Download POLI 111: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS
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Some basic questions that scientific
study of politics has to answer
• Is there one best approach to the study of politics?
• What is covered by the umbrella of the subject
matter of politics?
• What is meant by a scientific approach to the study
of politics?
• Is there a standard method to use when
undertaking political science research?
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Iain Mclean’s definition of Political
Science
• Iain Maclean defines Political Science as “the study of
the state, government and politics”.
• This definition is very simple as it recognizes that
political science must concern itself with the state
which is a distinct set of institutions whose specific
concern is with the organization of domination, in the
name of common interest, within a delimited territory,
a population, government and is sovereign.
• The concentration of this definition on the state is
important because the state is the most central concept
in the study of politics.
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Iain Mclean’s definition of Political
Science (cont’d)
• The concentration on the government also
presupposes the study of political institutions like
legislature, the executive, judiciary the media,
political parties, the public bureaucracy among
others.
• The definition highlights the importance of politics,
that is, the taken of collective decisions that affect
the generality of the people and the resolution of
conflicts.
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Kenneth Godwin and John Wahlke’s
Definition of Political Science
• Kenneth Godwin and John Wahlke (1997) define
political science as “the understanding of how societies
make choices and an examination of the impact of
those choices”.
• This definition is important as it demonstrates that
societies make a number of choices.
• These choices include the type of political system to
live in, the type of leader to lead the society, the major
policies to address the problems of the people, the
relationship that should exist between the state and
the citizens etc
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Kenneth Godwin and John Wahlke’s
Definition of Political Science
• It is not enough just to study the choices societies
make but a critical examination of the impact of
those choices is absolutely necessary.
• If a particular leader is selected to lead a country,
political scientists will want to know how this choice
translates into the formulation and implementation
of specific policies.
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Andrew Heywood’s Definition of
Political Science
• To Heywood, Political Science is “an academic
discipline which undertakes systematically to
describe, analyze and explain the workings and
operations of government and the relationship
between political and non-political institutions and
processes”.
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Andrew Heywood’s Definition of
Political Science (cont’d)
• This definition is important for a number of reasons.
– First, it recognizes political science as an academic discipline.
– Second, it indicates that the discipline uses systematic
method and not any haphazard means in arriving at its
conclusions.
– Third, it highlights that the subject matter of political science
is interested in how government works and the relationship
that exist between government, political and non-political
institutions.
• When understood this way the discipline of political
science underscores the relevance of politics to all
human endeavours.
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Robert Jackson and Doreen Jackson’s
definition of Political Science
• Jackson and Jackson define Political Science as “the
study of how organized disputes are articulated and
then resolved by the public decisions of governments”.
• They posit that political scientists describe and analyse
the institutions and behaviour involved in the
governance of states.
• To them, there are also ethical and normative aspects
to political science, which involves the search for the
proper relationship between institutional structures
and desired ends such as justice, equality and liberty.
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The Activities of Political Scientists
• Political science has many facets and strands.
• In its broadest facets, it involves political behaviour,
procedures and policies, including governments,
states, international organizations or entities and
sub-units of political systems.
• Political scientists study politics.
• They are also interested in the origins and the
evolutions of governments, the growth and decline
of governments, and conflicts among governments.
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The Activities of Political Scientists
(cont’d)
• Political scientists are also interested in how
governments make decisions, the policies that
result from the decisions and the consequences of
the policies on the entire citizens.
• Political scientists are interested in issues relating to
elections, selections, transparency and
accountability.
• They are also interested in the promotion of public
interest.
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The Activities of Political Scientists
(cont’d)
• Political scientists seek answers to a number of questions.
– What attitudes and values produce political conflict and dissent?
– What political organizations are active in the struggle to achieve political
consensus?
– What is the nature of the socio-economic relationships between states?
How adequate are resources to meet needs?
– How equitably are resources distributed? and how are material
interests pursued, protected, or changed by the course of public policy?
