The study of interest groups: before 'the century' and after

Abstract

"Incipient European rejection of American normalism in the 1960s clearly had to do with war Vietnam and the domestic upheavals in the USA that accompanied it, which cast growing doubt on the promise of American convergence theorists of a world forever pacified by economic growth, Keynesian demand management and the 'logic of industrialism'. Such doubts were felt especially by a new generation of European social scientists who, unlike their trachers, had not revceived their formative impressions in the immediate post-war years. With the stark contemporary contrast between European moral and physical devastation and American confidence and prosperity. In any case, the declining credibility of the USA as a general model of modern society set in motion a number of intellectual developments in European social science that are difficult to disentangle and whose precise relations with one another cannot possibly be investigated here." (excerpt)