美国政治文化史研究的兴起和发展

The Rise and Development of Historical Studies of American Political Culture in the United States

美国历史学家引入政治学的“政治文化”概念,吸取人类学、社会学等相关学科的滋养,并受社会史、文化史和跨国史等学术潮流的推动,对政治史研究进行改造,逐渐发展出政治文化史研究的领域和路径,形成一套相应的方法论,尤其是明确界定了文化和心理在政治世界的地位与作用,把非理性因素纳入政治史考察的范围,强化语境主义的意识和技艺,还在因果模式之外开拓了理解和阐释的途径。在此基础上,美国政治史家对精英政治文化、大众政治文化、政治亚文化等加以探究,并结合新文化史、跨国史和情感史等开掘新的研究课题。美国政治文化史兴起和发展的利弊得失,对于中国学者反思和推进政治文化史研究具有一定的借鉴意义。

Borrowing the concept of“political culture”from political science,drawing nourishment from anthropology,sociology,and other related disciplines,and inspired by social history,cultural history,transnational history,and other academic trends,American historians gradually transformed the field of political history and developed historical research on political culture with corresponding methodologies.Particularly,they explicitly defi ned the position and signifi cance of culture and psychology in the political world.Thus,historians incorporated irrational factors into political history and enhanced their senses and skills of contextualism.Moreover,they explored interpretive approaches along with causation models.On this basis,American political historians probed elite political culture,mass political culture,and political subcultures,and discovered new research topics by integrating new cultural history,transnational history,and emotional history.The strengths and weaknesses of historical studies of American political culture in the United States may provide inspirations for Chinese scholars to rethink and promote historical research on political culture in China.