Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

(Learning Packet)
 Welcome to UCSP!

Welcome to a new school year, new normal and new set of subjects! The world is
an increasing culturally plural environment. Globalization has made territorial borders
fluid and has allowed for the interaction of people coming from various walks of life.

Although abounding in beneficial impacts such as more liberal economies and

cultural exchanges, such interactions may also create tension among individuals who
subscribe to differing sets of morals and ideals. This module from Diwa Senior High
School Series: Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics (Second Edition), will equip
you with conceptual tools from three social sciences disciplines to make sense of today’s
changing world.

This course uses insights from Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology to
develop students’ awareness of cultural, social and political dynamics, and sensitivity to
cultural diversity; provide them with an understanding of how culture, human agency,
society and politics work; and engage them in the examination of the country’s current
human development goals.

At the end of the course, students should acquire ideas about human cultures,
human agency, society and politics; recognize cultural relativism and social inclusiveness
to overcome prejudices; and develop social and cultural competence to guide their
interactions with groups, communities, networks, and institutions.

Your Teacher
 Contact us!

For concerns about the subject, do not hesitate to reach out to your teacher
through the contact details stated below. Just make sure to follow the working hours and
the consultation periods set by your teacher. Do not forget to maintain professional tone
that in reaching out to your teachers.
You may follow this format:

1. Greeting
2. Introduction of self (full name and section).
3. Concern (please be direct to the point).
4. Message of thanks

Please do not ever share or disclose the contact details of your teacher to anyone
without his consent. Respect his rest time and wait for a response.

ADRIAN ALDRC L. BORRES

facebook.com/adrianaldric.linaborres
[email protected]
09513915279
 Module 5
Political Science and the Study of Politics
Strand and Grade Level: ABM 11, STEM Engr. 11, STEM I.T. 11, STEM
Nursing Aid 11, Pre Bacc. Maritime 11
Duration: 1 week

At the end of this module, the students are able to:

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.

Lesson Proper:

Political Science as a Discipline

What is the difference between a political scientist and a common individual in
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 two Greek words: polis and scire. Polis refers to the
citystate in ancient Greece. The political activities within a 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 state relations, and power distribution.
The American Political Science Association defined its discipline as “the study of
governments, public policies and political processes, systems, and political behavior”
(2013). These topics are covered by the subdisciplines of political science such as
political theory, comparative politics, international relations, political behavior, public
policy, and public administration.

Political Theory

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. For
example, the Global North concept of justice is not universal. In some societies in the
Global South, conflicts are not resolved by meting justice in the context of punishment
but in the form of reconciliation of parties.

Comparative Politics

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. For example,
the practice of democracy in the most members of the Global North is oftentimes different from
how it is practiced in democratized countries of the Global South as it is embedded in local
political culture. Hence, campaigns for the democratization of all societies may be perilous for
some, whose local culture is at odds with the framework of democracy.

International Relations

The study of state-to-state relations and the

wider margin of the impacts of globalization and
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 non-state global actors such as international
organizations and human groups. The case of
China and Philippines on the Scarborough
Shoal is an example of an internal relations
issue in the Philippines as much as the 9/11
attacks on the World Trade Centre that spawned transnational campaign of the United States
against terrorism.

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
the campaign against terrorism, a country that aims to win the favor of the United States ought
to rally behind this campaign and dissociate with blacklisted countries or political actors.

Political Behaviour

This field covers the attitudes, knowledge, and

actions of an individual in response to political
variables such as policies created by the
government, behaviour 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.

The political orientation of Filipinos toward elections is a subject of this inquiry. Political
commentaries have highlighted the fanfare that is the Philippine elections, from the savvy
campaign materials to unabashed promotion of every political activity and public service made by
the candidates. The presence of political dynasties is also enabled by the political culture of the
country. In the Philippines, where political affiliations are mostly due to not political parties but on
personalities, the costs and benefits of a political action are always administered from a
personality to his or her supporters/detractors. According to Alfred McCoy, an American political
scientist, the Philippines has strong families that have political influence in regions of the country,
allowing for the perpetuation of political dynasties.

Public Policy

This field 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. The 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.
Both laws were received with strong opposition from
religious sectors and pro-family groups, while it rallied
support from family-planning advocates.
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 as 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.

A conceptual model that may be used in analyzing the political dynamics within a society is that
of David Easton’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:

• Does the country belong to 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 type of responses to the
system a society will have.

The next variable is the input. This refers to the forms of political events or products that are
needed by 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.
Again, this is affected by the environment as the needs of the electorate vary per environmental
condition.

Support refers to mechanisms within the system that would allow for such demands to be
facilitated. For example, a demand for wage hike for public school teachers may have support
from related sectors such as the working class political parties and the public school teachers. 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 as 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.
 Theorist Definition of Politics

Alfred Boyer Politics is the interaction between the civil 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.

