political science

The study of the processes, principles, and structure of government and of political institutions; politics.

The study of the state, government, and politics. The idea that the study of politics should be ‘scientific’ has excited controversy for centuries. What is at stake is the nature of our political knowledge, but the content of the argument has varied enormously. For example, 1741 when Hume published his essay, ‘That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science’, his concerns were very different from those of people who have sought to reduce politics to a science in the twentieth century. Although concerned to some degree to imitate the paradigm of Newtonian physics, Hume's main objective was to show that some constitutions necessarily worked better than others and that politics was not just a question of personalities. Thus one of his main targets was the famous couplet in Alexander Pope's Essay on Man: ‘For forms of government let fools contest, | Whate'er is best administer'd is best.’

The twentieth-century debate about political science has been part of a broad dispute about methodology in social studies. Those who have sought to make the study of politics scientific have been concerned to establish a discipline which can meet two conditions: it must be objective or value-free (wertfrei), and it must seek comprehensive and systematic explanations of events. The principal candidate for the role of core methodology of political science has been behaviourism, drawing its stimulus-response model from behavioural psychology and thus being much concerned to establish ‘correlations’ between input phenomena, whether ‘political’ or not, and political outcomes. The chief rival, growing in stature as behaviourism waned after 1970, has been rational choice theory, following economics in assuming as axioms universal human properties of rationality and self-interest.

Critics of the idea of political science have normally rested their case on the uniqueness of natural science. In the philosophical terminology of Kant, real science is the product of the synthetic a priori proposition that ‘every event has a cause’. The idea that the universe is regular, systematic, and law-governed follows from neither logic nor observation; it is what Sir Peter Strawson has called, more recently, a ‘precondition of discourse’. In order for people to study physics rationally, they must assume that the universe is governed by laws.

It follows from this Kantian conception of the basis of science that there can only be one science, which is physics. This science applies just as much to people, who are physical beings, as it does to asteroids: like the theistic God, Kantian physics is unique or it is not itself. Biology, chemistry, engineering et al. are forms of physics, related and reducible to the fundamental constituents of the universe. The social studies are not, according to critics of political science, and become merely narrow and sterile if they attempt to ape the methods and assumptions of the natural sciences. The understanding we seek of human beings must appreciate their individual uniqueness and freedom of will; understanding people is based on our ability to see events from their point of view, the kind of insight that Weber called verstehen. In short, the distinction between science and non-science, in its most significant sense, is a distinction between the natural sciences and the humanities; the two are fundamentally different and politics is a human discipline.

However, there are a number of objections to this harsh dichotomy between politics and science. Semantically, it might be said, this account reads too much into the concept of science which, etymologically, indicates only a concern with knowledge in virtually any sense. Wissenschaft in German, scienza in Italian, and science in French do not raise the profound philosophical questions which have been attached to the English word science. There are also many contemporary philosophers who seek to undermine the scientific nature of natural science. Inspired, particularly, by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) they argue that science itself is not determined by the absolute requirements of its discourse, but is structured by the societies in which it operates. Thus real physics is more like politics than it is like the Kantian ideal of physics, and it has no more claim to be a science than has politics.

— Lincoln Allison

For more information on political science, visit Britannica.com.

In 1968, the eminent political scientist David Easton wrote: "Political Science in mid-twentieth century is a discipline in search of its identity. Through the efforts to solve this identity crisis it has begun to show evidence of emerging as an autonomous and independent discipline with a systematic structure of its own." However, the search for identity has been characteristic of political science from its inception on the American scene. Initially, the discipline was confronted with the task of demarcating its intellectual boundaries and severing its organizational ties from other academic fields, particularly history. Subsequently, debate arose over goals, methods, and appropriate subject matter as political scientists tried to resolve the often conflicting objectives of its four main scholarly traditions: (1) legalism, or constitutionalism; (2) activism and reform; (3) philosophy, or the history of political ideas; and (4) science. By the late twentieth century, the discipline had evolved through four periods outlined by Albert Somit and Joseph Tanenhaus in their informative work The Development of American Political Science: From Burgess to Behavioralism (1967). The four periods are the formative (1880–1903), the emergent (1903–1921), the middle years (1921–1945), and disciplinary maturity (1945–1990).

