note on introduction to political science

1. INTRODUCTION
TO POLITICAL
SCIENCE
Ismael Buchanan, PhD
Center for Conflict
Management (CCM)
University of Rwanda

2. Agenda
 Unit 2: The Subject Matter Of Political
Science
 1.0 Introduction
 2.0 Objectives
 3.0 Main Content
 4.0 Conclusion
 5.0 Summary
 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
 7.0 References/Further Reading

3. Introduction
 In the previous unit, you learnt about what
politics is all about and the development of
political science as a field of study. This unit
introduces us to the subject matter of political
science as well as analyses the various
approaches to the study of politics.

4. Objectives
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
 the subject matter of Political Science
 Differentiate between the various approaches
to the study of politics.

5. Political Science as subject Matter
 Political science like many subjects such as
Economics and History were once part of
Philosophy. But today, political science has
gained its own independence and has
developed many fields and sub-disciplines
some of which we discus briefly.

6. Political Philosophy
 from Plato to early 20th century, political
philosophy was concerned with the values
that were regarded as essential for the good
citizen and a just state. The questions then
were as they are today:
 What is justice?
 What makes political power and its exercise
legitimate?

7.  What is the sanction for rebellion against
the authority of the state?
 How should property and the other forms of
material possession be distributed among
citizens?
 To what extent should citizens be entitled to
participate in the decision-making
processes of government?

8. Cont..
 Answers to these and similar questions have
been and will continue to be endlessly
debated because the “answers” are based on
value-judgement and not facts

9. Cont..
 It is concerned with the normative
implications the way the state and society
ought to behave, given certain fundamental
human values.

10. Judicial and Legal Process
 The questions which arise within this sub-
discipline are:
 How do constitutions affect the operation of
government, and how do the operations of
government affect the development of
constitutions?
 How are the laws administered, interpreted
and enforced?

11. Cont..
 What are the rights of citizens under the
law?
 If the constitution of a state is the supreme
law of the land, which agency of
government has the final word in
determining the meaning of the law-in fact
as well as in theory?

12. Cont..
 How are conflicts between the Legislative,
Executive, and Judicial branches of
government resolved?
 How are the jurisdictions of Federal and
State governments defined?

13. Executive Process
 The most visible symbol of a state is its
President, Prime Minister, King, Chancellor.
 How is he or she selected or elected?
 What are the formal and informal
responsibilities? How does he or she exercise
the powers inherent in his/her office?

14. Cont..
 What are these roles, and how do they
complement or conflict with one another
according to his or her personality, ambition
and goals?

15. Cont..
 Kings, Prime Ministers and presidents all
require staffs of executive assistants, for the
performance of their duties in office.
 The study of the executive process then is in
large part the study of bureaucracy – the way
it is organized and the way it functions.

16. Administrative Organization and
Behaviour
 Political science is also concerned with the
behaviour of administrators themselves at all
levels of the bureaucratic administrators
themselves at all levels of the bureaucratic
hierarchy.
 How decisions are made?
 How is it that the best made plans of
administrators often produced unintended
results or no result?

17. Cont..
 Not responsible to the voters, perhaps
enjoying the professional security of a civil
service appointment,
 how can an administrator be motivated to
perform his tasks with a sense of
responsibility to the public interest?

18.  To answer these questions, researchers often
rely on detailed case studies that trace the
interaction of a specific governmental
programme.
 Researchers conduct interviews and go
through original documents in order to reach a
conclusion as to how certain things get done
within an organization such as business
corporations, the trade unions, the University,
etc.

19. Legislative Politics
 How are laws made in terms of the clash of
interests inside and outside the legislative
arena?
 How do the rules and procedures of the
legislature, its system of committees and sub-
committees, affect the substance of legislative
policy?

20. Cont…
 The legislature functions primarily as the
watchdog of the Executive.
 How successful are they in monitoring the
operations of executive agencies and in
maintaining the political responsibility of
administrator to rank-and-file citizens through
their elected representatives?

21. Cont..
 How well do legislators attend to the diverse
needs of their many constituents?

22. Approaches to the Study of
Politics
 Political scientists have adopted several
approaches to the study of politics.
 Approaches provide the political scientist with
the conceptual framework in understanding
political life.

23. Traditional Approaches
 There are two major approaches under the
traditional approaches
 The historical and
 The institutional approaches to the study of
political process

24.  The historical approach relies mainly on the
facts of the past to explain the present and
probable future political development within
political institutions and process.
 By contrast, the traditional/institutional
approach emphasizes philosophy, law, logic,
norms, values and institutions as much as the
historical approach.

25. Philosophers of that time
 Under the traditional approach, certain basic
questions dominated the attention of such
great traditional political philosophers as
Plato, Aristotle, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacque,
Rousseau.

