Which of the following thinkers believes that traditional political scientist suffered from 'theoretical malnutrition and surfeit of facts'?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 2:

Detailed explanation of why it is correct — include conceptual, or contextual depth:

The correct thinker is **David Easton**. This precise phrase, "theoretical malnutrition and surfeit of facts," is one of the most famous and foundational critiques leveled against traditional political science by David Easton in his 1953 work, *The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science*. Easton's criticism marked the beginning of the Behavioral Revolution in political science. He argued that the discipline, in its pre-Behavioral phase, was excessively focused on accumulating descriptive historical details, legalistic rules, and isolated facts (the "surfeit of facts") without developing overarching, verifiable, and predictive theories to connect and explain these data points (the "theoretical malnutrition"). Easton emphasized the need for political science to adopt scientific methods, build systematic theories, and focus on observable behavior to establish the discipline as a true science capable of providing generalized explanations and predictions about political life. This call for a shift from pure empiricism (fact collection) to theory-driven research laid the intellectual groundwork for the rise of Behaviorism in the 1950s and 1960s, making this quotation central to understanding the methodological history of the field.

The incorrect option is 1:

Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth:

**Karl Popper** was a highly influential philosopher of science known for his principle of falsifiability, which states that for a theory to be scientific, it must be capable of being proven false. While Popper was concerned with the proper methodology of both natural and social sciences, his primary critique of non-scientific thinking was directed at dogmatism and lack of empirical testability, not specifically the problem of "theoretical malnutrition and surfeit of facts" within American political science. His works, such as *The Logic of Scientific Discovery* and *The Open Society and Its Enemies*, addressed broader issues of scientific method, historical determinism, and totalitarianism. He is not credited with this particular, discipline-specific assessment of traditional political inquiry.

The incorrect option is 3:

Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth:

**Dante Germino** is a political theorist known for his work in classical political philosophy and his critique of behavioralism and scientism in politics. His major contribution lies in defending the relevance of normative and classical thought against the dominance of the purely empirical approaches of the Behavioral Revolution. Given that David Easton’s quotation was a rallying cry *for* the Behavioral Revolution, Germino's perspective was generally oppositional to the methodological school that Easton represented. Therefore, Germino would not have been the source of this statement, which was central to the Behavioral movement he often criticized.

The incorrect option is 4:

Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth:

**Arnold Brecht** was another significant scholar concerned with scientific method in political science, notably publishing *Political Theory: The Foundations of Twentieth-Century Political Thought* (1959). Brecht’s work focused on establishing the possibility of objective value judgments and scientific principles in political analysis. While he was part of the broad movement seeking methodological rigor, his analysis centered on the challenges of applying scientific standards, particularly concerning values, rather than on the "malnutrition and surfeit" metaphor used by Easton. Brecht represented a school of thought that sought scientific clarity but is not the recognized originator of the specific critique cited in the question.