The Formative Period, 1880–1903

Before 1880, the teaching of political science was almost nonexistent. Francis Lieber, generally considered the first American political scientist, held a chair of history and political economy at South Carolina College (being the second incumbent) in 1835–1856. In 1858, he became professor of political science at Columbia College. Johns Hopkins University inaugurated the study of history and politics in 1876; but not until 1880, when John W. Burgess established the School of Political Science at Columbia University, did political science achieve an independent status with an explicit set of goals for learning, teaching, and research. Burgess, like Lieber, had been trained in Germany and sought to implement the rigor of his graduate training and the advances of German Staatswissenschaft ("political science") in the United States. Under his leadership, the Columbia school became the formative institution of the discipline, emphasizing graduate education that drew on an undifferentiated mix of political science, history, economics, geography, and sociology to develop theories.

The discipline grew rapidly in the formative years 1880–1903. Burgess, Theodore Woolsey, Woodrow Wilson, Frank J. Good now, and Herbert Baxter Adams brought fame and direction to the field with their pioneering works. Columbia began publication of the Political Science Quarterly in 1886; Johns Hopkins published the Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science (1882). New departments were formed and the first American Ph.D.s were awarded.

As with any new discipline, a lively debate ensued about the intellectual boundaries of political science, particularly as those boundaries related to history. There were those who envisioned the distinction in the words of Edward A. Freeman: "History is past politics and politics present history." Others eschewed the connection with history, arguing that law, economics, and sociology were more relevant to the discipline. Methods of study were also debated. Early advocates of a scientific approach argued with scholars who contended that the subject matter did not lend itself to the methods of the natural sciences. During this period, political scientists combined a strict research orientation with willingness to take an active part in public affairs. They dealt with current political issues in their scholarship, and took on the function of educating college students for citizenship and public affairs.

The Emergent Period, 1903–1921

With the establishment of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in 1903, political science asserted its independence as a discipline. More important, the formation of an association provided a vehicle through which to pursue recognized common interests effectively. Annual conventions fostered a lively exchange of ideas and continued organizational development. In 1906, the association launched the American Political Science Review, which soon became the leading professional journal in the discipline, containing notes about personnel in the profession as well as scholarly articles; in 1912, it had 287 subscribers, and by 1932, it had 580.

Growth continued at a rapid pace throughout the period. The association's membership rose from 200 to 1,500. In a canvass of university programs prior to 1914, it was determined that 38 institutions had separate political science departments and that an additional 225 had departments that combined political science with other disciplines, most frequently with history or history and economics. It is estimated that the annual output of Ph.D.s rose from between six and ten to between eighteen and twenty. The increase in domestically trained Ph.D.s Americanized the profession, whereas previously the majority of new professionals had earned their degrees at German and French institutions. Concomitantly, undergraduate instruction came to focus more on American government and less on comparative and European government and politics. Original research and reviews in the journals emphasized American materials.

While taking steps toward securing their discipline, political scientists were not reflective respecting the intellectual content of their field. Political scientists mostly studied political structures and processes using available official sources and records; their analyses were routine descriptions. The forward-looking and iconoclastic Arthur F. Bentley complained in his Process of Government (1908; p. 162) that "We have a dead political science." He, along with Henry Jones Ford and Jesse Macy, agitated for an empirical study of contemporary political events instead of mere perusal of dry historical documents.

The Middle Years, 1921–1945

The intellectual complacency of the second era was interrupted in 1921 with the publication of Charles E. Merriam's "The Present State of the Study of Politics" in the American Political Science Review. Impressed with statistics and the rigor of psychology, Merriam called for "a new science of politics" characterized by the formulation of testable hypotheses (provable by means of precise evidence) to complement the dominant historical-comparative and legalistic approaches. The discipline, according to Thomas Reid, should become more "policyoriented." Merriam was joined in his effort by William B.

Munro and G. E. G. Catlin—the three being considered the era's leading proponents of the "new science" movement. Merriam's work led to the formation of the APSA's Committee on Political Research, and to three national conferences on the science of politics. With Wesley C. Mitchell, Merriam was instrumental in creating the Social Science Research Council in 1923.

William Yandell Elliott, Edward S. Corwin, and Charles A. Beard, all opponents of "scientism," quickly moved to challenge its advocates. They questioned the existence of rigorous determinist laws and the possibility of scientific objectivity in the study of politics. They were concerned with the propriety of the participation of "scientists" in citizenship education and public affairs, endeavors that made objectivity difficult. The "scientists" responded by urging, in principle, that research become more important than civic education. However, the Great Depression and World War II made it difficult to contest the significance of civic responsibility. Thus, when the APSA president William Anderson pronounced in 1943 that the preservation of democracy and "direct service to government" were the foremost obligations of political science, he was representing the prevailing view of American political scientists.

The discipline continued to grow. The APSA doubled its membership. The number of Ph.D.s awarded annually increased from thirty-five in 1925 to eighty in 1940; the number of universities granting degrees expanded. On the basis of efforts made in 1925 and 1934 to rate the quality of the various departments, California, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Illinois, Michigan, Princeton, and Wisconsin ranked as the leaders.

