La Ciencia Política, la Historia y las Instituciones

Abstract

Political science has been connected with the study of institutions since its origins. And what is more: when it became a modern academic discipline between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, polit- ical science chose the State as its object of study. Then most political scientists used in their research a legal, inductive and historical comparative approach ( formal-legal analysis). But after two world wars, the State and this perspective were questioned by a «new political science» centred on the individual. Thus, after the behavioural revolution, its followers postponed institutions. Nevertheless, during the 80’s the State and the institutions were rediscovered or returned to political science. It was a «new institutionalism» that affected all social sciences too. This article tackles its two main politological approaches: historical institutionalism and rational choice institutionalism. As we shall see, both of them are not only joining different politological perspectives but others from social sciences.