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| Obama poses in the
Green Room of the White House with wife Michelle
and daughters Sasha and Malia, 2009. |
Political Science
Political science, occasionally called politology, is a
discipline of social science which deals with systems of
governance, and the analysis of political activities,
political thoughts, associated constitutions and
political behavior.
Political science is generally divided into distinct
sub-disciplines, namely domestic politics and
government, comparative politics (including area
studies), international relations, political theory,
political economy, political methodology, public
administration, public policy. Furthermore, political
science is related to, and draws upon, the fields of
economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, human
geography, journalism, political anthropology, and
social policy. |
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History
As a social political science, contemporary political
science started to take shape in the latter half of the
19th century. At that time it began to separate itself
from political philosophy, which traces its roots back
to the works of Aristotle and Plato, which were written
nearly 2,500 years ago. The term "Political Science" was
not always distinguished from political philosophy, and
the modern discipline has a clear set of antecedents
including also moral philosophy, political economy,
political theology, history, and other fields concerned
with normative determinations of what ought to be and
with deducing the characteristics and functions of the
ideal state. |
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Overview
Political science is a social study concerning the
allocation and transfer of power in decision making, the
roles and systems of governance including governments
and international organizations, political behaviour and
public policies. They measure the success of governance
and specific policies by examining many factors,
including stability, justice, material wealth, peace and
public health. Some political scientists seek to advance
positive (attempt to describe how things are, as opposed
to how they should be) theses by analysing politics.
Others advance normative theses, by making specific
policy recommendations. The study of politics and
policies can be closely connected, for example in
comparative analyses of which types of political
institutions tend to produce certain types of policies. |
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Research methods
Political science is methodologically diverse; political
scientists approach the study of politics from a host of
different ontological orientations and with a variety of
different tools. Because political science is
essentially a study of human behaviour, in all aspects
of politics, observations in controlled environments are
often challenging to reproduce or duplicate, though
experimental methods are increasingly common (see
experimental political science). Citing this difficulty,
former American Political Science Association President
Lawrence Lowell once said "We are limited by the
impossibility of experiment. Politics is an
observational, not an experimental science." Because of
this, political scientists have historically observed
political elites, institutions, and individual or group
behaviour in order to identify patterns, draw
generalizations, and build theories of politics. |
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 Kiddle: Political Science
Wikipedia: Political Science |
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