Disciplinary Maturity, 1945–1990

The postwar world stage changed the priorities for the nation. The stark realities of the military and ideological struggle of American capitalism and democracy versus Soviet communism shaped the environment in which political scientists worked. Political science retained its fascination with American democracy and continued to be characterized by disciplinary disunity, which gave it strength through diversity and debate. Four major developments are evident during the Cold War period. Most obvious is the steadily increasing emphasis on mathematical models, making it difficult for nonspecialists to read political science journals by the late twentieth century. Second is the development of the "behaviorist" method in the 1950s and 1960s. Third is behaviorism's eclipse by "positive political theory" in the 1970s and 1980s. Fourth is the development of the field of comparative politics and area studies. Gradual evolution is evident in the subfields structuring the discipline, with "political philosophy and psychology," "government of the U.S. and dependencies," "American state and local government," "foreign and comparative government," "international organization, politics, and law," and "U.S. public administration," shaping political science in 1950; and with "political theory," "American government," "comparative politics," "international relations," and "public policy" shaping it in 1990. An increased interest in issues of gender and race relations added ethnic studies and the feminist perspective into professional studies and undergraduate curricula.

The development of political science between 1945 and the late 1960s was dramatic, although this growth subsequently leveled off. The APSA more than tripled in size as a membership of 4,000 in 1946 grew to 14,000 in 1966; in 1974 the APSA had 12,250 members, in 1990 it had 10,975 members, and by 2002 it had 13,715. More than 500 independent political science departments were in existence; all major U.S. universities had developed competitive political science programs. By the mid-1970s, more than 300 Ph.D.s were awarded annually over seventy-five departments offering doctoral programs. There were at least twelve major professional journals. The careers of Henry A. Kissinger (secretary of state in 1973–1977) and Joseph S. Nye Jr. (deputy undersecretary of state, 1977–1979, and later dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) demonstrate that a career as a political scientist could serve as a vehicle for prominent public office, and vice versa.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is best viewed as a broad-based effort to impose standards of scientific rigor, relying on empirical evidence, on theory building, in contrast to the legalistic case-study approach in vogue in the 1940s and 1950s. Harold Lasswell, Gabriel Almond, David Truman, Robert Dahl, Herbert Simon, and David Easton, the movement's leading figures, each contributed his unique view of how this goal could be achieved. The Political System (1953) by Easton and Political Behavior (1956) by Heinz Eulau and others exemplified the movement's new approach to a theory-guided empirical science of politics. Data gathered from public-opinion polls, initiated in 1935, and from social surveys were central to the movement. In 1946, the University of Michigan established a leading research program, the Survey Research Center, which undertook field studies of voting behavior and amassed data. It also created in 1962 the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which was designed to share precious data among its twenty-one-member community. By the 1980s, this consortium incorporated more than 270 colleges and universities, both in the United States and abroad. Statistics, as presented to political scientists in V. O. Key Jr.'s A Primer of Statistics for Political Scientists (1954), became an indispensable tool for analysis. Quantitative analysis became integral to graduate curriculum in political science, over time replacing the long-standing requirement of knowledge of two foreign languages.

The behavioral movement was informed by the logical positivist philosophy of Karl R. Popper, Hans Reichenbach, and Bertrand Russell, who emphasized cumulative scientific knowledge based on empirical testing of hypotheses. Although the method still exists in political science, it dissipated as a distinct intellectual movement in the early 1970s as Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) signaled a defeat for logical positivism by questioning its assumption of cumulative, fact-based scientific knowledge. As well, the social unrest over the war in Vietnam raised consciousness among political scientists that behaviorism could be perceived as amoral and irrelevant to the normative concerns governing human lives.

Positive Political Theory

From their initial enunciation in the 1950s, behaviorism and positive political theory, or rational choice theory, as it is also referred to, shared practitioners and research goals. Both drew strength from broad interdisciplinary support, which ranged throughout the social sciences for behavioralism and was found in economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, mathematics, and public policy, as well as in political science, in the case of rational choice theory. Both emphasized general theory based on empirical tests. However, the two movements deviated in their precise method: behaviorism used data concerning human behavior to build and test theory; rational choice theory made deductive models of human interactions based on the assumption that individuals are self-interested rational actors.

