Overview and Definition of Political Science

Political science is that branch of the social sciences that studies the state, politics, and government.
Political Science deals extensively with the analysis of political systems, the theoretical and practical
applications to politics, and the examination of political behavior. The Greek thinker, Aristotle, defined
political science as the study of the state.

Scope of Political Science

The scope of political science is vast and experts have divided the field of political science into five sub-
disciplines that are:

 Political theory: Political theory involves the study of philosophical thought about politics from
ancient Greece to the present. Political theory is concerned with the fundamental questions of
public life. It addresses such issues as the nature of political authority, the relationship of the state
to the individual, and citizens' obligations and responsibilities to one another. Political theory
seeks to interpret abstract concepts such as liberty, justice, human rights, and power, and in so
doing it draws upon classics in the field—by, for example, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Stuart Mill. Many scholars use
these classics to help them fully understand present-day issues such as terrorism, civil rights and
liberties, and domestic and foreign policy.

 Public administration: Political scientists interested in public administration study government

organizations. Public administration is the art, science, and practice of effectively managing
government. Public administration includes the study of public financing and budgeting systems,
public management, human resources, public-policy analysis, nonprofit management, and urban
planning. Political scientists investigate how these organizations work, and try to devise methods
of improving them.
 Comparative politics: Comparative politics involves the study of the politics of different
countries. Some sub disciplines study a single country or a culturally similar group of nations,
such as the countries of Southeast Asia or Latin America. Political scientists who study these
countries, also known as "area specialists," tend to be well versed in the languages, histories, and
cultures that are most relevant to their work. Other political scientists compare countries that are
culturally, politically, and linguistically dissimilar. These comparisons are often motivated by the
need to develop and test theories—for example, theories of why revolutions happen. This may
lead political scientists to discover commonalities between countries that are widely separated
and appear very different. For example, political scientists have found many similarities between
the transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the
1980s and 1990s.

 International relations: International relations is the study of the interactions between nations,
international organizations, and multinational corporations.

 Public law: It is concerned with the analysis of the actual behavior of legal decision-makers and
the law-related behavior of citizens, as well as with the study of legal and constitutional doctrine.
It seeks to develop an understanding of the role of law, legal theory and legal practice in the
governmental process. Courses and faculty research focus primarily on how the actions of legal
decision-makers (judges, police, regulatory officials, bureaucrats, etc.) are shaped both by legal
doctrine and philosophy and by political, organizational, economic, and social variables.

It needs to be noted that these sub-disciplines cover the entire gamut of the modern political economy and
provide the basis for the study and understanding of how the global political economy works.

The study of the matters concerning the allocation and distribution as well as the transfer of power is one
of the main preoccupations of political scientists. The success or otherwise of the governance structures is
gauged by political scientists who examine the multifaceted and multilayered factors at work that
contribute to good or bad governance.

The scope of the political scientists has now been broadened to include the realm of the study of the
democratic elections across the world. In other words, with the explosion in the political systems all over
the world, political scientists, and their scope of study has been considerably enhanced.

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The Importance of Political Science

The importance of political science lies in the fact that all of us live within political systems and we are
affected by the changes in the global political economy. With the advent of globalization, there has been a
concomitant rise in the interest taken by the people of the world in understanding the political systems of
other countries. Hence, political scientists become valued and important as they provide the lens through
which we can understand the global political economy.

There are many universities that provide graduate and higher-level degrees in political science and in
recent years, because of the renewed interest in political science as a field of study, there are many takers
for these courses.

This article sets the context for the subsequent discussion on the various aspects of political science and
its relevance to the modern political economy.

Political Science and Other Social Sciences

As mentioned in the introductory article in this module, political science is the systematic study of the
state and the workings of the political economy. The study of political science gives people the ability to
influence and persuade the authorities to conform to broad developmental thrusts and to steer the
direction in which the government is headed. Since political science is concerned with the study of the
global political economy, it has links to other social sciences like history, sociology, philosophy, and
psychology.

It needs to be mentioned that political science is that branch of the social sciences that is concerned with
the workings of the global political economy and hence, shares a symbiotic relationship with the other
social sciences that study the other parts of the global political economy.

We have chosen history, sociology, philosophy and psychology in this article as these are the disciplines
that have a bearing on how political scientists go about their work.

Cross-Disciplinary Connections

What distinguishes political science as an academic discipline is its emphasis on government and power.
However, the study of government and power is not confined to political science—it naturally permeates
into other social sciences as well. For example:

 Economics: Economic and political processes are closely related because the actions of political
institutions frame—and can either expand or constrain— economic activity. Republicans are
more likely to promote free-market policies such as tax breaks and business deregulation, while
Democrats favor business regulation and government intervention as a way of promoting
economic equality. Additionally, economic conditions can have a direct influence on political
institutions. Throughout history, the outcomes of many presidential and congressional elections
have rested on the economy. Voters tend to vote against the party in power if they perceive a
decline or standstill in their personal financial situations.

 Sociology: Political scientists also study the social bases of politics. For example, what are the
political activities of various social classes, races, ethnicities, and religions? How do political
values, attitudes, and beliefs come about? How do social forces work together to change political
policies on issues such as criminal justice, foreign policy, and welfare? How do social
movements outside of the formal institutions of political power affect politics?

 History: Political scientists attempt to analyze and understand historic political patterns in
addition to specific political events. This requires putting historical events and texts into a
political context. For example, how have political party systems helped to create long-standing
changes in the electoral landscape and reshape traditional party coalitions throughout the 19th and
20th centuries? A good textual example is the U.S. Constitution. It is both a historical (and

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 historic) document, in that it describes the creation of a new form of government by the Founding
Fathers, and a political one, in that it sets the framework for the functioning of the U.S.
government as a system of shared powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

Finally, political science cannot be a standalone or isolated field as all branches of the social sciences
purport to explain the larger questions concerning people and the state.

Hence, there are symbiotic relationships between political science and other sub-disciplines of social
sciences as they have common ground in their quest to understand how political systems work and how
politics and governance play themselves out.

Function and importance of Political Science

“The function of political science is to discover the principles that should be adhered to in public affairs
that eventually would serve as a model that can be applied to matters of urgent concern to public officials
and to private citizens.”

Goal in the study of political science

 Education for citizenship: The primary objective of the political science curriculum is to equip
students to discharge the obligations of democratic citizenship
 Essential parts of liberal education: Intelligent, responsible citizenship can save democracy;
ignorance and negligence can lose it
 Knowledge and understanding of government: The “good” citizen knows how his government
operates, what his rights and obligations are, who his elected representatives are, and what they
stand for.

END

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