Can Politics Be Regarded as a Science?

1. For the most part, citizens are politically knowledgeable in some types of instances. Polls have shown that they are not very knowledgeable. Polls may only show the most ephemeral and transitory of opinion (Asher, 242). Little thought might have gone through into the response that the public has offered. Another reason is that there is no majority view of the issues. Thirdly, the poll’s results ignore the process of how opinions are formed and modified (Asher, 242). The media and political leaders also shape up the citizen’s political knowledge. Such an example like drugs might be more salient or in the popular consciousness if it is talked all the time by the media and political leaders. However, if the media

One of the honors for ‘greatest theories’ in contemporary civilization has to be awarded to Marxism. Invented in late 19th century by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Marxism has had great influences on the development of modern society. Despite its eventual failure, Marxism once led to numerous revolutions that working classes raised against the ruling parties in different countries. Consequently, it paved the way for the erection of the Berlin Wall, the formation of the Warsaw Treaties—communist camp confronting NATO, and the establishment of a world super power, the Soviet Union at the dawn of this century. Even decades later, after all those Marxist milestones

Political science is known to be one of the most ignored sciences there are. Over the years, there has not been a demand for everyone to pay attention to politics because people always have their own opinion anyways. Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t was an article written by Hans Noel. His main objective to writing this was to inform readers of the reasons why politics is something that is important to understand. Many journalists and bloggers became more aware of politics and want to know more about what political scientists actually know. This article also wants to inform many people that political science is something that you can study over a period of time, which is the real reason to pay attention to elections. Hans Noel came up with 10 different things that political scientists know but American citizens do not.

Since its conception as a formal academic discipline, Politics has existed on the fault line between two great fields of enquiry, the sciences and the arts. During the mid 20th century, with the rise of the behavioural movement, a general trend towards the “scientification” of the study of politics could be observed. The origins of this movement can be traced back to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and the writings of Auguste Comte in the nineteenth century (Sanders, 2010). However from the 1970s, there emerged a growing dissatisfaction with behaviouralism and a revival of interest in normative questions, as seen in the writings of theorists such as John Rawls and

Political Philosophy is typically a study of a wide range of topics such as, justice, liberty, equality, rights, law, politics and the application of a codified law. Depending on what the philosophy is, it usually tends to be a very sensitive and a personal ideology that an individual holds within the reality of their existence. Several of the fundamental topics of political philosophy shape up the society that we live in as these specific topics and their implementation by the state ensures a legitimate government. In Political Philosophy, the aforesaid concepts or topics are evaluated and analyzed with tremendous depth in context to their history and intent. Furthermore, in a rather colloquial sense, political

Politics is not as the common person may define it. It is not dependent of any other doctrine or ideology; it is its

Political theory emerged as a separate science and way of thinking in the last half of the

Our text mentions that Political Science “seeks to study human behavior through the use of a scientific method that,

The scientific method is a process with four explicit steps. The steps include making observations, making a hypothesis, performing an experiment by collecting quantitative and qualitative data, and analyzing the results. This method ensures that one’s hypothesis supports their claims and that there is room for improvement, which is why if the government had to use the scientific method to analyze and solve society’s problems and politics were never involved in the solutions, corruption would mostly diminish and justice would triumph. In contemporary times, regarding politics, politicians use fear and form presumptions with no evidence behind them, which causes misinformation to spread. Comparatively, with the scientific method approach, politicians

Over the years, political scientists have expressed their disapproval of American elections. They have openly stated that presidential elections do not matter. The reason being, is that they believe the outcome of elections is a result of forces outside of the campaigner’s influence. For example, the state of the economy, partisan loyalties, and normative, communicative, and symbolic roles are all disconnected from the influence of the campaigner. The latter mentioned aspects (anthropological), according to political scientists, receive little attention from scholars, but their impacts are very substantial. They restore confidence in governing institutions, result in an upsurge in mutual feelings, and give the citizenry hope of a better governing body after elections

Marxism is often cited as being irrelevant within contemporary society due to the fact that Marx had critiqued an almost incomparable society. McDonald & Brownlee (2001) argue

Political culture is one of the defector concepts of contemporary social science. Theorists have not provided a persuasive picture of its casual role whereas analysts have not been able to do without it in explaining experimental results. Therefore, political culture can combine with the political structure to create or maintain regime form.

Benjamin Bishin's subconstituency theory of representation is supported with the empirical evidence that Larry Bartels provides from his book, of which Bartels evaluates social equality and its relationship with the American government, to Bishin's observations. Ideas, such as hidden minority rule, activism, visibility's true impact on the average voter, and ideological and social groups, that Bishin describes are supported by Bartels' findings; these findings being senators responsiveness to income groups, citizen's knowledge, and voting actions and more.

The second option the political theorist has is to accept that any attempt to give a foundational theory of legitimate government will depend partly upon speculation. This does not mean, of course, that this speculation has no boundaries. The theorist must tailor a speculative account as closely as possible to the reality of things. What I mean by this is that the theorist must try to mirror reality as closely as possible, only filling in those areas which need filling. In addition, the theorist has an obligation to make clear which parts are empirical and which parts are speculative.

The study of politics had its roots in philosophy and while there has been a drive to steer the study of politics towards a more scientific approach, many scholars like Max Weber believe that social sciences cannot simply imitate the natural sciences. This essay will examine the various approaches to applying scientific methodology to the study of politics and it will specifically explore Behaviorism, Positivism and Interpretivism and by looking at each methodology briefly explore the advantages and disadvantages of each method.