26. Behavioural Approach
 Behaviouralism was developed by American
political scientists as an alternative to the
traditional approaches in the 1940s and
1950s.
 This approach concentrates on careful
observation of individual behaviour in the
political process and less on state political
institutions

27. Cont..
 Behaviorists use more statistical methods, on
testing hypothesis than other political
scientists.
 They insist that it is only through practical
approach, measurements and facts that
political science can move towards being a
science than mere descriptive formalism and
political philosophy.

28. Cont..
 Behaviorism as an approach is an
improvement in methodology upon the
traditional approaches and it is a reflection of
the rapid growth of the discipline.

29. Philosophers of that time
 The major behavioralists in this era included
such notable intellectuals as David Easton,
Robert Dahl, Karl Deutsch, Gabriel Almond,
David Truman and others

30. Systems Analysis Approach
 System analysis is an attempt by David
Easton, its originator to apply general systems
theories to political science. In this pioneering
effort, Easton insisted that political system “is
that system of interactions in any society
through which binding or authoritative
allocations (legistrations or act) are made

31. Structural Functionalism
Approach
 It focuses largely on explaining the functions a
political system must perform to survive and
defines structures or organizations which can
most efficiently perform the functions.

32. Cont..
 The structures may be political parties,
pressure groups or formal government
institutions performing system-maintenance
functions such as informing the electorate on
important issues and allowing for wider
participation in the political system.

33. Cont..
 Although the approach cannot provide a
general theory for all aspects of political
science, nevertheless, it provides standard
categories for different political system and
therefore useful in comparative
government/politics.

34. Class Analysis Approach
 This is the most radical approach in political
science. The approach focuses on division of
society into classes and how this social
stratification determines social conflict and
social change.

35.  Most Marxist political scientists insist that
class exist in all societies because of the
nature of mode of production.
 They insist that those who own the means of
production take decisions that affect the lives
of workers who work for pay.

36. Cont..
 It further explains that those who own the
means of production continue to expropriate
the surplus wealth created by workers; and
that it is this class relationship that has
brought about class antagonism and class
wars/revolutions.

37. Political Parties and Interest
Groups Approach
 Many political scientists believe that the
legislative process in Parliament or Assembly
is primarily an institution that structures the
conflict of interests and demands expressed
by political parties.

38. Cont..
 The job of political scientists with this kind of
concern is the analyses of the organization
and behaviour of these groups in and out of
Parliament, Assembly or Congress.

39.  From the standpoint of “group theory”, and in
fact passed by the legislature it expresses
mainly the prevailing distribution of influence
among competing groups, each of them
seeking to advance its own particular interest,
thus, we may ask what interest do these
groups truly represent?

40.  In the case of political parties, their
membership, political access, and policies
structured by the electoral system very much
determine their rules in the legislative or
executive branches of government.

41. Cont…
 The concerns of the political scientists using
this approach are:
 where does the political party, draw their
support from? Do their policies and
programmes differ from each other? How do
they make decisions?

42. Cont..
 How do they select their leaders? How do
they raise money and to what extent power is
concentrated or diffused throughout the
organization hierarchy?
 These are the vital questions that most
political scientists working within this
approach must adopt in the research aims
and objectives.

43. Voting and Public Opinion
Approach
 The important questions which political
scientists working with this approach are as
follows:
 What is the “mind” of the public? How do the
opinions, attitudes, and beliefs of citizens
affect the policy making political elites? What
motivate citizens to vote or not to vote? Are
voters more concerned about issues or about
personality of particular candidates?

44. Cont..
 Is the voter voting for a particular party
because of long standing loyalty to that party,
regardless of its candidates or position to the
major issues of the day? And how do the
various orientations of voters relate to their
level of education, their age, sex, race,
religion, income and place of residence?

45. Comparative Politics Approach
 When political scientists look at the political
parties or socialization processes of two or
more countries, they are able to clarify their
generalizations about a particular political
system because its characteristics are
highlighted by comparison with those of other
political systems.

46. Cont..
 Comparative political analysis is also an aid in
understanding and identifying those
characteristics which may be universal to the
political process, regardless of time or place.

47. Political Development Approach
 political development are today concerned
with the effects of urbanization and economic
development on political organization and
behaviour, with education, with the way which
political change and socio-economic
development affect the more fundamental
differences, between various ethnic and
religious groups within the same society.

48. International Politics and
Organisations Approach
 The focus in this sub-discipline is on the
resources that help explain differences in the
distribution of international power, the
circumstances that contribute to a balance of
power between competing states or to a
breakdown in the balance of power, the
interests represented by the alliances
between states and the pattern of conflict and
cooperation between blocs of aligned and
nonaligned states; UN, EU..

49. SUMMARY
 In this unit, we have looked at the
preoccupation of Political science. We also
identified the various approaches and lenses
that political scientists employ in the study of
politics. A word of a caution to you as a
student of politics: these approaches should
be seen as complementing each other rather
than standing alone, as most at times they
find themselves overlapping.

