Political Science For Dummies

Marcus A. Stadelmann

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119674771
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Expand your political science knowledge with a book that explains concepts in a way anyone can understand!

The global political climate is dynamic, at times even volatile. To understand this evolving landscape, it's important to learn more about how countries are governed. Political Science For Dummies explores the questions that political scientists examine, such as how our leaders make decisions, who shapes political policy, and why countries go to war. The book is the perfect course supplement for students taking college-level, introductory political science courses. Political Science For Dummies is a guide that makes political science concepts easier to grasp.

• Get a better understanding of political ideologies, institutions, policies, processes, and behavior
• Explore topics such as class, government, diplomacy, law, strategy, and war
• Learn the specialized vocabulary within the field of political science
• Help prepare for a range of careers, from policy analyst to legislative assistant

Political science crosses into many other areas of study, such as sociology, economics, history, anthropology, international relations, law, statistics, and public policy. Those who want to understand the implications of changing political economies or how governing bodies work can look to Political Science For Dummies. It's the book thatcuts through the jargon as it focuses on issues that interest readers.

Part 1

Understanding Political Science

IN THIS PART …

Discover what politics is all about and why it’s relevant to every person alive and thus needs to be studied.

Find out how political science developed from being very descriptive and nonexplanatory to a discipline that today tests propositions and creates theories to try to explain global behavior and conflict.

Explore how political culture determines how people act politically in their countries. Plus, find out how the process of political socialization of people, referring to how people receive their political values, determines how they behave politically.

Chapter 1

Discovering the Discipline of Political Science

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding what politics and political science entail

Finding out about political power

Looking into sources of legitimacy

Political science is the study of politics and more precisely power. Politics is the process by how government decisions are made. It involves some members of society making decisions for all of society because they hold political power over others. Politics, in turn, determines who gets what, where, when, and how. For this reason, politics is an ongoing competition between individuals, groups, or even nation-states. In the United States, politics can involve two interest groups competing for benefits from the government. At the international level, politics could be a competition for natural resources, such as oil, or new powerful allies.

A political scientist is interested in who holds political power in a society, what type of political institutions (forms of government) are best suited to bring about the least amount of conflict, and what form of government is best for its citizens. To be more precise, political scientists are interested in who gets elected to office, how elections are won, how policy is made, how leaders maintain themselves in power, and the all-important question, why does war occur and could it be prevented?

This chapter looks at the study of politics and political science, including the beginnings of political science.

Looking at Politics and Political Science

Many believe that political science is a way of training for future politicians. Although taking a political science class can be helpful if you want to venture into politics, this isn’t what political science is all about. Political science is a method or a way to study politics.

Political science is an academic discipline that studies the relationship between people and political institutions. A discipline is a field of study usually represented by an academic department at a college or university. Political science is a discipline, and so are history, sociology, and biology.

Politics impacts people daily, and most of the time they’re not aware of it. Politics determines tax rates, the way businesses are run, the textbooks a child uses in high school, and even how much a person pays for a gallon of milk in the grocery store.

Going back to the history of political science

The founder of the discipline of political science is the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle (see Figure 1-1). He referred to political science as a master science, because everything in life can be political in nature. Aristotle was the first political scientist to collect data and then base his research on it.

Aristotle and his teacher Plato were concerned with the decline of his home city-state Athens. He wanted to know what caused the decline of his beloved Athens and more important how to save Athens. So he sent his students to the other Greek city-states to gather data. He wanted to know why some city-states were doing well and why others weren’t. Based on the data his students collected, Aristotle wrote his famous book Politics. In it, he describes the various forms of governments and institutions his students discovered in the Greek city-states. Then he discusses his own preferences. Political science and normative theory (see Chapter 2) were born.

The term politics comes from the ancient Greek polis, which means city-state. The first person to use the term was Aristotle, who lived during the time of the Greek city-states dominating Greek politics. So politics for Aristotle referred to the interaction between the Greek city-states.

Source: Bridgeman Images

FIGURE 1-1: Greek philosopher Aristotle is credited with founding political science.

