POLITICS of their role, with philosophically trained writers exploring concepts and the history of ideas, historians limiting themselves frequently to small periods of time and limited geographical areas, and students of political institutions specialising in electoral systems, UK parlia mentary select committees or the politics of privatisation. There is no doubt that such academic specialisation may reap benefits in terms of specific discoveries (and in terms of obtaining rapid publication in academic journals). But this gain is also undoubtedly at the cost of some loss of perspective and the loss of a non-academic audience who often fail to see the relevance of much of this work to current policy issues Within British university politics departments much admirable scholarly work continues to be produced on political and political institutions without any systematic attempt to relate findings to general theories or science'. A few holders of professorial chairs may still describe themselves as historians or philosophers rather than 'political scientists Students of 'political theory' in this mode have tended to divide roughly into two main camps. One group are the philosophers who see their main task as the elucidation of political concepts (such as justice and democracy) with at least an eye to their relevance to contemporary concerns. A second group are the historians of ideas who have been concerned to trace the evolution of writings on politics the intent of the writers of these texts and their influence on events Those who have written on political institutions' have often been less explicit in their theoretical intent, but writers such as Ridley (1975) and Rhodes (1997) have articulated the rationale and assump tions of much of this writing. In established and relatively stable democracies like Britain and the United States, it is evident that much of what we call politics centres around important governmental institutions like parliaments, elections, government departments local authorities and the like. The study of how these institutions have evolved, the rules and practices surrounding them, and con sideration of how they may be improved, is clearly of the utmost importance. As citizens, and possibly future public employees or even politicians, we may feel that such activities scarcely need elaborate justification However, the sceptical and the ambitious may combine to throw doubt upon the academic credentials of such activities: Is the result