Politics and Political Science

Define the concept “Politics”

Politics is the general state of affairs in a country. It is an art of how the government is structured and how it functions. This art studies political parties in a country. In this regard, politics involves studying the norms and laws of a country, governance structures, and management of a country’s economic resources. These are things required to improve the welfare of citizens. However, political science is a discipline that seeks to analyze a country’s political systems and politics. In this regard, political science examines the origin of political systems, their distinct features, and their function (Grigsby, 2019). Political science is a broad discipline that studies how politics are carried out from the local to the international level.

Differentiate Politics from Political Science

Political science studies politics from a scientific perspective. Essentially, political science studies how government and public policy works. The government operates in a political phenomenon. These phenomena are highly unpredictable. In this regard, political science studies the government institutions, government decision making, government processes, laws, constitutions, power, and politicians using scientific methods. Scientific explanations are more appealing when answering political questions. Besides using scientific methods, political scientists scientifically study politics. In this regard, political scientists follow six steps to study political scenarios. First, they formulate a hypothesis. This is where they develop statements showing the relationship between the various phenomena. When developing hypotheses, political scientists relate certain phenomena with certain factors. Secondly, the operationalization of concepts is done. This involves coming up with precise definitions of various terms that are to be used in research (Grigsby, 2019). Operationalizing concepts helps to test the hypothesis empirically. After operationalizing concepts, political scientists proceed to identify variables. For any scientific experiment, there must be independent and dependent variables. Fourth, the correction criteria are developed. These are measures to be used to confirm the validity of the hypothesis. Lastly, political scientists develop theories related to the hypothesis that they had made.

Explain any four main sub-disciplines of Political Science

The traditional approach to politics examined the various government components like constitutions, governmental offices, and laws. Scholars who used this approach studied the government’s various formal rules and how they were governed. For example, when studying the judiciary, political scientists would study the rules that judges use to make decisions. Studying politics using this approach did not yield much information since the researchers focused on studying the inside part of the government as opposed to the social and economic factors of a country. The behavioral approach to politics examined the political behaviors of various political actors. It did not consider the rules and laws like the traditional approach did (Grigsby, 2019). To study Congress for example, a behavioral approach examined the various members of Congress’s actual behaviors. This approach assumes that the decisions made by government institutions are influenced by how the members of these institutions behave. For example, how much legislation that Congress makes depends on the extent to which the members of Congress are committed to their legislative tasks. When using these approaches, political scientists conduct empirical analysis. This is carefully observing the specific actions of political actors.

Political Science is both a science and an art. Explain

The post-behavioral approach is the newest approach used to study politics. The approach emerged in reaction against the empiricism introduced by the behaviorist approach. The post- behaviorist approach argued that politics could not be sufficiently studied through observation only. Politics are not free from values. Because of this, ethical assessments must be done first (Grigsby, 2019). Because of disregarding the ethical aspects of the data used in political science, post-behavioralists regarded the empirical data as unreliable and inconsistent. In this regard, they suggested that considering the ethical implications of data would improve the reliability of information used in the study of politics. The behaviorism approach best characterizes the Freedom in the World 2020 survey. The survey seeks to assess the reason why people believe the way they do. People with different political ideologies have different beliefs and attitudes towards governance. These attitudes influence people’s voting patterns. Since all these are behavioral aspects, a behavioral aspect is being used. Certainly, the survey utilizes the observation method. In this regard, it emphasizes more on empirical analysis. Furthermore, the study uses economic and statistical models to analyze the data collected.

Explain the Social Contract theory as elucidated by Thomas Hobbes

According to the Social Contract Theory, a certain level of individual liberty must be sacrificed to ensure the general welfare. According to Thomas Hobbes, if humanity did what it wanted all of the time; it would perpetually be in a state of warfare. Each individual should relinquish individual liberty to establish a greater sense of collective security (Abdulralman & Akuva, 2020). The inherent right to liberty would be mutually transferable under the terms of the Social Contract. An example of this would be if someone agreed to give up their right to take property from a neighbor in exchange for agreeing to do the same. We are all born into a civil society with rules and contracts in place. According to Hobbes, this agreement to give up part of our inherent rights is not explicit.

References

Abdulralman, A., & Akuva, I. I. (2020). Thomas Hobbes social contract theory and the menace of banditry in Katsina State. FUDMA JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 3(1), 189-198.

Grigsby, E. (2019). Analyzing Politics An Introduction to Political Science. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Seabright, P., Stieglitz, J., & Van der Straeten, K. (2021). Evaluating social contract theory in the light of evolutionary social science. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 3.