Man, by nature, is a political animal.

- Aristotle

FUNDAMENTALS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics
- Politics (from Greek: politiká, 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are
associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between
individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.
- The term ” politics ” is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics
has been observed in all human group interactions. It consists of social relations
involving authority or power, the regulation of political units, and the methods used to
formulate and apply social policy.
- the art or science of influencing people on a civic, or individual level, when there are
more than 2 people involved
- Politics involves the production, allocation and use of decision-making powers among
large groups of individuals. In unstable and weak states, politics encompasses social
power issues within and outside the boundaries of the 'legitimate' state.
Why study politics?
- Politics Helps You to Know Your Rights
- It has truly educated us on a fundamental part of our society and has helped us to
understand that if we engage in political processes, using the pressure points built into
the system, then every individual really does have the opportunity to change the world.
Social Policy
- Guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive
to human welfare.
State
- Any sovereign polity. A government.
- A state is a polity under a system of governance with a monopoly on force. There is no
undisputed definition of a state. A widely used definition from the German sociologist
Max Weber is that a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of
violence, although other definitions are not uncommon.
- State is defined as a territory with its own government and borders within a larger
country.
- The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the people
and all government authority emanates from them. Section 2.
Political Science
- the systematic study of governance by the application of empirical and generally
scientific methods of analysis. As traditionally defined and studied, political science
examines the state and its organs and institutions.
Power
- is frequently defined by political scientists as the ability to influence the behavior of
others with or without resistance. The term authority is often used for power perceived
as legitimate by the social structure. People use more than rewards, threats and
information to influence others.
- Power, authority, jurisdiction, control, command, sway, dominion mean the right to
govern or rule or determine. power implies possession of ability to wield force, authority,

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle
or influence. The power to mold public opinion authority implies power for a specific
purpose within specified limits.
- German sociologist Max Weber, who said that power is the ability to exercise one’s will
over others (Weber 1922). Power affects more than personal relationships; it shapes
larger dynamics like social groups, professional organizations, and governments.
Similarly, a government’s power is not necessarily limited to control of its own citizens. A
dominant nation, for instance, will often use its clout to influence or support other
governments or to seize control of other nation states. Efforts by the U.S. government to
wield power in other countries have included joining with other nations to form the Allied
forces during World War II, entering Iraq in 2002 to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime,
and imposing sanctions on the government of North Korea in the hopes of constraining
its development of nuclear weapons.
- Modern technology has made such forms of nonviolent reform easier to implement.
Today, protesters can use cell phones and the Internet to disseminate information and
plans to masses of protesters in a rapid and efficient manner. In the Arab Spring
uprisings, for example, Twitter feeds and other social media helped protesters
coordinate their movements, share ideas, and bolster morale, as well as gain global
support for their causes. Social media was also important in getting accurate accounts of
the demonstrations out to the world, in contrast to many earlier situations in which
government control of the media censored news reports. Notice that in these examples,
the users of power were the citizens rather than the governments. They found they had
power because they were able to exercise their will over their own leaders. Thus,
government power does not necessarily equate to absolute power.
Political power
- Political power is the ability to control the behavior of people and/or influence the
outcome of events. Political power enables people or groups to control the policies,
functions, and culture of society.
Authority
- The term authority identifies the political legitimacy, which grants and justifies the ruler's
right to exercise the power of government; and the term power identifies the ability to
accomplish an authorized goal, either by compliance or by obedience; hence, authority
is the power to make decisions and the legitimacy.
- Authority refers to accepted power—that is, power that people agree to follow according
to specific procedures. People listen to authority figures because they feel that these
individuals are worthy of respect, or because they are in a position that inherently carries
a degree of respect. Generally speaking, people perceive the objectives and demands of
an authority figure as reasonable, legitimate, beneficial, or true.
Influence
- is the power to make other people agree with your opinions or do what you want.

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle

NATION AND STATE

Nation
- a large group of people linked by a similar culture, language, and history.
- A Nation is a large group of people who are linked by a similar culture, language, and
history. Members of some nations share an ethnicity (almost everyone in South Korea is
Korean, for example), whereas other nations consist of ethnically diverse groups of
people (the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Singapore, for instance).
However, the members of a nation see themselves as connected. Fellow members are
often regarded as part of an extended family. Many members of a nation take pride in
being a part of something bigger than themselves as individuals, and they celebrate their
nation.
State
- a political unit that has sovereignty over a particular piece of land.
- A State is a political unit that has sovereignty over a particular piece of land. Sovereignty
is the ultimate power within a territory. So the state has the power to make laws, defend
its borders, and enact policies. The state also exercises a monopoly on the legitimate
use of force: No group within its borders can use force legally without the permission of
the state. In the United States, we use the word state to mean something more akin to
the word province (the difference being that American states have more political
autonomy and power than provinces in most other countries). But political scientists use
the word state as a synonym for sovereign governments.
Nation-State
- a state that rules over a single nation
- Because the nation-state dominates so much political discourse, many political scientists
specialize in understanding how nation-states work internally, as well as how they relate
to one another.
Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex
- Salus populi est suprema lex. The welfare of the people is the supreme law. ... It is a
recognition that laws and rules derive their value from how well they serve their purpose
of protecting and promoting the public good.
The Justice Secretary on the SC decision on the constitutionality of R.A.
10153,
October 18, 2011
Statement of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima:
On the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of Republic Act No.
10153 [Release on October 18, 2011]
Salus populi est suprema lex. The welfare of the people is the supreme law.