Positive political theory was pioneered by William H. Riker, who built the powerful political science department at the University of Rochester and served as its chair from 1963 to 1977. Riker was not alone in his initiative to formulate a science of politics based on deductive models of rational self-interested action subject to empirical tests. He built his theory using John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's game theory, Duncan Black and Kenneth J. Arrow's mathematical analyses of voting, and Anthony Downs's economic theory of democracy. He also benefited from the work of other early advocates of the rational choice approach—Vincent Ostrom, James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Mancur Olson, who together formed the Public Choice Society in 1967 and immediately thereafter established the journal Public Choice. These scholars turned the conventional study of politics upside down by considering politicians to be self-interested actors seeking to win office as opposed to officials serving the public. From its humble origins, rational choice theory became established as a disciplinary standard not just across the United States, but also worldwide by 1990. By 1987, 35 percent of the articles published in the American Political Science Review adopted the rational choice approach. The method's stellar success was due to its attraction of adherents, its interdisciplinary dynamism, its promise to deliver scientific results, its overlapping boundaries with the public policy, and its assumption of individualism shared with American philosophy of capitalist democracy.

Area Studies

While both behaviorism and positive political theory exemplify the commitment to scientific rigor hoped for by Charles Merriam, the Cold War development of area studies had a less direct relationship to its predecessors. Prior to World War II, Americans had been inwardly focused; during this earlier era, "comparative politics" signified contrasting European parliamentary-style democracy with the American presidential model. However, with the rise of Adolf Hitler's Germany and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s, it became evident that democracy needed to be assessed in comparison to fascism and totalitarianism. As the world broke into the two camps of Eastern communism and Western democracy in the 1950s and 1960s, and American political leaders required detailed knowledge of Eastern bloc nations and of Southeast Asia, political science departments and specialized institutes responded to this need. These undertakings were generously funded by the National Defense Education Act (NDEA); from 1958 to 1973 the NDEA Title IV provided $68.5 million to the approximately 100 language and area centers. By 1973, these centers had produced 35,500 B.A.s, 14,700 M.A.s, and over 5,000 Ph.D.s.

Area studies focused on questions of modernization and industrialization and strove to understand the differing developmental logic of non-Western cultures; they embraced diverse methods for understanding native languages and native cultures and remained skeptical of approaches to comparative politics adopting universalizing assumptions. Lucian W. Pye, Robert E. Ward, and Samuel P. Huntington championed the approach, with Huntington's Clash of Civilizations (1996) epitomizing the perspective afforded by the field.

Political Theory

During the Cold War period, the study of political theory continued to include the great books of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Karl Marx, but it was reshaped by the influx of European émigrés. Leo Strauss, Herbert Marcuse, Hannah Arendt, and Theodore Adorno stirred the imagination of American theorists through their perspectives developed under the duress of the Nazi occupation of much of Europe. Political theory, with its emphasis on timeless works and its input from European theorists, became international in scope during the Cold War period. Thus, European scholars such as Jürgen Habermas and J. G. A. Pocock were as germane to scholarly discussions as were the American theorists John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Emigrant scholars published in Social Research, and newfound interest in political theory among indigenous scholars was reflected in the more recently established journals Philosophy and Public Affairs (1971) and Political Theory (1973). Whereas much American political science saw the world from the perspective of the United States, political theory retained a critical edge: it was skeptical of social science methods boasting of objectivity, and of what might be regarded as a collusion between American political science and American democracy and capitalism.

General Political Science

Independently from well-defined movements, the mainstay of political science, American political institutions, political behavior, comparative politics, and international relations were pursued throughout this period by numerous methods. For example, a 1987 study found that the 262 political scientists contributing to legislative research adopted the following approaches in significant proportions: behavioral analysis; case studies; "new institutionalist"; organizational theory; historiography; positive political theory; democratic theory; and other approaches, including policy studies. Not necessarily representing a single school, prominent political scientists central to the field included Richard F. Fenno Jr., Nelson Polsby, Warren E. Miller, Harold Guetzkow, Donald R. Mathews, Samuel J. Eldersveld, Dwaine Marvick, Philip E. Converse, Donald E. Stokes, and Joseph LaPalombara.

Since 1990

In the 1990s, disciplinary divisions existed over the efficacy and merits of the rational choice approach to politics, with many American political science departments divided into camps for and against. In leading centers for rational choice, including Rochester, Carnegie Mellon, California Institute of Technology, and George Washington, as many as half of the faculty adopted this method of study. Disciplinary controversy culminated in the publication of Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro's Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory (1994), and the responding issue of Critical Review (winter-spring 1995). Whereas the future of this disciplinary strife remains unclear, it is clear that the rational choice theory has an ascendant position across the social sciences and in the spheres of business, law, and public policy.

