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72 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1957)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry72 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume LXXII POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY POLITICAL THEORY: WHAT IS IT? I HE answer, in a brief space, to so large a question as What Is Political Theory? can only be sketched in broad outline. The purpose here is rather to chal- lenge criticism than to end it, and to restate with emphasis the theme of a revolution in approach begun three decades ago, a revolution which can be said to have had as its keynote taking political science seriously .1 The first and patent distinction in politics is between political theory and political action. The distinction is yet perhaps not quite so patent as some people suppose. It is questionable whether anyone is competent as a teacher in political theory who has taken no part in political practice, and this with a fairly wide perspective-any more than an economist is likely to be a safe guide in practice who knows nothing of the inside of a bank, a factory or a trade union. This does not, therefore, mean that he has to be a banker or manager, still less a partisan of labor or management. It does not mean that the act and direct experience are all. It does not mean, by analogy, that no surgeon should practice until he has had an operation performed on him. But we can agree with Lenin, following Marx, on the fusion of theory and practice. Graham Wallas, whose tradition I wish to exalt (since it has been perhaps too much forgotten where it should have most been commemorated), was probably right in stressing the value of practical experience, for example, in local government. Too many academic textbooks are in- 1 This paper was delivered as the Inaugural Lecture of the Bronman Professor of Political Science, McGill University, on October 22, 1956. 1 Number 1 March 1957

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