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Political science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state,nation, government, and politics and policies of government. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior, culture. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these revelations they attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works." Political science intersects with other fields; including economics, law, sociology, history, anthropology, public administration, public policy, national politics, international relations, comparative politics, psychology, political organization, and political theory. Although it was codified in the 19th century, when all the social sciences were established, political science has ancient roots; indeed, it originated almost 2,500 years ago with the works of Plato and Aristotle.
Political science is commonly divided into five distinct sub-disciplines which together constitute the field:
Political theory is more concerned with contributions of various classical thinkers such as Aristotle, Niccolo Machiavelli, Cicero, Plato and many others. Comparative politics is the science of comparison and teaching of different types of constitutions, political actors, legislature and associated fields, all of them from an intrastate perspective. International relations deals with the interaction between nation-states as well as intergovernmental and transnational organizations.
Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in social research. Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice theory, behavioralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism. 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the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research and model building.
Political scientists study matters concerning 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. Private enterprises such as think tanks, research institutes, polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists." In the United States, political scientists known as "Americanists[disambiguation needed]" look at a variety of data including constitutional development, elections, public opinion and public policy such as Social Security reform, foreign policy, US Congressional committees, and the US Supreme Court — to name only a few issues.
"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." 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. Whereas classical political philosophy is primarily defined by a concern for Hellenic and Enlightenment thought, political scientists are also marked by a great concern for "modernity" and the contemporary nation state, along with the study of classical thought, and as such share a greater deal of terminology with sociologists (e.g. structure and agency).
Most United States 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. 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 when political scientists engage in public administration.
Modern political science 
Because political science is essentially a study of human behavior, 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 behavior in order to identify patterns, draw generalizations, and build theories of politics.
Like all social sciences, political science faces the difficulty of observing human actors that can only be partially observed and who have the capacity for making conscious choices unlike other subjects such as non-human organisms in biology or inanimate objects as in physics. Despite the complexities, contemporary political science has progressed by adopting a variety of methods and theoretical approaches to understanding politics and methodological pluralism is a defining feature of contemporary political science. Often in contrast with national media, political science scholars seek to compile long-term data and research on the impact of political issues, producingin-depth articles breaking down the issues
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 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.
Behavioral revolution and new institutionalism 
In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. A focus on studying political behavior, rather than institutions or interpretation of legal texts, characterized early behavioral political science, including work by Robert Dahl, Philip Converse, and in the collaboration between sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld and public opinion scholar Bernard Berelson.
The late 1960s and early 1970s 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. This period saw a surge of research that borrowed theory and methods from economics to study political institutions, such as the United States Congress, as well as political behavior, such as voting. William H. Riker and his colleagues and students at the University of Rochester were the main proponents of this shift.
Political science in the Soviet Union 
In the Soviet Union, political studies were carried out under the guise of some other disciplines like theory of state and law, area studies, international relations, studies of labor movement, "critique of bourgeois theories" etc. Soviet scholars were represented at the International Political Science Association since 1955 (since 1960 by the Soviet Association of Political and State Studies). In 1979 11th World Congress of IPSA took place in Moscow. Until the late years of the Soviet Union, political science as a field was subjected to tight control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was thus subjected to distrust. Anti-communists accused political scientists of being "false" scientists and of having served the old regime.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, two of the major institutions dealing with political science - the Institute of Contemporary Social Theories and the Institute of International Affairs - were disbanded, and most of their members were left without jobs. These institutes were victims of the first wave of anti-communist euphoria and of in many ways unfounded ideological attacks, despite many of the people working in these institutes being competent scientists with a proficient knowledge of political science, and some of them having played an important role in reforming the Communist Party. Today the Russian Political Science Association unites professionals-political scientists from in Russia.
Recent developments 
In 2000, the Perestroika Movement in political science was introduced as a reaction against what supporters of the movement called the mathematicization of political science. Those who identified with the movement argued for a plurality of methodologies and approaches in political science and for more relevance of the discipline to those outside of it.
Evolutionary psychology theories argue that humans have evolved a highly developed set of psychological mechanisms for dealing with politics. However, these mechanisms evolved for dealing with the small group politics that characterized the ancestral environment and not the much larger political structures in today's world. This is argued to explain many important features and systematic cognitive biases of current politics.
Most political scientists work broadly in one or more of the following five areas:
- Comparative politics, including area studies
- International relations
- Political philosophy
- Public administration
- Public law
Some political science departments also classify methodology as well as scholarship on the domestic politics of a particular country as distinct sub fields. In the United States, American politics is often treated as a separate subfield.
In contrast to this traditional classification, some academic departments organize scholarship into thematic categories, including political philosophy, political behavior (including public opinion, collective action, and identity), and political institutions (including legislatures and international organizations). Political science conferences and journals often emphasize scholarship in more specific categories. The American Political Science Association, for example, has 42 organized sections that address various methods and topics of political inquiry.
Political science as a separate field is a relatively late arrival in terms of social sciences. However, 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.
The antecedents of Western politics can be traced back to the Socratic political philosophers, Plato (427–347 BC), Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC), and Aristotle ("The Father of Political Science") (384–322 BC). These authors, in such works as The Republic and Laws by Plato, and The Politics and Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, analyzed political systems philosophically, going beyond earlier Greek poetic and historical reflections which can be found in the works of epic poets like Homer and Hesiod, historians like Herodotus and Thucydides, and dramatists such as Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides.
