Note: the following has been abstracted from the Grolier Encyclopedia.

Political Science

Political science is the study of the structures and activities of government. In recent years it has expanded to include the entire range of private and public activities that influence governments as well as the ability of governments to obtain compliance with their decisions.

Fields of Study

The discipline is divided into several fields of study, the number and names of which vary somewhat with different educational institutions. Three fields are fairly universal: international politics, comparative politics, and home-country politics. International politics deals with the interrelationships among national governments, international organizations, multinational corporations, and other entities. Included in this field is the study of International Law. Comparative politics combines the in-depth study of government and politics in particular countries with the study of similarities and differences among them. At universities in the United States the study of American government and politics is carried on as a separate field. In the same way, at universities in other countries, each nation's scholars are committed to the more intensive study of their own political institutions and processes. A fourth field that is frequently recognized is political philosophy, the analysis of the principles and ideals to which governments, public officials, and governmental policies have been expected to conform through the ages and in different cultures. In many universities this subject is taught in the department of philosophy.

A subject often taught in American departments of political science is public law, the study of Law as it affects government. This subdiscipline includes constitutional law, dealing with national constitutions, and particularly with the U.S. Constitution as it was formulated and has evolved. Some political science departments offer programs in public policy analysis, concerned with the formulation and evaluation of governmental policies for education, criminal justice, welfare, transportation, energy, health care, and environmental protection. The field of public policy is part of the more traditional discipline of public administration, which focuses on the organization and operation of governmental agencies and includes such topics as personnel management, budgeting systems, and decision-making processes. Some political scientists specialize in methodology, particularly techniques of data collection, data processing, and statistical analysis.

Approaches

Some early students of politics, including Aristotle and Nicolo Machiavelli, were systematic in their approach to politics. Most pre-19th-century writers on the subject, however, were humanists, primarily concerned with practical questions or with religious and moral issues. Rather than generalizing about political phenomena, they preferred to treat persons, nations, actions, and events as unique. Nor did they limit themselves to knowledge obtained empirically; many traditional students of politics placed greater emphasis on faith and reason. The study of politics was thus a part of moral philosophy. During the 19th century additional approaches emerged called social physics (or Sociology)--associated with such names as Auguste Comte, Vilfredo Pareto, the Comte de Saint-Simon, and Herbert Spencer--and legalism. Legalism--associated with such theorists as Leon Duguit (1859-1928), Maurice Hauriou (1856-1929), and George Jellinek (1851-1911)--helped make the study of government a separate academic discipline; it focused on "the state," that is, on society as politically organized, and on its laws and legal structures. The traditional study of politics was not only humanistic and legalistic; many students of the subject were in fact political historians. Others were reformers who studied society in order to change it.

By the turn of the century the traditional approaches were increasingly challenged by skepticism and a call for realistic analysis. Students of government began to examine the informal political activities of party bosses, machines, big business, and organized labor. Some students began to develop new techniques such as Public Opinion surveys and new tools such as statistics.

The greatest changes in the study of politics occurred in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. As more and more scholars became empirically oriented, the predominant approach to the study of politics became behavioralist, that is, aimed at formulating generalizations about political behavior. Among the early U.S. pioneers in this approach were Harold Lasswell, Walter Lippmann, Charles Merriam, Graham Wallas, and Arthur F. Bentley (1870-1957). This approach seeks to develop a systematic body of knowledge that not only describes and explains political life but also suggests the probabilities of the recurrence of certain kinds of behavior. Behavioralists attempt to view political activity on a universal, cross-cultural scale, considering not only Western institutions but those of Asia and Africa, and ranging over the centuries to identify causal relationships that hold in every historical period.

The behavioralists have been particularly concerned with methodology. They have introduced into the study of politics concepts and tools previously employed in such related disciplines as sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics and have borrowed from the natural sciences as well. Their drive for methodological rigor and for pure knowledge has led critics to charge that methodology has become more important for them than content. The critics also complain that not only has the discipline of political science ignored pressing problems of contemporary society, but has in fact served to rationalize erroneous public policies. During the turbulent 1960s many political scientists became concerned with the Vietnam War, the riots in the inner cities, the assassinations of public leaders, and other evidence of crisis in American society. An increasing number of scholars called for a renewed emphasis on moral and factual content like that of the traditional approaches.

The study of politics today combines the main features of behavioralism with a commitment to human values such as peace, the abolition of hunger and disease, the pursuit of justice, and the attainment of Human Rights.