American political science continues to question its identity, and to reflect on appropriate research methodology; methodological pluralism continues to reign. The field's continued self-examination reflects three independent axes. One embodies the two extremes of particular and localized studies versus universalizing analyses; a second is defined by the extremes of considering either groups or individuals as the key to analysis; and a third is represented by the belief that a normative stance is unavoidable at one extreme, and by a firm commitment to the possibility of objectivity at the other extreme. In the midst of the numerous topics and methods structuring political science, one certainty is that it is no longer possible for a single individual to master the entire field.

Bibliography

Almond, Gabriel A. A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1990.

Amadae, S. M., and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. "The Rochester School: The Origins of Positive Political Theory." Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 269–295.

Collini, Stefan, Donald Winch, and John Burrow. That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Crick, Bernard. The American Science of Politics: Its Origins and Conditions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

Crotty, William, ed. Political Science: Looking to the Future. 4 vols. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1991.

Farr, James, and Raymond Seidelman, eds. Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.

Finifter, Ada W. Political Science: The State of the Discipline. Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association, 1983.

———. Political Science: The State of the Discipline II. Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association, 1993.

Pye, Lucian W., ed. Political Science and Area Studies: Rivals or Partners? Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.

Ricci, David. The Tragedy of Political Science: Politics, Scholarship, and Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984.

Seidelman, Raymond, and Edward J. Harpham. Disenchanted Realists: Political Science and the American Crisis, 1884–1984. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.

Somit, Albert, and Joseph Tanenhaus. The Development of American Political Science: From Burgess to Behavioralism. Enlarged ed. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1982.

The systematic study of government and politics. Political science is a social science that makes generalizations and analyses about political systems and political behavior and uses these results to predict future behavior. Political science includes the study of political philosophy, ethics, international relations and foreign policy, public administration, and the dynamic relations between different parts of governments.

For the Randy Newman song of the same name, see Political Science (song).

Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how", leaving out of the picture most of the "why".^[1] Political science has several subfields, including: political theory, public policy, national politics, international relations, and comparative politics.

Political science is methodologically diverse, to the discipline include classical political philosophy, interpretivism, structuralism, and behavioralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies and model building.

"As a discipline" political science, possibly like the social sciences as a whole, "lives on the fault line between the 'two cultures' in the academy, the sciences and the humanities."^[2] Thus, in some American colleges where there is no separate School or College of Arts and Sciences per se, political science may be a separate department housed as part of a division or school of Humanities or Liberal Arts.^[3]

Contents 1 Overview 2 History 2.1 Antecedents 2.2 Modern political science 3 Notes 4 Further reading 5 See also 6 External links

Overview

Political scientists study the allocation and transfer of power in decision making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behavior and public policies. They measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, and peace. Some political scientists seek to advance positive (attempt to describe how things are, as opposed to how they should be) theses by analyzing politics. Others advance normative theses, by making specific policy recommendations.

Political scientists provide the frameworks from which journalists, special interest groups, politicians, and the electorate analyze issues. According to Chaturvedy, "...Political scientists may serve as advisers to specific politicians, or even run for office as politicians themselves. Political scientists can be found working in governments, in political parties or as civil servants. They may be involved with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or political movements. In a variety of capacities, people educated and trained in political science can add value and expertise to corporations.^[4] Private enterprises such as think tanks, research institutes, polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists."^[5] In the United States, political scientists known as "Americanists" look at a variety of data including elections, public opinion and public policy such as Social Security reform, foreign policy, U.S. Congressional committess, and the U.S. Supreme Court — to name only a few issues – but in a period of seventy five years, only two American political scientists, J. Allen Smith and Charles A. Beard, have dealt intensively with the economics of politics.^[6]

Most American colleges and universities offer B.A. programs in political science. M.A. or M.A.T. and Ph.D or Ed.D. programs are common at larger universities. The term political science is more popular in North America than elsewhere; other institutions, especially those outside the United States, see political science as part of a broader discipline of political studies, politics, or government. While political science implies use of the scientific method, political studies implies a broader approach, although the naming of degree courses does not necessarily reflect their content.^[7] Separate degree granting programs in international relations and public policy are not uncommon at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Master's level programs in political science are common while political scientists engage in public administration.^[8]

The national honour society for college and university students of government and politics in the United States is Pi Sigma Alpha.

History

Niccolò Machiavelli, one of many influential political theorists

Main article: History of political science

Antecedents

Political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences. However, the discipline has a clear set of antecedents such as moral philosophy, political 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. In each historic period and in almost every geographic area, we can find someone studying politics and increasing political understanding.

