Lesson 5: Political Science and the Study of Politics

1. Identify the subjects of inquiry and goals of political science.

2. Discuss the concept of power as an aspired value in society.

Political Science as a Discipline

Political science comes from two Greek words: polis and scire, Polis refers to the city-state in ancient
Greece. The political activities within a polis are later termed as politikus (latin). Scire means “to know”.
Combining of two meanings, political science aims to know the activities within the state. Such activities
include the following: human interaction and conflict, human and state relations, and power distributions.
The American Political Science Association defined its discipline as “the study of government, public
policies and political processes, systems, and political behavior”(2013)

Subdiscipline of Political Science

Political Theory
Examines the contemporary application of political concepts such as human rights, equality, peace and
justice. It seeks to address the variance of its implementation in societies with the aim of understanding the
nature of this concepts and the elements that affect it. This field is significant in furthering theory building in
the discipline as much as it provides a conceptual critique of commonly held concepts.

Comparative Politics
Is a branch of political science that aims to provide context to the differences in government and political
systems. It examines the parallelism and divergence of political systems to provide analyses on the factors that
make governments efficient and the factors that make them fail. This field provides a scientific comparison of
government and political institutions that could help aid policy formulation that is locally relevant.

International Relations
The study of state-to-state relations and the wider margin of the impacts of globalization and climate change
such as terrorism, piracy, and democratization of non-Western territories fall into the category of international
relations. This field also covers the interaction between states and nonstate global actors such as international
organizations and human groups.

Political Behavior
This field covers the attitudes, knowledge, and actions of an individual in response to political variables
such as policies created by the government, behavior of politicians, and general political environment.Works on
the political action repertoire of the individuals are categorized under this field as it examines their psychology
toward the system.

Public Policy
This fields inquires on the types of governmental policies and the underlying motivations foe their
enactment and implementation. Due to the nature of this field, it operates with other subdiscipline to create a
comprehensive analysis.

Public Administration
This branch examines the various administrative schemes implemented by government officials. It analyzes
the strategies applied by administrative units in implementing the existing policies and the feedback mechanism
that they used to gain the opinion of the public. This field is important in providing scientific evaluations of the
efficiency of administrative units in fulfilling their functions and the factors that affect them in their pursuit of
accomplishing their deliveries.

Political Science Concepts

Similar to anthropology and sociology, political science has discipline-base concepts that aid in the
analysis of society. This section presents the eight most essential terms used in the field of political science.
 Politics
This is the central concept in the discipline, as much as society is to sociology and culture is to
anthropology. Table 5.1 presents three definitions of politics by different theorists.
Table 5.1 Definitions of Politics
Theorist Definition of Politics
Alfred Politics is the interaction between the civil society and the government in the activity of
Boyer governance.
Max Politics is the exercise of power within the state
Weber
David Politics is the authoritative allocation of scarce values.
Easton
Source: Curtis. The Great Political Theories, 1976.
Boyer highlighted the concept of governance or the execution of laws within a territory as mediated by
civil society (sectors of society) and the government. The government acts as the arbiter of rules and laws
within a territory. However, its power is tempered by the opinion of stakeholders in a society.
Easton’s definition promotes the idea that there are scarce or limited values in society. This include
power, prestige, and other values that are held by a select few society. As such, competition for these values is
fierce, requiring an authoritative distribution of them. For example, the power to govern is limited and the
desire to acquire it is high. To avoid political disorder, this value is distributed to a select few.
Weber introduced two essential concepts in political science: power and state
Power, as defined by Robert Dahl, is “the ability of person A to make person B do what person B would
not otherwise do” (American Political Science Association, 2013). This implies the capacity to direct and
influence the decision of others, Hence, Weber’s definition corresponds to the interplay of power relations
within a political system. Power is a scarce resource that is highly valued by individuals in a society.

A state is a political entity that consists of four elements: territory, government, people, and sovereignty.
Two of the defining characteristics of a state are the following:
1. It is independent from external control
2. It may consist of many nations

Government
The set of personnel who manages the affairs of the state in its act of allocating scarce values is called
the government. Its existence is dictated by the political system that it revolves on. For democratic systems, the
aim of the government is to advance the welfare of the general public.
Aristotle provided a system of classification of governments based on number of rulers and its efficiency
in governance (Curtis, 1981).
Table 5.2 Aristotle”s Classification of Government
Number of Ruler/s Normal Form Perverted Form
One Monarchy Tyranny
Few Aristocracy Oligarchy
Many Polity Democracy
A government that is governed by one ruler who has efficient administration of political and economic
values is monarchy. A perverted form of it is tyranny or the rule of a dictator.
Aristotle argued that a tyrant ruler serves only his or her own interests. This leader is prone to using force
to stay in power as he or she merely usurped it.
Monarchs are better leaders as they are not prone to employ force to subjugate members of their society
as they do not feel the pressure to maintain their position, which they inherited.
Aristotle argued that the rule of the few intellectuals known as aristocracy is the best form of government.
He said that aristocracy is less prone to corruption given that it is run by a group of people who have no vested
self-interest due to their high moral values and non-economic preoccupation.
Contrary to this oligarchy the rule of the few rich individuals is seen by Aristotle as problematic, as the
rulers are more predisposed to further their economic interests.
According to Aristotle, the best alternative for an effective government is the rule of the middle class
known as polity. This type of government is the most efficient, as it is less prone to corruption. This is due to
rulers who come from the middle class, are satisfied economically, and are well-educated.
Democracy was considered by Aristotle as an ineffective type of government. He said that democracy had
a potential for chaos and corruption, given that is ruled by the masses that are generally economically
challenged and lacking proper education.
Sovereignty
This is the capacity of a political system to make independent decisions within its territory. Sovereignty
can be classified in tern of its scope.
Internal sovereignty refers to the capacity of a political system to implement its rules and policies within
 its territory.
External sovereignty refers to the recognition of that system’s existence and authority by other actors and
systems.
Territory
This is the geographic space in which the sovereignty of a state is exercised. A territory includes “the
terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial seas, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves,
and other submarine areas” (De Leon, 2005)
Example: territorial map of the Philippines
People
This fourth element of a state is the most crucial of all, as it is through the existence of the people that
concepts on government, state, territory, and sovereignty take shape. In the context of political science, the term
people is synonymous to a nation.
A nation is a concept that is related to ethnicity, as people within it are bound by cultural and historical
ties. A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular
country or territory.
A state can consist of many nations. For example, pluralistic societies such as the United States, Singapore,
and the European Union have multicultural populations under one administration.

ESSENTIAL LEARNING
Political science is the scientific study of the allocation of scarce values within a territory. These values include power,
which is the capacity to influence the action and decisions of another party to support the agenda of the one who wields it.
As the scope of the discipline ranges from the behavior of individuals within a political system to the interactions between
states, political science generally subscribes to applied and interdisciplinary orientations. This orientation provides further
significance to the use of political science in contemporary period as it presents scientific discourses on public policy,
international relations, and governance, which can serve as basis for a critical review of society and creation of more
efficient laws.

Answer the following:

1. What are the elements of state?
2. What are the branches of political science?
3. Two essential concept in political science?
4. Differentiate the state and nation?