Politics, along with the various approaches to it, has developed into a most important discipline.

It
began as a more normative discipline (Wasby, 1970:36) to a more empirical and scientific one in
recent years. The aim of the approaches to the study of politics is to increase our knowledge of
politics with the end-goal of people utilising this gained knowledge (Van Dyke, 1960:4). This essay
will define ‘the study of politics’, discuss two approaches, namely: the empirical and the normative,
name key theorists of both approaches as well as name and describe various constituents (that
includes examples of each) which fall in each of the abovementioned approaches. Furthermore, this
essay will then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and compare and
contrasting the two, hence concluding which approach is best to enhance our understanding of
political ideas and events. Dialectical materialism as a more viable approach will also be discussed to
see whether it is able to solve the weaknesses of both the empirical and normative approaches.

The study of politics can be defined in many ways, but for the purpose of this essay, Vernon Van
Dyke’s definition of the study of politics will be used. It is the study of an aspect of human behaviour
in an environment (Van Dyke, 1960:3). It is important to note that when the words ‘to politics’ are
used refer to ‘the study of politics’ and ‘scientist’ refers to a political scientist.

The empirical approach is the name given to the set in which all other approaches that use empirical
evidence and methods fall under. This approach’s key theorist is David Easton (his approach to
politics will be discussed later in the essay), whilst the key components are the systems and
behavioural approaches. Political scientists who subscribe to this approach of politics are called,
‘Positivists’ (Van Dyke, 1960:9). The empirical approach is concerned with and emphasises the
processes of observation, quantification and verification in order to study politics, hence an
emphasis on organisation and structure (Wasby, 1970:42). It is thus referred to as being
quantitative. The scientists use facts, descriptive statements, empirical statements, inductive
reasoning and collect observable data to verify normative statements by empirical methods (Van
Dyke, 1960:9) and to construct empirical political theories or methods. A fact is an empirically
verifiable observation’ or ‘statement about a reality that was materialised by a dependable method’
(Van Dyke, 1960:56). Descriptive statements proclaim certain truths about reality (Van Dyke,
1960:8), whilst empirical statements, on the other hand, are statements/claims should be tested or
provable by observation (Van Dyke, 1960:9). ‘Inductive reasoning’ is reasoning where one uses facts
to make a statement or hypothesis (Van Dyke, 1960:184). Hence, in general, a positivist would start
by collecting data various means such as surveys and/or case studies, then use inductive reasoning
and make an empirical statement on a certain method. This marks a transition from the ‘realm of
reality’ to the ‘realm of ideas’. They then test such statements to determine whether or not the
method is indeed a fact. The method is only a fact when it generates the same outcome for those
who use it (Van Dyke, 1960:56). Therefore, the empirical statement then becomes a descriptive one.
This is the general pattern that the various empirical approaches tend to follow. For example, if one
had to empirically prove the normative statement: slavery has happened in the past, one would
have to collect all the manuscripts and records (empirical evidence), then formulate an empirical
statement with the accumulated data. One would have to repeat this by collecting new data and
seeing if the outcome matches the previous one. Only then could one say that ‘slavery has happened
in the past’ is a fact, through empirical proof. There are four disciplines which depend on this
approach, namely: sociology, psychology, history and economics.

The three empirical approaches that will be discussed in this essay are: institutional approach, the
behavioural approach and David Easton’s political systems approach.

The institutional approach studies and focuses government and other political institutions’ formal
aspects (Wasby, 1970:41). Hence, it analyses the various political procedures (e.g. voting and
drafting of laws) and political structures (e.g. government or political parties) (Wasby, 1970:41).
Thus, this approach focuses on data collection and not so much on creating theories. (Wasby,
1970:42) Therefore, in order to be able to explain politics in such a way, scientists inclined to this
approach do need to rely on empiricism. To understand how the process of voting happens and how
voting shifts for a new government to be elected (i.e. in a multiparty system), one needs to gather all
of the votes (empirical data) to see which party wins elections. It can also compare and contrast this
new information with ones that were previously gathered in order to see if there was a voting shift
and if so, by how much. Thus, it uses these empirical tools to describe what is happening. This
approach’s strengths are that it simplifies phenomena in the forms of numbers and graphs and gives
us evidence-based (facts) descriptions of how political institutions and politics (as defined earlier)
work. It’s weaknesses are that this approach needs an overwhelming amount of facts/data to
explain politics, it believes that facts speak for themselves without the use of theory or explanation
(Wasby, 1970:42), disregards people to only focus on laws and the political structure and is only able
to describe what is happening without any sort of explanation.