Boyer highlighted the concept of governance or the execution of laws within a territory as
mediated by civil society (sectors of society) and the government. The government acts as the
arbiter of rules and laws within a territory. However, its power is tempered by the opinion of
stakeholders in a society.

Easton’s definition promotes the idea that there are scarce or limited values in society. This
includes power, prestige, and other values that are held by a select few in society. As such,
competition for these values is fierce, requiring an authoritative distribution of them. For
example, the power to govern is limited and the desire to acquire it is high. To avoid political
disorder, this value is distributed to a select few.

Weber introduced two essential concepts in political science: power and state.

Power, as defined by Robert Dahl, is “the ability of person A to make person B do what person
B would not otherwise do” (American Political Science Association, 2013). This implies the
capacity to direct and influence the decision of others. Hence, Weber’s definition corresponds to
the interplay of power relations within a political system.

A state is a political entity that consists of four elements: territory, government, people, and
sovereignty. These elements are highlighted in De Leon’s (2005) definition of a state as:

a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of

territory, having a government of their own to which the great body of inhabitants render
obedience, and enjoying freedom from external control.

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.
Government

The set of personnel who manages the affairs of the state in its act of allocating scarce values is
called the government. Its existence is dictated by the political system that it revolves on. For
democratic systems, the aim of the government is to advance the welfare of the general public.

Aristotle provided a system of classification of governments based on number of rulers and its
efficiency in governance (Curtis, 1981).

Aristotle’s Classification of Government

Number of Ruler(s) Normal Form Perverted Form

One Monarchy Tyranny

Few Aristocracy Oligarchy

Many Polity Democracy

A government that is governed by one ruler who has efficient administration of political and
economic values is a monarchy. A perverted form of it is tyranny or the rule of a dictator.
Aristotle argued that a tyrant ruler serves only his or her own interests. This leader is prone to
using force to stay in power as he or she merely usurped it. Monarchs are better leaders as they
are not prone to employ force to subjugate members of their society as they do not feel the
pressure to maintain their position, which they inherited.

Aristotle argued that the rule of the few intellectuals known as aristocracy is the best form of
government. He said that aristocracy is less prone to corruption given that it is run by a group of
people who have no vested self-interest due to their high moral values and noneconomic
preoccupation. Contrary to this, the rule of the few rich individuals is seen by Aristotle as
problematic, as the rulers are more predisposed to further their economic interests.

The rule of aristocrats is the ideal but not a possibility, as this group of people are not inclined
toward the practice of governance due to their preoccupation with the intellectual and the
philosophical. Hence, according to Aristotle, the best alternative for an effective government is
the rule of the middle class known as polity. This type of government is the most efficient, as it is
less prone to corruption. This is due to the rulers who come from the middle class, are satisfied
economically, and are well-educated.

Although well-accepted by current world leaders, Big Idea democracy was considered by
Aristotle as an ineffective.

Sovereignty

This is the capacity of a political system to make independent decisions

within its territory. Sovereignty can be classified in terms of its scope.
Internal sovereignty refers to the capacity of a political system to
implement its rules and policies within its territory. External sovereignty
refers to the recognition of that system’s existence and authority by
other actors and systems. The capacity of the government to quell
rebellion by separatist groups is a marker of its internal sovereignty.
When a government’s internal sovereignty is perceived by other global
actors as weak or even nonexistent, its external sovereignty may be
challenged.
 Territory

This is the geographic space in which the sovereignty of a state is exercised. A territory includes
“the terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial seas, the seabed, the subsoil,
the insular shelves, and other submarine areas” (De Leon, 2005). Taking in point the Philippine
context, Article 1 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution declares the following:

Article 1 – National Territory

The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters
embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or
jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the
seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between,
and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form
part of the internal waters of the Philippines.

“This definition can be further understood using this map.”

 Beyond wall activity

Disputes based on territorial claims have been consistently observed in contemporary

history by experts of international relations. Recently, the Philippines has been
engaged in a territorial dispute with China over the area referred to as the West
Philippine Sea or South China Sea. Read this article on the landmark win of the
Philippines against China in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) arbitration. Then answer the questions that follow:
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/140358/philippines-arbitration-decisionmaritime-
dispute-south-china-sea-arbitral-tribunal-unclos-itlos
1. What are the bases of the decision?
2. What is the claim of China?
3. What is the claim of the Philippines?
4. Why does UNCLOS have authority on the case?

WATCH IT!

Watch the movie “Heneral Luna” using this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYWo6FoVacY ; I want
you to take note of the significant events in the movie. During the synchronous time, we will have an activity.

ADRIAN ALDRIC L. BORRES

UCSP INSTRUCTOR
Gmail: [email protected]
Fb e-mail: adrianaldric.linaborres
Mobile number: 09513915279
Consultation time:
Weekdays 8:00am-12:00nn ; 1:00pm-5:00pm