Political Science

and the
Study of the Politics
At the end of this module, I can:

1. Identify the subjects of inquiry and goals of political science.

2. Discuss the concept of power as an aspired value in a society.

3. Recognize the value of political science in the 21st century.

POLITICAL SCIENCE
AS A
DISCIPLNE
What is the difference between a political scientist and a
common individual on discussing the efficiency of government
projects? The layman interprets the actions of the government
based on his or her experience of it while the political scientist
uses the rigor of scientific inquiry to evaluate the performance
of the government.
 Political science comes from the Greek words: polis and scire.
Polis refers to the city-state in ancient Greece. The political activities
within polis are later termed as politikus (Latin). Scire means "to know."
Combining the two meanings, political science aims to know the activities
within the state. such activities include the following: human interaction
and conflict, human and the state relations, and power distribution.
 Political theory examines the contemporary application of political
concepts such as human rights, equality, peace, and justice. It seeks to
address the variance of its implementation in societies with the aim of
understanding the nature of these concepts and the elements that affect it.
This field is significant in furthering theory building in the discipline as
much as it provides a conceptual critique of commonly held concepts.
 Comparative politics is a branch of political science that aims to
provide context to the differences in government and political systems. It
examines the parallelism and divergence of political systems to provide
analyses on the factors that make governments efficient and the factors that
make them fail. This field provides a scientific comparison of governments
and political institutions that could help aid policy formulation that is locally
relevant.
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
 The study of state-to-state relations and the wider margin of the
impacts of globalization and the climate change such as terrorism, piracy,
and democratization of non-Western territories fall into the category of
international relations. This field also covers the interaction between states
and nonstage global actors such as international organizations and human
groups.
 Through this field, an understanding of the motivations of global
actors is made possible, and this understanding provides a basis for political
decisions of the parties involved. In the case of campaign against terrorism,
a country that aims to win the favor of the United States ought to rally
behind tihs campaign and dissociate with the blacklisted countries or
political actors.
POLITICAL
BEHAVIOR
This field covers the attitudes, knowledge, and actions of an individual in
response to political variables such as policies created by the government,
behavior of politicians, and general political environment. Works on the political
action repertoire of individuals are categorized under this field as it examines
their psychology toward the system. These types of studies are important for
drafting election campaigns and gauging the electorates' inclination to support a
policy.
PUBLIC
POLICY
This fields inquires on the types of governmental policies and the underlying
motivations for their enactment and implementation. Due to the nature of this
field, it operates with other subdisciplines to create a comprehensive analysis.
This general perspective that policies are created to better the living
conditions within a territory is at times inaccurate, as political actors behind
policy-making are also motivated by personal interests.
 This discipline is significant for evaluating the efficiency of enacted
policies and the possible revisions that it can accommodate. Controversial
policies such as the RH LAW and the HIV/AIDS Law (Philippine AIDS
Prevention and Control Act of 1998) provide a window for analysis on the
actors and factors at play in the Philippine political environment.
 PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
 This branch examines the various administrative schemes implemented
by government officials. it analyzes the strategies applied by administrative units
in implementing the existing policies and the feedback mechanism that they use
to gain the opinion of the public. This field is important in providing scientific
evaluations of the efficiency of administrative units in fulfilling their functions
and the factors that affect them in their pursuit of accomplishing their
deliverables.
 Given the scope and nature of the discipline of political science, it is
oriented toward an applied and interdisciplinary approach. Applied orientation
pervades all of its subdisciplines as they all address contemporary issues on
politics, ethics, and governance. It is interdisciplinary at it uses the frameworks of
other social science disciplines, such as history, sociology, anthropology,
psychology, philosophy, and even demography, to provide contexts to a political
phenomenon. As such, its methods in gathering data is highly inclusive as it uses
both the quantitative and the qualitative approaches.
 DAVID EASTON'S
POLITICAL SYSTEM
MODEL (1957)
A conceptual model that may be used in analyzing the political dynamics
within a society is that of David Eason's political system model (1957).
Easton presents five primary variables in this model: environment, input,
political system, output, and feedback.
The environment consists of the historical, social, and economic conditions of
the society that affects the types of policies accepted and declined by the
electorate. In this category, you should consider questions such as the
following:

• Is this country from the Global North or the Global South?

• Is the country culturally pluralistic or homogenous?

• Does the country have a colonial past?

These are pertinent inquiries as these would yield a background on the types of
responses to the system a society will have.
The next variable is input. This refers to the forms of political events or products
that are needed by the society from its government. This is divided into two
categories: demands and support.

Demands refer to the perceived needs of the population that could better their
lives. This may include better wages, equality in the workplace, and lowered taxes, to
name a few.

Support refers to mechanisms within the system that would allow for such
demands to be facilitated. A demand should also have support from existing structures.
Hence, even if there is general public support for the clamor of the teachers for higher
wages, if there is no facilitating institution to accommodate the needed change, then it
will have lesser chances of being heard by the government.
 The political system acts like a black box through which every form of
demand is sifted and decided upon. It could be either democratic or socialist,
parliamentary or presidential, and unitary or federal. based on the nature of the
political system, the demands are either acted upon or neglected.

The decision of the government toward an input is called an output. This

includes policies, rules, laws, regulations, and projects. Using the example on
wage hike for teachers, the government could grant it by creating a law that would
increase their wages or provide an alternate solution such a deloading teachers of
working requirements to enable them to indulge in other occupations. Whichever
the government decides on, opinions and responses would be made by the affected
sectors. This is referred to as feedback.
 Feedback is important for the system to gauge the efficiency of its
response to a public need. It also provides the government a basis for improving
its response to public demands. Feedback on decisions made by the system can
also affect the types of demands and support that will be made later by the
public.
David Easton’s Theory of Political System
POLITICAL SCIENCE
CONCEPTS
POLITICS
This is the central
concept in the
discipline, as much as
society is to sociology
and the culture is to
anthropology.
 DEFINITIONS OF
POLITICS
THEORIES DEFINITION OF POLITICS
Politics is the interaction between the civil
Alfred Boyer society and the government in the activity of
governance.

Max Weber Politics is the exercise of power within a state.

David Easton Politics is the authoritative allocation of scarce

values.
 Alfred Boyer highlighted the concept of governance or the execution of
laws within a territory a medicated by civil society (sectors of society) and the
government acts as the arbiter of rules and laws within a territory. However, its
power is tempered by the opinion of stakeholders in society.
 David Easton's definition promotes the idea that there are scarce or
limited values in society. That includes power, prestige, and other values that are
held by the select few in the society. As such, competition for these values is
fierce, requiring an authoritative distribution of them.
Max Weber introduced two essential concepts in political science: power and
state.

Power, this implies the capacity to direct and influence the decisions of others.
Hence, Weber's definition corresponds to the interplay of power relations
within a political system.

A state is a political entity that consist of four elements: territory, government,

people, and sovereignty.
A state is a political concept, which makes it intangible unlike its elements.
Two of the defining characteristics of a state are the following: (1) it is
independent from external control and (2) it may consist of many nations.