The behavioural approach studies political behaviour (Van Dyke, 1960:158). Hence, it wants to
understand the political behaviour of people. This means that the behavioural approach studies the
patterns, attitudes and opinions of people (Van Dyke, 1960:160). Hence, it wants to indicate
patterns and establish generalisations, which are both observable and verifiable. To generate
information to understand this phenomenon, one must collect data and statistically analyse this raw
data, thus one must use the empirical approach (Van Dyke, 1960:159). Its strengths are that it
describes what is happening in reality, uses facts to create a generalisation or comment on a pattern
and that it simplifies behavioural phenomena. Its weaknesses are that it is constrained by a
restricted scale of evidence, it cannot form a generalisation with a great amount of data, its lengthy
process and that its scope of focus is too precise (Van Dyke, 1960:160) as well as describing static
events (Wasby, 1970:46).

The systems approach is a form of the behavioural approach, but it evades some of the weaknesses
that the general behavioural has due to the way David Easton theorises his systems approach.
Easton explains his approach in a model. He defines a political system as ‘those interactions through
which values are authoritatively allocated for a society’ (1966:147). This model consists of inputs, a
political system and outputs which are all contained within an environment (domestic and foreign)
(Van Dyke, 1960:161). There are two constituents of inputs: demands and supports (Easton,
1966:150). Demands are things such as demanding service delivery and voting rights, whilst supports
are things such as paying taxes or obeying laws. These inputs then flow into to the political system,
which is government. After the processing of these inputs by government, government generates
outputs due to the inputs. Outputs are things such as passing of laws. There is a feedback loop and
the system continues so that it reaches long-term equilibrium (Easton, 1966:152). Systems theory
explains the study of politics through explaining and understanding the internal behaviour of a
political system and how this system interacts. The reason why this approach also relies on
quantitative methods and descriptive statements is because one needs them in order for this model
to function. For example, one needs to depend on descriptive statements so that demands can be
made, or one would need to collect facts for either government formulating laws (outputs) or
whether to see how well the political system has responded to the inputs through statistics. Its
strengths are that it is able to continually describe events as time passes, use verifiable data and it
simplifies politics through a model, while its weaknesses are that it cannot be prescriptive and that it
cannot see what ‘ought ’to be.
The normative approach is the name the set in which all other approaches that use normative
statements and conceptions are constituted by and veers towards accounts of insight and intuition.
This approach’s key theorists are Hobbes, Plato and Aristotle (Wasby, 1970:38). Political scientist
who adhere to this way of thinking about politics are called, ‘Rationalists’ (Van Dyke, 1960:9). The
normative approach is concerned with how politics ought to be, thus placing emphasis on concepts,
ideals, value statements and to generate theories to explain politics as well as being prescriptive in
doing so. These scientists use normative tools such concepts, values, normative statements, logical
statements and deductive reasoning to form theories. Concepts are ‘a mental construction’ or an
abstract idea that refers either to a certain phenomenon or to characteristics common to some
phenomena (Van Dyke, 1960:62). Thus, they classify similar phenomena and form generalisations.
Normative statements express conceptions of what is desirable (Van Dyke, 1960:8). Logical
statements assign meanings to words and things (Van Dyke, 1960:9). Hence, this statement provide
value the concepts. ‘Deductive reasoning’ is reasoning that follows a statement in order to prove
facts (Van Dyke, 1960:184). Hence, a rationalist would conceptualise (forming generalisations),
allocate value through logical statements, postulating normative statements and using deductive
reasoning. Thus, the rationalist starts in the ‘realm of abstraction/ideas’ and the enters the ‘realm of
reality’ to work through the facts to prove the normative statement as correct as well as be able to
prescribe what should be done in the real world. An example of this is Marxism. Marxism
conceptualises the ideals of fraternity and common ownership, allots value to logical statements
such as ‘bourgeoisie’ and ‘proletariat’, postulating the normative statement: society should have
common ownership and fraternity as it is better than private ownership and individualism, and then
uses this statement in reality to try proving this fact.