– What are the constitutional structures and the decision making
procedures of each nation, and how well suited are they to that nation’s
needs?
– What internal structures and procedures exist for the debate and
resolution of problems with other nations?
– What assistance is available from international agencies and the
international community at large?
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The Sub-Fields of Political Science
Political science covers the following seven sub-fields.
• Government and politics concentrates on the study of
the government and politics of a state.
• Comparative government and politics is concerned
with contrasting and evaluating governments of
political systems.
• International politics deals with the relationship
between states.
• Public administration is concerned with the study of
public administration by means of institutional
description, policy analysis and evaluation and
intergovernmental relation analysis.
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The Sub-Fields of Political Science (cont’d)
• Political theory is the oldest form of political enquiry.
– It dates back to Plato and Aristotle.
– Political theory is the centre of the discipline, because it
encompasses the full realm of thought concerning the origin,
form, and behaviour of the political community.
• Political methodology is the study of the methods to
be used in political enquiry.
– This deals with the tools for empirical investigations and
analysis.
– The methods used in the study of politics include archival
research, interview- based research, textual and contextual
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analysis of the argumentskojodarkoh
of past thinkers etc
The Sub-Fields of Political Science (cont’d)
• Political economy deals with the parallel existence
and mutual interaction of the state and market in
the modern world creates political economy.
– Political economy looks at the relationship or the nexus
between politics and economics.
– It is concerned with the public management of the
affairs of the state.
– Under political economy, the general assumption is that
there is a symbiotic relationship between economics and
politics.
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The Origin of Political Science
• As a specialized field of study, political science is of relative
recent origin.
• It is a relatively new subject in universities.
• Political science was not a separate discipline until the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when departmental
chairs were established in universities.
• The first department of political science was established in
1880, in the United States at the Columbia University.
• Even when it was officially recognized as a distinct field,
political science continued to be taught for many years in
history and economics departments as Political Economy.
• Political science therefore developed as a truly
interdisciplinary field of study.
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The Relevance of Creating Several Social
Science Subjects
• Political Science branched off from a number of
social science disciplines including law, history, and
economics among others.
• The social sciences grouped together are devoted to
the study of man in society.
• The division of social science into several disciplines
is to facilitate and explain various needs and
interests of man in society.
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The Relevance of Creating Several
Social Science Subjects (cont’d)
• The advantages of creating several social science
subjects include:
– The possibility for a higher degree of expertise in a number
of subjects
– Increased efficiency through division of labour.
• The disadvantages are:
– The excessive isolation of related activities, which may
render more difficult the essential borrowing by one science
from others;
– Arbitrary divisions between the social sciences
– The lack of unifying vehicle to furnish overview or
perspective.
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Political Science and History
• History is the systematic record of what men and government
have done in the past and in what perspective present
institutions and development stand in relation to the past.
• Political science is history in suspended animation, history
arrested, analyzed and sifted for its political content, for its
imperial lessons.
• While political scientists see history as a raw material for
analysis, historians see political science as a “wayward child”.
• Both political science and history are complementary.
– Political institutions can be better understood through the
consideration of their historical setting.
– Political scientists therefore owe a lot to history in order to
establish the authenticity of and the relevance of the data.
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Political Science and Economics
• Economics is the study of how society chooses to
allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses,
to meet the unlimited needs of society now and the
future.
• Economics is the study of those individuals and social
activities involved in the production, distribution and
consumption of wealth.
• At one time, Political Science and Economics were
bound together like Siamese twins and known as
Political Economy.
• Economic factors determine politics; while political
forms shape and determine the economic system.
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Political Science and Economics
• The interdependence between the two subjects is
very evident in the political importance of a stable
monetary system, taxation, the protection of
property, and the enforcement of contractual
obligations.
• In recent years one of the most hotly contested
issues is the extent to which government must get
involved in the economic system of the country.
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Political Science and Sociology
• Sociology is a specialized study of social behaviour and
human interaction.
• It provides information on social customs and cultures
which bear significantly on political development and
political institutions.