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle

TYPES OF GOVERNMENT
Monarchy
- a political system based upon the undivided sovereignty or rule of a single person. The
term applies to states in which supreme authority is vested in the monarch, an individual
ruler who functions as the head of state and who achieves his or her position through
heredity. Most monarchies allow only male succession, usually from father to son.
● absolute
- Absolute Monarchy was a Government with a sovereign leader who came into
power by marriage or offspring; they had complete control with no limitations
from constitution or law. They were considered the head of state and head of
Government.
- Which countries have absolute monarchies? In Vatican City, Brunei, Swaziland,
Saudi Arabia and Oman absolute power is vested in a single person and the
monarch is the head of the state as well as the government. Qatar is also an
absolute monarchy, but the head of state and head of the government are
different persons.
● limited/constitutional
- Filters. A government in which a monarch agrees to share power with a
parliament and abide by a constitution; also known as a constitutional monarchy.
- A ceremonial monarchy is a limited monarchy that's practiced in the United
Kingdom and Japan. Both countries have a prime minister that's the head of the
executive branch of government, leaving the Queen and Emperor, respectively,
as public figureheads.
Authoritarian
- Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political
plurality, the use of a strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and
reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.
- A government who is more concerned with having people obey laws than in people
having some freedom is an example of an authoritarian government. The definition of an
authoritarian is a person who expects everyone to do what he says to do. A dictator is an
example of an authoritarian.
Aristocracy
- Aristocracy is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small,
privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia,
meaning 'rule of the best'.
Oligarchy
- Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of
people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics,
such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military
control.

Democracy
With great power comes great responsibility.
- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle
- government in which power and civic responsibility are exercised by all adult citi- zens,
directly, or through their freely elected rep- resentatives. Democracy rests upon the
principles of majority rule and individual rights.
- The word democracy comes from the Greek words "demos", meaning people, and
"kratos" meaning power; so democracy can be thought of as "power of the people": a
way of governing which depends on the will of the people.
- There are so many different models of democratic government around the world that it is
sometimes easier to understand the idea of democracy in terms of what it definitely is
not. Democracy, then, is not autocracy or dictatorship, where one person rules; and it is
not oligarchy, where a small segment of society rules. Properly understood, democracy
should not even be "rule of the majority", if that means that minorities' interests are
ignored completely. A democracy, at least in theory, is the government on behalf of all
the people, according to their "will".
● pure/direct democracy
- forms of direct participation of citizens in democratic decision making, in contrast
to indirect or representative democracy.
● indirect/ republican/ representative democracy
- Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of
democracy founded on the principle of elected persons representing a group of
people, in contrast to direct democracy. Representative democracy places power
in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people.
Mobocracy
- a political system in which a mob is the source of control; government by the masses.
- ochlocracy, the members of a social organization who are in power.
Unitary
- A unitary state, or unitary government, is a governing system in which a single central
government has total power over all of its other political subdivisions. In a unitary state,
the political subdivisions must carry out the directives of the central government but have
no power to act on their own.
Federal
- A federal system of government is one that divides the powers of government between
the national (federal) government and state and local governments. The Constitution of
the United States established the federal system, also known as federalism.
Presidential
- The Philippines is a republic with a presidential form of government wherein power is
equally divided among its three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The
government seeks to act in the best interests of its citizens through this system of check
and balance.
Parliamentary
- The parliamentary system typically has clear differentiation between the head of
government and the head of state, with the former being the Prime Minister and the
latter, the President. In the parliamentary system, there is a fusion of powers between
the executive and the legislative branches.