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 the Roman sphere. The Greek gods become Romans and Greek philosophy in one way or another turns into Roman law e.g. Stoicism. The Stoic was committed to preserving proper hierarchical roles and duties in the state so that the state as a whole would remain stable. Among the best known Roman Stoics were philosopher Seneca and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Seneca, a wealthy Roman patrician, is often criticized by some modern commentators for failing to adequately live by his own precepts. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, on the other hand, can be best thought of as the philosophical reflections of an emperor divided between his philosophical aspirations and the duty he felt to defend the Roman Empire from its external enemies through his various military campaigns. According to Polybius, Roman institutions were the backbone of the empire but Roman law is the medulla.
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.
During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on directempirical observation of political institutions and actors. Machiavelli was also a realist, arguing that even evil means should be considered if they help to create and preserve a glorious regime. Machiavelli therefore also argues against the use of idealistic models in politics, and has been described as the father of the "politics model" of political science. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations.
The works of the French philosophers Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot to name a few are paragon for political analysis, social science, social and political critic. Their influence leading to the French revolution has been enormous in the development of modern democracy throughout the world.
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 a 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 new Western philosophical foundations that emerged from the pursuit of reason during the Enlightenment era helped pave the way for policies that emphasized a need for a 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.
Non-Western history 
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 political thinker in Takshashila. Chanakya wrote the Arthashastra, a treatise on political thought, economics and social order. It discusses monetary and fiscal policies, welfare, international relations, and war strategies in detail, among other topics. The Manusmriti, dated to about two centuries after the time of Chanakya is another important Indian political treatise.
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 thought based on the supremacy of the state), and Confucianism. Eventually, a modified form of Confucianism (heavily infused with elements of Legalism) became the dominant political philosophy in China during the Imperial Period. This form of Confucianism 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.
See also 
- Outline of political science - structured list of political topics, arranged by subject area
- Index of politics articles - alphabetical list of political subjects
- Political lists - lists of political topics
- Outline of law
- Index of law articles
- Process tracing
- Oxford Dictionary of Politics: political science
- Political Science. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1999-02-22). Retrieved on 2010-11-13.
- Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: political science
- Stoner, J. R. (22 February 2008). "Political Science and Political Education". Paper presented at the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (APSA), San José Marriott, San José, California. Retrieved 2011-10-19. "... 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/meta/p245585_index.html>.
- 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).
- Politics is the term used to refer to 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 for 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.
- Vernardakis, George (1998). Graduate education in government. University Press of America. p. 77. ISBN 0-7618-1171-0. "...existing practices at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan."
- Druckman, James; Green, Donald; Kuklinski, James et al., eds. (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-17455-8.
- Lowell, A. Lawrence. 1910. "The Physiology of Politics." American Political Science Review 4: 1-15.
- Political Science in Russia: Institutionalization of the Discipline and Development of the Professional Community
- Chronicle of Higher Education 2001[dead link]
- Michael Bang Petersen. "The evolutionary psychology of mass politics". In Roberts, S. C. (2011). Applied Evolutionary Psychology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586073.001.0001. ISBN 9780199586073.
- APSA Organized Sections | APSA
- Aabriel Abraham (2002). Ventures in political science. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 29. ISBN 1-58826-055-0. "Polybius attributes the remarkable growth and power of Rome to its political institutions."
- Muhsin, Mahdi (2001). Alfarabi and the foundation of Islamic political philosophy. p. 35. ISBN 0-226-50186-8. "...a combination of Plato and Plotinum, could do much more to clarify political life as it then existed..."
- Lane, Ruth (1996). Political science in theory and practice: the 'politics' model. M. E. Sharpe. p. 89. ISBN 1-56324-939-1. "Discussion then moves to Machiavelli, for whom the politics model was not an occasional pastime..."
- Gay, Peter (1996). The enlightenment 2. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 448. ISBN 0-393-31366-2. "The men of the Enlightenment sensed that they could realize their social ideals only by political means."
Further reading 
- The Evolution of Political Science (November 2006). APSR Centennial Volume of American Political Science Review. Apsanet.org. 4 February 2009.
- Goodin, R. E.; Klingemann, Hans-Dieter (1996). A New Handbook of Political Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-829471-9.
- Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, ed. (2007) The State of Political Science in Western Europe. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. ISBN 978-3-86649-045-1.
- 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 February 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 978-0-13-242575-9 (10). ISBN 978-0-13-242575-9 (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
- Noel, Hans (2010) "Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t" The Forum: Vol. 8: Iss. 3, Article 12.
- Zippelius, Reinhold (2003). Geschichte der Staatsideen (=History of political Ideas), 10th ed. Munich: C.H. Beck.ISBN 3-406-49494-3.
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- Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. "Political Science Department which offers MA and PhD programmes"
- Dalmacio Negro, Political Science Emeritus Professor at CEU San Pablo University, Madrid (SPAIN)
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- PROL: Political Science Research Online (prepublished research)
- Truman State University Political Science Research Design Handbook
- 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.
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