Two normative approaches will be discussed, namely: the philosophical and ideological approaches.

The philosophical approach studies politics, as Van Dyke says, ‘to enhance linguistic clarity and
reduce linguistic confusion (1960:129). What this means is that the scientist will use language (an
abstract object) in their normative statements, which they believe, reflects formulations of reality
and make these formulations very comprehensible and make sure no vagueness remains. The
scientist adherent to this approach wants ‘to establish standards of the good, the right, and the just’
(Van Dyke, 1960:130). Hence, the scientist explain how politics should be. To do this the scientist
concepts and the like. To prescribe, he must first use language to express concepts, then using these
concepts state normative statements – these describe the desirable – and then use deductive
reasoning to find the facts to support the statement. The strengths of this approach are that it is
prescriptive and advise what politics should do and that it gives clarity to politics. Its weaknesses are
that it only prescribes and not describes as well as there could not be of any use if there are no real
applications to these statements.

The ideological approach studies politics not only through the study of ideas, but by studying the
influences of these ideas as well as their relationship with political activity. It also explores how
ideologies influence politics. Thus, to do this one must use the normative tools. This approach
depends on these tools for the fact that ideas and ideology are abstract, hence the use of concepts
and normative statements as well as use language to convey their meaning so that they are
intelligible. The strengths of this approach are that it shows the connection between the realm of
‘ideas’ the realm of ‘reality’ and how it affects the latter. Its weakness is that it could lead to
complete abstraction.

Before contrasting the empirical approach to the normative approach, one shall compare the
strengths and weaknesses between each approach within their respective sets.
The institutional approach is good at explaining how politics in the realm of institutions work as it is
its area of concern and is quite evidence-based, but what it lacks is explaining the broader spectrum
of politics as well as assuming of disregarding that each individual is different from each other
(Wasby, 1970:41). This assumption is damaging as the basis of empiricism is the description of our
world, hence it should view that people (who make up these institutions) (Van Dyke, 1960:136) can
also influence the institution or how it is managed, but the institutional approach does not take this
into account. However, the systems approach does take this into account as in its ‘inputs’ the
demands that are made can range from various individuals to companies, thus this approach does
acknowledge differentiation between persons. Furthermore, its political system constitutes of
government and political institutions. Therefore, it is better than the institutional approach as it
integrates, not only political institutions in its approach, but people as well. The system approach is
able to explain politics more broadly and is a more credible form of empiricism as it accounts for
occurring realities that the institutional one does not. Both the behavioural and systems approaches
are also better at explaining behavioural patterns as they focus on individual behaviours – the
former more than the latter. Although this is the case, the systems approach is better than the
behavioural approach because its scope of focus on politics is broader, thus this gives one a better
understanding of politics as a whole. Moreover, the systems approach can explain and describe the
continual motion of events of politics due to its ‘feedback loop’, whilst the behavioural approach can
only explain and describe events one at a time. Out of these three empirical approaches, the
systems approach is the best.

The philosophical approach produces clarity to politics as it defines certain aspects (that are
considered to be reflections of reality), hence it is able give one a better and clearer understanding
of what politics entails, but the ideological approach gives better lucidity as it is able to provide a
connection between the realms of ‘ideas’ and ‘reality’ by showing how ideologies (an abstract
concept) are able to influence people (who are in the real world), thus influencing politics.
Therefore, the ideological approach is primarily prescriptive, but to a certain extent be descriptive
due to the former reason. Hence, proving that it is better than the philosophical approach as the
latter can only prescribe. Yet, both approaches, if not used with caution, could lead to being too
abstract, hence there would be no real-life applications as they would be purely theoretical.
Nonetheless, the ideological approach is better overall.

