The Law Presidential Studies, Behavioralism, and Public Law

Since the rise of the behavioralist revolution in the 1950s and 1960s the political science discipline has struggled to find agreement on a uniform vision of the study of politics, particularly as it relates to the employment of methods. This article addresses behavioralism's influence on the decline of public law analysis in the field of presidential studies. Specifically, it focuses on the work of presidential scholars Edward Corwin and Richard Neustadt in highlighting the changes to the study of the presidency. Attention is also paid to the decline of normative types of public law analysis. The article concludes with a call for greater acceptance, and practice, of public law analysis.