This document discusses the key concepts of political science including its nature, definitions, theories, and scope. Political science is defined as the study of politics and political systems, including the allocation of power and decision-making in governments. It examines political behaviors, institutions, and public policies. The document also explores different perspectives on defining politics, such as politics as the art of government, public affairs, compromise and consensus, and the study of power relations. It concludes with a discussion of political identities and the different forms of power in political systems.

1. Lesson 3: Understanding the
Concept of Political Science

2. The Nature, Definition, Theory,
and Scope of Political Science

3. Meaning
Man is a social animal that cannot live alone
because he is not self-supporting and the natural
instinct is to survive to coerce him to live a
collective life.
According to Aristotle, collective life imposes a
political mechanism of rules, regulations and
leadership.

4. Meaning
A systematized society requires some system to make and
enforce rules for orderly behavior in society. This directed
to the development of a political system with the
elaboration of governmental institutions and procedures
in each society.
 Hence, a man is likewise a political animal. This means
that political science is one of the oldest subjects of study
of this political life of man.

5. Nature
 Politics is not only an ordinary institution of authority but also a tool
for achieving societal goals. The nature of Political Science is a
social science that concerned with the theory, practice of politics
and the description and analysis of political systems and political
behavior.
 It also includes matters regarding the allocation and transfer of
power in decision making, the roles and systems of governance
including governments and international organizations, political
behavior and public policies.

6. Nature
Thus political science is a study of the state in the past,
present, and future of political organization, political
processes and political functions of political institutions
and political theories.
Several sub-fields are under political science
including: political theory, public policy, national
politics, international relations, human rights,
environment politics and comparative politics.

7. Perspectives on Politics
Politics as a human (social) activity of simple things that
involves our opinions, perceptions of rights and wrongs,
competing needs, conflicting interests eventually leads to a
system of rules for conflict resolution and cooperation.
The inevitable presence of diversity and scarcity confirms that
politics is an inescapable feature of human condition.
According to Adrian Leftwich, he finds politics as the heart of
all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and
private, in all human groups, institutions and societies.

8. While Andrew Heywood (2007)
sees Politics as follows:

9. (1) Politics as art of government.
Politics is the classic activity of creating and
enforcement of collective decisions. The state as the
fundamental concept of politics has a long history
 The state has several specific structures, institutions,
officer and roles.
It has the control of coercive power. In these
circumstances, it was natural to understand politics as
the study of the state. Until the Second World War, the
state served as the chief organizing idea of politics.

10. (2) Politics as public affairs.
The meaning of politics can be stressed
beyond the narrow realm of government to
a broader conception of public life or public
affairs, because of its ‘public’ character.

11. (3) Politics as compromise and consensus
(as a study of interaction among interest groups).
Politics has a wider scope. Politics is understood as an act
of conflict and cooperation among individuals and
various groups in the society to secure values like liberty,
equality, justice, welfare etc, and to organize and use a
public power for this purpose (Bernard Crick).
Politics is thus an interaction between man and society
resolving conflicts through reconciliation and negotiation
instead of violence.

12. (3) Politics as compromise and consensus
Both the liberal and Marxist views of politics study it as a
part of this social development. As a result of this, non -
formal institutions like pressure groups, public opinion,
interest groups, political parties etc. became the subjects
of politics.
Thus, there are deliberations on theories of state origin,
functions, sovereignty, liberty, rights forms and organs of
government, representation, political parties, pressure
groups, public opinion, ideologies, and worldwide
relations and institutions.

13. (4) Politics as the study of power.
 After rejecting politics as the study of state as inadequate, modern thinkers tried
to find the alignment of politics and they found it in the concept of power. The
new understanding of politics was that it is a struggle to share or influence the
distribution of power, whether between states or among the groups within the
state.
 There are two advantages to study politics from the point of view of power
 firstly; it emphasizes attention on process rather than on legal abstractions of the state.
 Secondly, this approach pays greater attention to man as the basic unit of analysis.
 Politics became directly concerned with the needs, interests and goals of men
that give rise to power relationship among them and ultimately lead to a public
policy.

14. POLITICAL IDENTITIES

15. POLITICAL IDENTITIES
 A political approach wherein people of a
particular religion, race, social
background, class or other identifying factor form
exclusive socio-political alliances, moving away
from broad-based, coalitional politics to support
and follow political movements that share a
particular identifying quality with them.

16. POLITICAL IDENTITIES
 Its aim is to support and centre the concerns, agendas, and
projects of particular groups, in accord with specific social and
political changes. It refers to political arguments that focus upon
the interest and perspectives of groups with which people identify.
 Identity Politics includes the way in which people may be shaped
by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social
organization.
 Examples include social organization based on race, class, religion, gender,
identity, ethnicity, ideology, rationality, sexual orientation, culture and
language.

17. POLITICAL IDENTITIES
To sum it up, there are three forms of power: political,
economic and ideological. Political powers focused with
the maintenance of law and order and provision justice
through reward and punishment.
Though identifiable with terms like influence, coercion,
force, domination, authority, control and the like, the term
power has its own meaning. Power is a relation.
While power is coercive, influence, persuasive authority,
the legitimate aspect or power and force a manifested
power.

18. End