The empirical approach’s strength lies within the fact that it is able to describe politics in reality
using verifiable facts and being able to simplify phenomena. Thins is powerful as it enables one to
use means that are observable and that these observations could be simplified for common
understanding. But, one could critic this as this approach presumably can only mention facts – ‘facts
speak for themselves’ (Wasby, 1970:42) – therefore, it should be able to explain phenomena by
description only, but this is not the case as mere categorisation does not explain facts; explanation
does. Yet, explanation is a normative conception. Thus, the empirical approach uses the normative
approach unknowingly. It not only does this, but in a sense the empirical approach like the
normative approach also makes generalisations, but with the use of facts. For example, the systems
approach is a model constructed using observations and facts, but this model forms a generalisation
in itself, hence this approach uses a normative concept. A weakness of the empirical approach is that
it requires a great amount of (verifiable) data, which could lead to an overwhelming amount that
would take quite some time to process. Whilst, with the normative approach it could be quicker to
conceptualise, and form statements and ideas compared to analysing the abundance of data. One of
the normative approach’s weaknesses is that it only prescribes how politics should be. This is most
certainly true; one can counter this argument with the ideological approach. It is a normative
approach, yet (to some extent) it is also able to describe politics. Hence, some normative approaches
can prescribe as well as describe. This idea leads to dialectic materialism.

Through the arguments mentioned hereabove, one can see that between the two approaches which
is best suited for us to understand the human condition and environment is the normative approach.
But, there is an even better approach to politics which is dialectical materialism.

According to Chand, Hegel explains that dialectic materialism explains human progress (1994:207).
To show progress, it uses differential and opposing forms, namely: the thesis and antithesis (Wasby,
1960:36) that are separate and then coalesces them together to form a new entity (the synthesis)
(Chand, 1944:208). Hence, in the case of this essay, politics is the progress that must be shown, the
thesis being the normative approach, the antithesis being the empirical approach and the synthesis
being dialectical materialism. From these premises, one can see that dialectic materialism must use
both the normative and empirical approaches. Thus, dialectical materialism will use the tools of the
normative and empirical approach. It will start by using concepts, normative statements and
deductive reasoning to clarify and construct abstract knowledge. It start in the realm of ‘ideas’. Using
the knowledge acquired, it will then move into the realm of ‘reality’ and it will also use verifiable
evidence (facts) to explain politics (the progress). Therefore, this approach, like the ideological
approach, form a bridge between these two ‘realms’. As it uses both approaches, it uses their
strengths and mitigates their weaknesses. For example, the normative approach is to prescriptive
and does not tell one about how politics occurs in reality, but the empirical approach does. Thus, in
dialectical materialism, the disadvantages of one approach is compensated by the other approach it
uses. Therefore, dialectical materialism is the best approach to use for one to strengthen our grasp
of politics.

From this essay, one can see that both the empirical and the normative approach have strengths and
flaws, but the former has a greater amount than the latter. That being said, the empirical approach
uses conceptions of the normative approach, thus the normative approach is one on its own right
and participates in the empirical approach. Prior to dialectical materialism, one concluded that the
normative approach would be a better approach to strengthen one’s comprehension of politics.
Nonetheless, after discussing it, one can see that it does resolve the weaknesses of both approaches.
Hence, this approach is actually best. In conclusion, dialectical materialism is the best approach to
reinforce our grasp of politics.

[Words:3123]
References:

Chand, B. 1944. Dialectical Materialism. The Indian Journal of Political Science. 5(3): 205-221.
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Easton, D. 1965. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. London: John Wiley and Sons.

Easton, D. 1966. Ed. Categories for the Systems Analysis of Politics. In Varieties of Political Theory.
London: Prentice-Hall.

Lenin, V. 1976. Materialism and Empirico-Criticism. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.

Nisbet, R. 1980. History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books.

Van Dyke, V. 1960. Political Science: A Philosophical Analysis. California: Stanford University Press.

Wasby, S. 1970. The Discipline and its Dimensions: An Introduction. New York: Charles Scribner’s
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