Politics, Governance and Citizenship

Exercise #1

1. Define Political Science.

Political science is the systematic study of state and its government. It is the studies
behavior for policy making and uses history, methods, hypotheses and theories for its
political conclusions. Political science is the philosophy or study of political events or
situations that structures power and authority.

2. Discuss the Importance in Studying Political Science.

Studying political science is important because it explains the government process that
influence the community and the country which we are a part of. Political science also
enlightens us of our rights and duties that we must serve. We must have knowledge about
political science to understand the power of government and politics that operates the people
and its country.

3. Discuss how other social sciences are related with study of political science.
Political science is also related to other sciences. Through history, political science finds
its facts that are able to explain the nature of polis or state. Economics shape the political
stability of the state. Economics also require the use of policies. Psychology is used in
political science to understand behaviors and give diagnosis about the state’s people.
Political science may also be a subdivision of sociology because it aims to discover social
life. The data given by anthropology shows theories on origin of the state and how it was
developed. Understanding concepts and ethics are both important for philosophy and
political science. Studying the science of geography is important in knowing what approach
a political scientist must take. For law and jurisprudence, legal perspective is important in
politics. And lastly, to be able to analyze theories, statistical analysis and logical approach is
important.

4. Function of Political science and discuss the approaches in studying politics.

The function of political science is to understand and find principle that the government
should use in order to locate what is wrong, make good decisions, and provide
improvements. The first approach is the Traditional or Historical Approach. It is used in
politics to observe the order of the history and the development of government as basis of
study. Next, the Scientific or Behavioral Approach. This is where political science uses
behavior and methods for theories. General Theory Approach shows the interrelationship of
all critical structures to politics and government. Another approach is Systems Approach
which uses interaction of societal environment and political system that is used to search for
cyclical processes for political stability. Structural-Functional Approach shows how political
activities must be performed to maintain stability. The last approach is studying politics is
the Political Economy Approach. This shows the role of government in the economy.