51.  THANK YOU SO MUCH
 MURAKOZE CYANE
 MERCI BCP
 ASANTENI SANA
 SHUKURAN

52. ASSIGNMENT
 Critique the various approaches to the study
of politics.

53.  What motivate citizens to vote or not to vote?
 where does the political party, draw their
support from? Do their policies and
programmes differ from each other? How do
they make decisions?

54. Tutor marked assign..
 How successful the branch of legislature
monitors the operations of executive
agencies.?
 how can an administrator/executive be
motivated to perform his/her tasks with a
sense of responsibility to the public interest?

55.  How are the jurisdictions of Federal and State
governments defined?

56. Methods of Political
Science
 In over a century a number of methods, which
may also be called methodology, have been,
and are still being used. Without its own
method, Political Science will not qualify as a
discipline.

57. Cont..
 But over time the methods are changing in
order to cope with new challenges, and as
John Mason stated “the man who uses
yesterday’s method in today’s world won’t be
in business tomorrow”.
 Therefore, the general recognized methods of
political science include the following:

58. Historical Method
 The central idea here is that the historical
method seeks an explanation of what the past
institutions are, in order to appreciate what
they have been so as to know their enduring
value, if any.
 It is also pointed out that with the experience
of the past one will be able to avoid repeating
the blunders of the past.

59. Its advantages
 The importance of this method lies in the fact
that it not only explains the past it also
enables us to draw dependable conclusions.
 The historical method also supplies us with
basic principles for interpreting the future.

60. Cont.
 The historical method has the additional
advantage of enlarging mental horizon;
improve the perspective and builds up an
attitude towards past events.

61. Observational Method
 This method entails a close observation of the
political phenomena under study. This is
because things are best studied by direct
observation, in politics personal conversation
or interactions with legislators and
administrators may yield many fruitful results.

62.  The observational method involves great
difficulties because the authentication of facts
is far more laborious in political science than
in other subjects.
 This because the process of government
presents many perspectives and one may not
be able to see all at a time. What appears on
the surface may be but a small part of the
reality beneath.

63. Experimental Method
 It should be admitted at the onset that
“scientific” experimentation as it is done in the
natural sciences is not possible in political
science.
 By adopting what is known as counter factual
which rely on plausible sequence of historical
facts, political scientists can arrive
conclusions that are close to verifiable
scientific findings.

64. Cont..
 August Comte argues that every political
change whether conscious or otherwise, is a
sort of experiment.
 Every new policy, every new law passed and
every change made in the political structure
and organization is experimental in the sense
that such a change is merely tentative or
provisional.

65. Cont..
 PS is therefore experimental not in the sense
that laboratory controlled experiments is
possible but not only in the very limited sense
that conscious and unconscious sex
perimental data from direct observation can
be collected, hypothesis formulated and valid
political theories formulated.

66. Comparative Method
 This method is employed in the study of
political phenomena of different countries and
environments using similar or dissimilar
political concepts.
 The objective is to note similarities as well as
differences that may exist in circumstance and
conditions of the states under comparative
studying.

67. Cont..
 This method at the beginning relied on single
country study when the focus of political
science was predominantly countries of
similar culture, in Europe and North America.
 Later on it was used in Asia, Latin America
and Asia as cross country analysis

68. Philosophical Method
 This method is either deductive or inductive. It
starts from a premise that it is necessary to
construct theories of the state and the
purpose of government; while others are
inductive method.
 It thus provides students with the norms or
principles based on which political realities
can be examined or assessed and
suggestions for improvement made.

69. Cont..
 According to Sait, “Philosophical argument
develops the intelligence; it impacts
resourcefulness and elasticity of mind and it is
very doubtful if political science can deal with
the multi-various problems confronting it
without the benefit of the normative approach
inherent in the philosophical method.

70. Legal Method
 This method seeks to benefit from the
relationships between politics and the legal
process through the institutions created by the
constitution and the laws enacted by the
legislature for the purposes of maintaining
order in the society.

71.  Here issues of laws and justice are discussed
not as pure affairs of jurisprudence. Rather
the state is seen as maintainer of an effective
and equitable system of law and order.
 The notion of the independence of the
judiciary, problems of judicial administration
and dispensation of justice, though are legal
in nature, but they are at the same time of
equal concern to political scientists.

72.  This method treats the state not only on its
political relevance but also as an organization
created equally for the purpose of creating
laws and enforcing them.
 Examples of works based on the legal
approach include Jean Bodin and his
“Doctrine of Sovereignty, J. Rawls’ “A Theory
of Justice,” and J. S. Mill’s “On Liberty.”

73. Cont..
 Like the other methods, the legal approach
has not escaped criticisms for its highly
narrow orientation. This is because law
embraces only a single part of a people’s life
and as such, it cannot cover the entire
behaviour of man as a political animal (Mbah,
2007: 28-34).

74. Assignments
 Examine the factors that led to the emergence
of the behavioralists.
 Discuss which of the methods used in
studying political science is most scientific.