• It was the study of electorates and their motives which
led to the conceptualization of political culture.
• The use of sociological methods also helps political
scientists to understand political socialization.
• Comparative studies of families, clans, tribes, classes,
and races, and their interrelationships provide the
political scientists with a better understanding of the
nature of various communities and their problems.
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Political Science and Psychology
• Psychology is regarded by behaviouralists as the basis
of Political Science.
• Both individual and social psychology are seen as
providing very important contributions to the
understanding of politics.
• Fundamental human instinct for self-preservation, the
desire for development and the pursuit of freedom are
not only used to explain political phenomena but also
can be developed into theories and laws of politics.
• Through psychological studies answers can be found as
to why individuals vote the way they do, why certain
political developments occur, and why certain leaders
attain and maintain power.
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What is an Approach?
• An approach is the means by which something is
reached.
• An approach to a discipline is the particular
orientation that one adopts when addressing the
subject.
• An approach provides a guide for selecting facts and
organizing them in a meaningful way.
• Politics today embraces a variety of theoretical
approaches from a variety of sources which has
made the field very fertile and versatile.
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The Philosophical Approach
• This approach dates back to the ancient Greeks and it
was usually referred to as political philosophy.
• It was mainly concerned with ethical issues,
prescriptive issues, and normative questions.
• The question that engaged their attention included;
– What ought to be
– What should be
– What must be
• This approach is mainly concerned with the
examination of what the major thinkers said, how they
developed or justified their views, and the intellectual
context within which they worked.
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The Empirical Tradition
• Empirical knowledge in derived from sense data and
experience.
• Empirical or descriptive tradition can also be traced to
the earliest days of political thought.
• It manifested itself in the following:
– Aristotle’s attempt to classify constitutions,
– Machiavelli’s realistic account of statecraft in his book The
Prince, which discussed how political power is acquired,
maintained and expanded
– Montesquieu’s sociological theory of government and law
which resulted in the development of the concept of
separation of powers.
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The Scientific Tradition
• Karl Marx was the first theorist to attempt to describe
politics in scientist terms.
• He made predictions about the future based upon laws
that had the same status in terms of proof as laws in
the natural sciences.
• The scientific study of politics became very fashionable
in the nineteenth century, with the introduction of the
study of Political Science in 1870s in Columbia, Oxford
and Paris.
• The enthusiasm with the science of politics peaked in
the 1950s and 1960s with the analysis of political
phenomenon that relied extensively on behaviouralism.
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Why Study Political Science?
Political Science is studied for the following reasons:
• Self-interest
• Self-improvement
• Self-knowledge
• Career Development
• Development of analytical skills
• Promotion of good governance
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What is Science?
• The word ‘science’ comes from the Latin word
‘scientia’, which means knowledge.
• Science is a field of study that aims at developing
reliable explanation of phenomena through repeatable
experiments, observation and deductions.
• Scientific knowledge is also seen as any body of
systematic knowledge based upon observation and
experience.
• Fundamentally science involves a method, some
assumptions and certain goals.
• It is a means of study which involves precision, rigour
and systematic way of proceeding.
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Assumptions of scientific knowledge
The key assumptions of scientific knowledge are as
follows:
• Patterns of behaviour
• Empiricism
• Inter-subjectivity
• Objectivity or value-free analysis
• Systematization
• Universal laws or generalization
• High-level theory
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Arguments against the Science of
Politics
The problems which hamper the total and complete
use of the scientific method by political scientists
include;
• The problem of data
• There are difficulties that stem from the existence
of human values.
• There is also the myth of neutrality
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Arguments in Favour of the Science of
Politics
• Political science is essentially empirical, claiming to
describe, analyse, and explain government and
other political institutions in a rigorous and
impartial manner.
• In political science, we can accumulate quantifiable
data
• The study is based on reason (has logical
coherence)
• Balanced- bias is minimize by acknowledging that
there are other ways of looking at political topics
• The work is supported by evidence
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