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle

What type of government do we have in the

Philippines?
- The Philippines is a republic with a presidential form of government wherein power is
equally divided among its three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Executive
● Supreme Court
- The Supreme Court is the highest court in the Philippines. The Supreme Court
was established by the Second Philippine Commission on June 11, 1901 through
the enactment of its Act No. 136, an Act which abolished the Real Audiencia de
Manila, the predecessor of the Supreme Court.
- Its principal function is the supervision and administration of the lower courts
throughout the Philippines and all their personnel. It reports and recommends to
the Supreme Court all actions that affect the lower court management.
● Ombudsman
- The Ombudsman of the Philippines, also known as Tanodbayan ng Pilipinas, is
an ombudsman responsible for investigating and prosecuting Philippine
government officials accused of crimes, especially graft and corruption.
● Cabinet Secretary
- 21 executive
- Currently, it includes the secretaries of 21 executive departments and the heads
of several other minor agencies and offices that are subordinate to the president
of the Philippines.
- Established in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Cabinet's role is to
advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of each
member's respective office.
Legislative (power of the purse (GAB))
- Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the “power
of the purse,” the ability to tax and spend public money for the national government.
- The legislative branch is made up of the House and Senate, known collectively as the
Congress. Among other powers, the legislative branch makes all laws, declares war,
regulates interstate and foreign commerce and controls taxing and spending policies.
Judicial
● Issuance of TRO
- A temporary restraining order (TRO) is a legal document issued by a judge
before trial that forces or prevents an action for a specified time frame. During
court cases that involve trademark infringement or the use of a trade secret, a
TRO can halt patent, copyright, or trademark infringement in the short term.

APPROACHES IN STUDYING POLITICS

With great power comes great responsibility.
- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle
Pluralism
- sees politics primarily as a contest among competing interest groups. It holds the view
that politics and decision making are located mostly in the framework of government, but
many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence.
Elite or managerial theory is sometimes called a state-centered approach.
- It posits that a small minority—consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-
planning networks—holds the most power and that this power is independent of a state’s
democratic elections process.
Social class theory analysis
- emphasizes the political power of capitalist elites.
Marxism
- Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx. It
examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and
argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favor of communism.
- The slogan represents the simplest version of his view of the state“the capitalist state
serves as the managing committee of the bourgeoisie”. He generally regarded
government and law as an expression of class interests.

Analytical Perspective in Studying Politics

1. Behavioralism
- Behavioralism, which was one of the dominant approaches in the 1950s and
'60s, is the view that the subject matter of political science should be limited to
phenomena that are independently observable and quantifiable. Perhaps the
most important behavioral contributions to political science were election studies.
- “It is a movement in political science which insists on analysing only observable
behaviour of political actors”.
- In this definition there are two things which demand mention. It is a movement,
and behaviouralism is based on the observable behaviour of individuals who are
regarded as political actors. Behaviouralism starts an in-depth analysis by
scrutinising the political behaviour of individuals.
- denotes that it is an “attempt to improve our understanding of politics by seeking
to explain the empirical aspects of political life by means of methods, theories
and criteria of proof that are acceptable according to the canons, conventions
and assumption of modern empirical science.”
2. Rational Choice
- also called rational action theory or choice theory, school of thought based on the
assumption that individuals choose a course of action that is most in line with
their personal preferences. Rational choice theory is used to model human
decision making, especially in the context of microeconomics, where it helps
economists better understand the behaviour of a society in terms of individual
actions as explained through rationality, in which choices are consistent because
they are made according to personal preference. Rational choice theory

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire
 Man, by nature, is a political animal.
- Aristotle
increasingly is applied to other areas as well, including evolutionary theory,
political science, and warfare.
3. New Institutionalism
- Neoinstitutionalism, also spelled neo-institutionalism, also called new
institutionalism, methodological approach in the study of political science,
economics, organizational behaviour, and sociology in the United States that
explores how institutional structures, rules, norms, and cultures constrain the
choices and actions of individuals when they are part of a political institution.
Such methodology became prominent in the1980s among scholars of U.S.
politics. That so-called new institutionalism combined the interests of traditionalist
scholars, who focused on studying formal institutional rules and structures, with
behaviorist scholars, who examined the actions of individual political actors.
4. Interpretive theory
- Interpretive political science focuses on the meanings that shape actions and
institutions, and the ways in which they do so. Interpretive theory claims that
meanings are constitutive of actions. Political scientists can discuss actions and
institutions properly only by evoking the intentionality of the actors.
5. Discourse Theory
- Discourse theory proposes that in our daily activities the way we speak and write
is shaped by the structures of power in our society, and that because our society
is defined by struggle and conflict our discourses reflect and create conflicts
6. Feminism
- Feminist political theory is a diverse subfield of feminist theory working towards
three main goals: To understand and critique the role of gender in how political
theory is conventionally construed. To support political science presuming and
pursuing gender equality.
7. Post Colonialism
- Postcolonialism examines how societies, governments and peoples in the
formerly colonised regions of the world experience international relations. The
use of 'post' by postcolonial scholars by no means suggests that the effects or
impacts of colonial rule are now long gone.
8. Ecologism
- Political ecology is the study of the intersection and relationship between the
political, broadly understood, and environmental and ecological phenomena. ...
Political ecology engages concern for sustainable politics. This concern leads to
exploration of the state, democracy, participation, and power.

With great power comes great responsibility.

- Voltaire