The antecedents of Western politics can trace their roots back to Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC), particularly in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Euripides. Later, Plato analyzed political systems, abstracted their analysis from more literary- and history- oriented studies and applied an approach we would understand as closer to philosophy. Similarly, Aristotle built upon Plato's analysis to include historical empirical evidence in his analysis. Plato wrote The Republic and Aristotle wrote the Politics

The rise and fall of the Roman empire

During the height of the Roman Empire, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments. Nearly a thousand years elapsed, from the foundation of the city of Rome in 753 BC to the fall of the Roman empire or the beginning of the Middle Ages. In the interim, there is a manifest translation of Hellenic culture into Latin quarters. The Greek gods become Romans and Greek philosophy in one way or another turns into Roman law as in Stoicism. The Stoic was committed to maintaining the status quo no matter how oppressive it might become. Among the best known Roman Stoics were Roman philosopher Seneca and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Seneca accepted an Eastern cult that worshiped the emperor as a god; it was adopted by the Roman emperor Caligula. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are not really the reflections of a philosopher king bent on seeking political and social reform but rather the notes written down while he was not engaged in his multiple military campaigns; notes that betray a preoccupation for his own soul but show no sign that he was a Roman emperor. According to Polybius, Roman institutions are the backbone of the empire but Roman law is the medulla.^[9]

The Middle Ages

With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there arose a more diffuse arena for political studies. The rise of monotheism and, particularly for the Western tradition, Christianity, brought to light a new space for politics and political action. Works such as Augustine of Hippo's The City of God synthesized current philosophies and political traditions with those of Christianity, redefining the borders between what was religious and what was political. During the Middle Ages, the study of politics was widespread in the churches and courts. Most of the political questions surrounding the relationship between church and state were clarified and contested in this period. The Arabs lost sight of Aristotle's political science but continued to study Plato's Republic which became the basic text of Judeo-Islamic political philosophy as in the works of Alfarabi and Averroes; this did not happen in the Christian world, where Aristotle's Politics was translated in the 13th century and became the basic text as in the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas.^[10]

The Orient

The court of Chandragupta Maurya, especially Chanakya, played an important part in the foundation and governance of the Maurya dynasty.

In ancient India, the antecedents of politics can be traced back to the Rig-Veda, Samhitas, Brahmanas, the Mahabharata and Buddhist Pali Canon. Chanakya (c. 350-275 BC) was a professor of political science at Takshashila University, and later the Prime Minister of Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Chanakya is regarded as one of the earliest and one of the most influential political thinkers. He wrote the Arthashastra, a treatise on political thought, economics and social order, which can be considered a precursor to Machiavelli's The Prince. It discusses monetary and fiscal policies, welfare, international relations, and war strategies in detail, among other topics on political science. The Manusmriti, dated to about two centuries after the time of Chanakya is another important political treatise of ancient India.

Ancient China was home to several competing schools of political thought, most of which arose in the Spring and Autumn Period. These included Mohism, a utilitarian philosophy, Taoism, Legalism, a school of though based on the supremacy of the state, and Confucianism, which became the dominant political philosophy in China during the Imperial Period. Confucian political ideas also deeply influenced and were expounded upon by scholars in Korea and Japan.

In Persia, works such as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Epic of Kings by Ferdowsi provided evidence of political analysis, while the Middle Eastern Aristotelians such as Avicenna and later Maimonides and Averroes, continued Aristotle's tradition of analysis and empiricism, writing commentaries on Aristotle's works. Averroe did not have at hand a text of Aristotle's Politics, so he wrote a commentary on Plato's Republic instead.

The Renaissance

During the Italian Renaissance, Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. For Machiavelli, nothing seems to be too good nor too evil if it helps to attain and preserve political power. Machiavelli shatters political illusions, reveals the harsh reality of politics and could be considered the father of the politics model.^[11] Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations.

Like Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, well-known for his theory of the social contract, believed that a strong central power, such as a monarchy, was necessary to rule the innate selfishness of the individual but neither of them believed in the divine right of kings. John Locke, on the other hand, who gave us Two Treatises of Government and who did not believe in the divine right of kings either, sided with Aquinas and stood against both Machiavelli and Hobbes by accepting Aristotle's dictum that man seeks to be happy in a state of social harmony as a social animal. Unlike Aquinas' preponderant view on the salvation of the soul from original sin, Locke believed man comes into this world with a mind that is basically tabula rasa. According to Locke, an absolute ruler as proposed by Hobbes is unnecessary, for natural law is based on reason and equality, seeking peace and survival for man.

