Western political research approaches and the development of political science methodology in China

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Chinese scholars in political science have reflected their research methods and methodological problems systematically, which resulted in a consensus that the development of political science largely depended on the progress of research methods (Bai and Liu 1992a; Xiao and Cheng 2003; Xiao and Zheng 2005; Yan 2006). As a discipline that has been reinstated for less than 30 years, the achievement is remarkable; however, it still lags behind other social sciences, especially sociology, that were restored in the same period.