The Divine Science

The American polity's designers proceeded from what John Adams called "the divine science of politics"-an approach very close to that of modern empirical political science. It was rooted in their conviction that truth is best discovered by the systematic investigation of experience; they investigated experience with methods primitive by modern standards but advanced for the eighteenth century; they applied their findings to the design of political institutions; and they regarded all institutions as experimental, to be revised when experience indicates. This faith in political and social engineering has remained ever since a major element in American political culture. It has recently been shaken by Vietnam, Watergate, and other systemic failures; but it is still far preferable to alternative faiths, especially if we today can cool our rhetoric, moderate our expectations, and recapture the pragmatic, experimental mood of those who created "the divine science

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• Biases in Public Policy Implementation Evaluation

  Open Access•Charles J Fox•Review of Policy Research•1987

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• After Labeling and Conflict

  Open Access•Laurin A Wollan•Criminology•1979

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• Selecting a Voting System

  John R Chamberlin, Fran Featherston•The Journal of Politics•1986

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• Visionary Political Leadership

  Open Access•Yehezkel Dror•International Political Science…•1988

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• Political Design and the Representation of Interests

  Open Access•Charles W Anderson•Comparative Political Studies•1977

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• The Politics of Faith

  Open Access•Paul M Sniderman•British Journal of Political…•1978

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• One Soul at a Time

  Open Access•Samuel P Huntington•American Political Science Review•1988

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• A Pragmatic Method for Evaluating Election Schemes through Simulation

  Open Access•Robert F Bordley•American Political Science Review•1983

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• Federalism, Nationalism, and Democracy in America

  Open Access•Samuel H Beer•American Political Science Review•1978

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• International encyclopedia of the social sciences.

  David L Sills•International encyclopedia of the…•1968

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• The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787

  Gordon S Wood, 朱妍兰 朱妍兰•The Creation of the American…•1993

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• Liberal Tradition in America

  Louis Hartz•Liberal Tradition in America•1991

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• The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

  Charles R Ritcheson, Bernard Bailyn•Eighteenth-Century Studies•1970

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• The American Science of Politics

  Francis D Wormuth, Bernard Crick•The Western Political Quarterly•1960

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• Drafting the Federal Constitution

  Edmund C Burnett, Arthur Taylor Prescott•The Journal of Southern History•1942

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• A History of American Political Thought

  Timothy P Donovan, A J Beitzinger•Journal of American History•1973

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• Order, Empiricism and Politics

  Caroline Robbins, Walter H Greenleaf•The William and Mary Quarterly•1965

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• The Growth of American Thought

  Paul Kiniery•Thought•1944

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• Benjamin Franklin, Philosopher and Man

  Open Access•Richard E Amacher, Alfred Owen Aldridge et al.•American Quarterly•1965

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