Political Science
Political science is the systematic study of politics, power, and government — how collective decisions are made, how authority is organized and contested, and how institutions, behaviour, and ideas shape the distribution of power within and among societies.
Scope
The discipline includes political theory, comparative politics, international relations, public policy and administration, and political behaviour and methodology. It studies states, institutions, elections, parties, public opinion, and conflict, using normative, qualitative, and quantitative methods.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What is the basis of legitimate political authority?
- How are collective decisions made and power distributed?
- Why do some political institutions and regimes endure while others fail?
- What explains citizens' political attitudes and behaviour?
- What makes democracy emerge and survive?
Key concepts
- Power and authority
- Legitimacy
- The state and sovereignty
- Democracy
- Political institutions
- Political culture
- Collective action
- Representation
Key theories
- Classical and normative political theory
- From Aristotle's comparative analysis of constitutions to Machiavelli's realism and Hobbes's social-contract justification of sovereign authority, classical theory frames enduring questions of order, legitimacy, and the good polity.
- Behaviouralism and systems analysis
- Mid-century, Easton's systems framework and the behavioural movement reoriented the discipline toward empirical, theory-driven study of political behaviour and processes.
- Rational choice and political economy
- Downs applied economic reasoning to voting and party competition, founding the rational-choice analysis of politics.
- Modernization, civic culture, and democracy
- Lipset linked economic development to democracy, and Almond and Verba's comparative study of political culture connected citizens' attitudes to democratic stability.
History
Political inquiry dates to antiquity (Aristotle) and classical political philosophy (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau). As a modern academic discipline it institutionalized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The mid-twentieth-century behavioural revolution (Easton, Dahl) made it more empirical and quantitative; rational-choice theory (Downs) and comparative work on democratization (Lipset, Almond & Verba) followed, and the field remains methodologically pluralist.
Debates
- Who really governs?
- Pluralist accounts of dispersed power (Dahl) contend with elite and class theories holding that a small group dominates political outcomes.
- Does economic development cause democracy?
- Modernization theory's claim that development promotes democracy (Lipset) is contested by accounts stressing institutions, sequencing, and contingency.
Key figures
- Aristotle
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Thomas Hobbes
- David Easton
- Anthony Downs
- Seymour Martin Lipset
- Robert Dahl
- Gabriel Almond
- Sidney Verba
Related topics
Seminal works
- aristotle-politics
- hobbes-1651
- easton-1953
- downs-1957
- lipset-1959
- almond-verba-1963
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between political science and political theory?
- Political theory is the normative and conceptual subfield (justice, legitimacy, rights); political science more broadly includes empirical study of institutions, behaviour, and processes.
- How does political science relate to international relations?
- International relations is conventionally a major subfield of political science focused on relations among states and global politics, though it is often organized as a discipline in its own right.