The Enlightenment

Religion would no longer play a dominant role in politics. There would be separation of church and state. Principles similar to those that dominated the material sciences could be applied to society as a whole, originating the social sciences. Politics could be studied in a laboratory as it were, the social milieu. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton wrote: "...The science of politics like most other sciences has received great improvement." (The Federalist Papers Number 9 and 51). Both the marquis d'Argenson and the abbé de Saint-Pierre described politics as a science; d'Argenson was a philosopher and de Saint-Pierre an allied reformer of the enlightenment.^[12]

Other important figures in American politics who participated in the Enlightenment were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Modern political science

Since Political Science is essentially a study of human behavior, in all aspects of politics, observations in controlled environments are usually not available and impossible to reproduce or duplicate. Because of this, Political Scientists seek patterns in the reasons and outcomes for political events so that generalizations and theories can be made. Again, study is still difficult since humans make conscious choices unlike other subjects in science, such as organisms, or even inanimate objects as in physics. Despite the complexities, consensus has been reached on various political topics with the help of proper study. To the extent that political scientists are not politicians, they can demonstrate a greater objectivity about politics. Politics may be studied as an activity, as current affairs, as the work of government and as conflict, either national or international, and its early solution.^[13]

The advent of political science as a university discipline was marked by the creation of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the late 19th century. In fact, the designation "political scientist" is typically reserved for those with a doctorate in the field. Integrating political studies of the past into a unified discipline is ongoing, and the history of political science has provided a rich field for the growth of both normative and positive political science, with each part of the discipline sharing some historical predecessors. The American Political Science Association was founded in 1903 and the American Political Science Review was founded in 1906 in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. The late 1960's and early 1970's witnessed a take off in the use of deductive, game theoretic formal modeling techniques aimed at generating a more analytical corpus of knowledge in the discipline.A trend that has continued and accelerated even as the behaviouralist revolution has subsided. At the same time, due to the interdependence of all social life, political science also moved towards a closer working relationship with other disciplines, especially sociology, economics, history, anthropology, psychology, public administration, law, and statistics without losing its own identity.^[14] Increasingly, political scientists have used the scientific method to create an intellectual discipline based on the generation of formal models used to derive testable hypotheses followed by empirical verification. Over the past generations, the discipline placed an increasing emphasis on relevance, or the use of new approaches to increase scientific knowledge in the field and provide explanations for empirical outcomes. One of these approaches is that of communication.^[15]