A city-state, or polis, was the dominant political structure of ancient Greece. Each city-state had an urban center, walls for protection, and controlled a piece of the surrounding countryside. There were over 1,000 city-states, and the largest ones were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse, and Rhodes. Each city-state ruled itself and had a different form of government. For example, Athens was a democracy while Sparta was ruled by two kings and a council of elders.

Being a part of the social sciences

Political science is a part of the social sciences. Social sciences study how people interact with each other, how they behave toward others, and how power is distributed and used within societies. Social sciences include anthropology, economics, criminology, political science, sociology, and psychology. The social sciences that political science heavily draws on contribute to political science in the following manner:

• Sociology: The discipline of sociology studies human beings and how they interact. Sociology focuses on how small and large groups form and become large organizations, even nation-states. Political scientists use sociology to explain the behavior of small groups, such as members of a parliament, and the creation of large groups, such as nation-states. In addition, studies are conducted on how people acquire and maintain power within groups.
• Economics: The discipline of economics is important for the political scientist. Economics and politics often intersect. The political scientist uses economics to examine government programs such as social security or to discuss international trade agreements or even punitive sanctions.
• Anthropology: Anthropology is the study of ancient and modern-day cultures. The discipline is useful for political scientists when conducting culture studies (see Chapter 3). Anthropology allows the political scientist to compare processes, norms, and institutions in different societies. For example, political scientists for decades have studied cultural aspects that maintain or destroy democracy in a nation-state. Also, as Chapter 12 shows, certain cultural traits can make societies more aggressive and warlike in the international arena. Anthropology helps find these cultures and hopefully change them to prevent global conflict.
• Psychology: Psychology studies the way human beings think and behave within the national or international system. The political scientist can use psychology to analyze people, studying voting behavior in countries or examining the leading politicians in different countries to see how and why they make certain decisions.

All social sciences have impacted and still impact the discipline of political science. It’s impossible to be a political scientist without having knowledge of the other social sciences.

Being fragmented

The discipline of political science itself isn’t a cohesive discipline but actually is made up of various subfields, which in turn are broken down into more subfields. They are

• American politics: The study of American politics involves studying American political institutions such as Congress or the presidency, as well as local or state governments. For example, the study of Texas politics falls into this category. Further, it includes the role of political parties and interest groups as well as the American electorate. Today, subfields within American politics have developed. They include public administration, which studies bureaucracies; public policy making; and the role of courts, which looks on the evolution of the constitution.
• Comparative politics: Comparative politics studies other nations and cultures. It creates theories and frameworks that explain why and what happens and then identifies similar patterns and differences between political systems. Comparative Politics compares, for example, American culture to Swedish culture or looks at the voting behavior of Australians and compares it to U.S. voters. In addition, comparative politics studies various forms of governments (authoritarian, totalitarian, or democratic) and creates theories or concepts on the foundations for democracy (see Chapter 3).
• International relations: International relations studies relationships between nation-states. It looks at international conflict, diplomacy, and international organizations and discusses issues such as human rights and terrorism. It also has two subfields: international political economy, which analyzes how economics and politics impact each other, and foreign policy studies, which looks at the interaction of countries with foreign nations.
• Political theory: Political theory studies the great thinkers of the past and present. Most political scientists believe that the great Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato set the foundation for political science. Political theory studies how and why people behave in a certain way politically and develops theories about the nature of people, the nature of liberty and freedom, ethics, and the role of the individual within a political system. It further includes studies on political ideologies, such as fascism, communism, and the various types of democracies.

Studying Political Power

Political science is the study of power. The discipline is enamored with the concept of power, namely how A gets B to do what A wants. Therefore, political science studies who holds power and how it’s being used.

Political power is the ability to get others to do what you want. It can take force or peaceful means, such as persuasion, to achieve this. Political power is exercised over people in many ways. In the U.S., for example, the federal government exercises political power over its population by forcing its citizens to pay taxes. Who would volunteer to pay taxes once a year unless the federal government had the power to force someone to pay up! Most important, this use of power of the U.S. government is considered rightful by its population. Therefore, the federal government possesses the legitimate use of power over its population.

The term government describes the people and institutions that are responsible for making laws and policies in a country.

Exercising political power

In th...