The phrase sciences politiques was first used by Condorcet, and taken up as political science by Jefferson and Hamilton. The American Framers and their critics had to make up political science as they went along, in order to argue for (or against) a federal constitution from first principles. To do so, they drew on Scottish and French social science. We trace the influence of Scots thought (especially that of Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith) and French thought (especially that of Condorcet) on the first generation of political science.

To explore the transatlantic emigration of the ‘comparative method’(s) is to recover the range of European work – in institutional history, comparative legislation, and the theory of the State – that scholars in the nascent American science of politics drew on in the late nineteenth century. Their nascent science was, however, not merely derivative, and in the changing practices of comparative study from the mid-1880s through 1900 a distinctive American ‘political science’ began to emerge.

Although American political science is, as Bernard Crick emphasised, in many respects a distinctly American science of politics, its evolution has been deeply informed by European ideas. This was quite obviously the case during the nineteenth century, when the German concept of the state dominated the discourse of the field, as well as in the early part of the twentieth century, when English scholars made significant contributions to the theory of democratic pluralism. By the middle of the century, German émigrés had contributed to a fundamental transformation in political theory which challenged the mainstream vision of political enquiry; but what is less well understood is the extent to which the reaction to this challenge in behavioural political science was also based on ideas that were the product of the European exodus.

This paper proposes a re-reading of Bernard Crick's The American Science of Politics, challenging the notion that it articulated an English aversion to political science per se. When reconnected with its author's evolving thinking in the 1950s and 1960s about the nature of political concepts, the unique character of politics, and the responsibilities of the political scientist, the book can be seen as an attempt to promote a neo-republican conception of the discipline's identity, with a particular accent upon the importance of civic education.

Political science in Europe has been shaped by a great variety of national academic traditions and university systems, its relationship to neighbouring disciplines, and contending meta-theoretical approaches. In addition, since World War II, major external influences have come mainly from the US. Against this background, the special role of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) is briefly discussed and evaluated. The conclusions point to some significant differences in emphasis between European and American political science and highlight the increasing relevance of such differences in the European but potentially also worldwide context.

In place of origins, disciplinary historians might better approach European–American political science, over the course of its three centuries, as a dynamic system of complex actions. Transactions are aspects or phases of this dynamic system, and they underscore that disciplinary historians' interpretations take place in the history of which they are about. Examples of these transactions since the eighteenth century are in evidence in the preceding five papers, either expressed or when reinterpreted as done here. Transactional historiography deserves further elaboration on the eve of a global political science.

The discipline of political science ought to be reoriented to capture the realities of multi-level politics, to understand better the dispersion and complexity of political authority, and to ameliorate its tendency towards fragmentation into separate sub-fields. International/supranational arenas and arenas within states intertwine. The EU, for one, is not something that is separable from the nation state. This article calls into question the appropriateness of the traditional division into ‘national’ and ‘international’ in political science.

The article analyses the various logics of different types of decision-making processes: war, strategic bargaining, deliberative negotiation, deliberation, voting, trial, investigation and subsumption. The logics specify relationships between decision situations or constellations of preferences, the character and results of the processes, and problems that may arise. Furthermore, the article presents typical decision-makers and arenas, the bases of legitimacy, and political systems where the respective forms of decision-making are dominant.

This article reports the results of a small-scale research project on the role of a virtual learning environment (VLE) in the teaching of political concepts and reasoning in the fourth year of a Scottish honours degree programme. It suggests that here the kind of dynamic facilitated by traditional face-to-face seminar discussions is very important, but not easy to recreate in the VLE. Nonetheless, students find at least significant complementary learning opportunities in the VLE. Where possible, a combination of formats seems appropriate.