structured, quantititative analyses to which the scientific method aspect of political science has often been prone. In other words, history might lend an attitude of urgency and moral weight to interpretation of scientific description, making connections that the confined structure of even the best designed social science study might not necessarily provide.
As various commentators have noted, a good deal of academic criticism of cultural tendencies that has been loaded with attitude, urgency, and morality has come from political conservatives, some of whom (urgently or breathlessly) harness the myth and symbol of American idealism to trumpet the decisive...