Political Science in Argentina: Past and Present
with Giovanni Sartori's article, “Where is political science going? 1 ”. The assessment of results carried out by a leading intellectual had a large impact. Both in countries used to periodic evaluations of the "state of the art" of Political Science, and in others, where this article created great interest in reflecting upon the science. Thus, this shrewd criticism by someone with a lasting relationship with the USA, a fervent advocate of a reaction against the old Political Science in the mid-20th century, responsible for the introduction of empiricism, highlighting the centrality of the scientific method in his homeland, shows the inconvenience and dissatisfaction felt with what has become a dominant, specific and exclusive characterization of Political Science. The origin of this sharpness is found in the "behavioral revolution", which occurred in the US during the mid-20 th century, spread throughout Europe during the two decades after World War II, and propagated to other countries as predominant political science “culture”. As regards subject-matter, the atmosphere created by behaviorism was not meticulously followed by new institutionalism. However, both appealed to one same thing. They hid behind science and empirical method to vanish from the discipline all political theory questions about the foundations of a political order, and to avoid reflecting on the sense of politics. The cause of today's unease, discomfort and dissatisfaction is the narrow meaning of science that has no link to politics, and that was consolidated little by little from the "behaviorist program" and the worshiping of "new institutionalism". But this situation is not identical everywhere. Not every country was anxious or prepared to follow the "behaviorist" calling at first, and of the new institutionalism later. As we will discuss soon after, this is the case of Argentina. How is this international situation linked to the development of Political Science in Argentina? Can we connect American “historiography” with the local one? Is there a relationship between national and international time schemes, topics and methods? What happened in Argentina with those restricted definitions, in which each program presented itself as "the" way to work in Political Science, underplaying other perspectives? In contrast with some European countries and with the US, where historiography in Political Science or its study as a discipline are recognized, in Argentina reflection on how knowledge is produced in Political Science is practically nonexistent. The aim of this paper is to start to fill that void. Moreover, debates on the "state of the art" of the discipline are not common. And narratives about the origin and development of the discipline are just