Notes

1. ^ Laswell, H. (1935). Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. London: McGraw-Hill. 
2. ^ Stoner, J. R. (2008-02-22). "Political Science and Political Education" (Web). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (APSA), San José Marriott, San José, California. http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/4/5/5/8/p245585_index.html. Retrieved 2009-02-04. "… although one might allege the same for social science as a whole, political scientists receive funding from and play an active role in both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities [in the United States]."  <http://www.allacademic.com/metal/p245585_index.html>.
3. ^ See, e.g., the department of Political Science at Marist College, part of a Division of Humanities before that division became the School of Liberal Arts (c. 2000).
4. ^ Chaturvedy, J. C. (2005). Political Governance. Gyan Publishing House. p. 4. ISBN 8182053175. http://books.google.com/books?id=kzV4V59udu8C&pg=PA4&dq=people+trained+in+political+science+can+add+value+and+expertise+to+corporations#v=onepage&q=people%20trained%20in%20politcal%20science%20can%20add%20value%20and%20expertise%20to%20corporations&f=false. 
5. ^ Chaturvedy, J. C. (2005). Political Governance. Gyan Publishing House. p. 4. ISBN 8182053175. 
6. ^ Farr, James; Seidelman, Raymond (1993). Discipline and History. University of Michigan Press. p. 147. ISBN 0472065127. http://books.google.com/books?id=e9_jbbroRHsC&pg=PA147&dq=American+political+scientists#v=onepage&q=American%20political%20scientists&f=false. "political activities ...are affected ...by economic factors." 
7. ^ Politics is the term used to describe this field by Brandeis University; Cornell College; University of California, Santa Cruz; Hendrix College; Lake Forest College; Monash University; Mount Holyoke College; New York University; Occidental College; Princeton University; Ursinus College; and Washington and Lee University. Government is the term used to describe this field by Bowdoin College; Colby College; Cornell University; Dartmouth College; Georgetown University; Harvard University; Smith College; Wesleyan University; the College of William and Mary; the University of Sydney; the University of Texas at Austin; the University of Ulster; the University of Essex; Victoria University of Wellington, which has both a "School of Government" and a separate "Political Science and International Relations Programme"; and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Politics and government is the term used by the University of Puget Sound. Government and politics is used by the University of Maryland, College Park.
8. ^ Vernardakis, George (1998). Graduate education in government. University Press of America. p. 77. ISBN 0761811718. http://books.google.com/books?id=Rd3DDiQm3M8C&pg=PA77&dq=political+science+international+relations+degree#v=onepage&q=political%20science%20international%20relations%20degree&f=false. "...existing practices at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan." 
9. ^ Almond, Gabriel Abraham (2002). Ventures in political science. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 29. ISBN 1588260802. http://books.google.com/books?id=VMwpeKhifwcC&pg=PA29&dq=political+science+Roman+Stoics#v=onepage&q=political%20science%20Roman%20Stoics&f=false. "Polybius attributes the remarkable growth and power of Rome to its political institutions." 
10. ^ Muhsin, Mahdi (2001). Alfarabi and the foundation of Islamic political philosophy. p. 35. ISBN 0226501864. http://books.google.com/books?id=y6BF52Uw9BIC&pg=PA35&dq=Political+science+Plato%27s+republic&lr=#v=onepage&q=Political%20science%20Plato's%20republic&f=false. "...a combination of Plato and Plotinum, could do much more to clarify political life as it then existed..." 
11. ^ Lane, Ruth (1996). Political science in theory and practice: the 'politics' model. M. E. Sharpe. p. 89. ISBN 1563249402. http://books.google.com/books?id=4nB0LuuYYCkC&pg=PA89&dq=Political+science+Plato+the+republic&lr=#v=onepage&q=Political%20science%20Plato%20the%20republic&f=false. "Discussion then moves to Machiavelli, for whom the politics model was not an occasional pastime..." 
12. ^ Gay, Peter (1996). The enlightenment. 2. W. W. Norton & Co.. p. 448. ISBN 0393313666. http://books.google.com/books?id=gQPna6P69i0C&pg=RA2-PA448&dq=political+science+the+enlightenment&lr=#v=onepage&q=political%20science%20the%20enlightenment&f=false. "The men of the Enlightenment sensed that they could realize their social ideals only by political means." 
13. ^ Bealey, Frank; Chapman, Richard A.; Sheehan, Michael (1999). Elements in political science. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 3-4. ISBN 0748611096. http://books.google.com/books?id=Zkr_8paP_zwC&pg=PA3&dq=political+science+as+science#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "...politcal scientists...and...politicians..., the activities of the two, ...are quite different." 
14. ^ Farr, James; Seidelman, Raymond (1993). Discipline and history: political science in the United States. University of Michigan Press. pp. 230-233. ISBN 0472065127. http://books.google.com/books?id=e9_jbbroRHsC&pg=PA230&dq=political+science+other+discipline&ei=m63DSoY415Ay9dO42AM#v=onepage&q=political%20science%20other%20discipline&f=false. "...ultimately all social life is interdependent..." 
15. ^ O'Hair, Dan; Kreps, Gary L. (1990). Applied communication theory and research. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 225. ISBN 0805809152. http://books.google.com/books?id=IBVOgebb1icC&pg=RA1-PA225&dq=political+science+communication&ei=VcXDSpCclo_CNoWy8NsD#v=onepage&q=political%20science%20communication&f=false. "...the relevance of several areas of communication research to political contexts..." 

Further reading

• The Evolution of Political Science (Nov. 2006). APSR Centennial Volume of American Political Science Review. Apsanet.org. 4 Feb. 2009.
• Goodin, R. E.; Klingemann, Hans-Dieter (1996). A New Handbook of Political Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198294719.
• Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, ed. (2007) The State of Political Science in Western Europe. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. ISBN 9783866490453.
• Schramm, S. F.; Caterino, B., eds. (2006). Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method. New York and London: New York University Press. Making Political Science Matter. Google Books. 4 Feb. 2009.
• Roskin, M.; Cord, R. L.; Medeiros, J. A.; Jones, W. S. (2007). Political Science: An Introduction. 10th ed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780132425759 (10). ISBN 9780132425759 (13).
• Tausch, A.; Prager, F. (1993). Towards a Socio-Liberal Theory of World Development. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Oxford Handbooks of Political Science

See also

Main article: Outline of political science

Related disciplines Sociology Political sociology Political philosophy Philosophy Lists List of political scientists Politics of present-day nations and states

Related topics Debate Diplomacy Freedom of speech Freedom of the press Government Jurisdiction

Law Legal system Metapolitics Nation Perestroika Movement Politics Policy Sovereign state War

External links

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• A New Nation Votes: American Elections Returns 1787-1825
• Comparative Politics in Argentina & Latin America: Site dedicated to the development of comparative politics in Latin America. Paper Works, Articles and links to specialized web sites.

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