Political science comes from two Greek words: polis and scire.

Polis refers to
the city-state 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 Science is the study of the nature, causes, and consequences of collective
decisions and actions taken by groups of people embedded in cultures and
institutions that structure power and authority.
In other words, Political Science is a social science discipline that deals with
systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts,
associated constitutions and political behavior.
NATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Politics is not only a mere institution of governance but also a mechanism for
achieving societal goals. Nature of Political Science is a social science concerned
with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political
systems and political behavior.

It incorporates matters concerning the portion and move of power in making

decision, the jobs and frameworks of administration including governments and
worldwide associations, political behavior and public policies.
Political Science is in this way an investigation of the state in the past, present and
future of the political organization, political cycles and political functions of political
establishments and political theories. Political Science has a few subfields,
including political hypothesis, public policy, public legislative issues, worldwide
relations, human rights, natural governmental issues and near legislative issues.

The forerunners of Western legislative issues can follow their underlying

foundations back to Greek scholars Socrates, Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle
(384–322 BC). The investigations were theory arranged. Plato composed The
Republic and Aristotle composed the Politics. Aristotle is known as the Father of
Political Science. He is well known for his assertion "Man is a political animal".
GOALS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
• is the concern with the process of growth, industrialization and change and
the impact on government forms and policies.
• is to describe how various political systems function, and to find more
effective political systems.
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 • is to measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining
many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth,

POLITICAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE

➢ is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in
psychology, social research, and cognitive neuroscience.
➢ Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice theory,
behaviouralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism,
and pluralism.
➢ as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the
kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources, such as historical documents and
official records, secondary sources, such as scholarly journal articles, survey
research, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research, and
model building.

Political Science as a Discipline

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 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
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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 Center 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 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.

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 ofpolitical
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 enactedpolicies 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
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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. 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
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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.

CONCEPT of POLITICS
The term 'politics‟, is gotten from the Greek word 'Polis‟, which implies the city
state According to Greek Rationalists, Politics was a subject which managed all
the exercises and undertakings of the city state. Their City States were known as
'Polis‟. City state was a comprehensive term, as the old Greeks saw no difference
amongst the state and the Government on one hand, and State and Society on the
other. They never separated between close to home life and public activity.
Consequently, concurring to them Politics was an all-out investigation of man,
culture, state, ethical quality etc.
To study politics is generally to contemplate government or all the more extensively,
to consider the exercise of power. Politics is the art of government, the activity of
control inside the society through the settling on and authorization of aggregate
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choices. (Heywood 1997) The domain of legislative issues is limited to state
entertainers who are deliberately roused by philosophical convictions, and who try
to propel them through participation of a formal association like a political
association. This is the sense wherein politicians are depicted as "political" while
government employees are viewed as "non-political", the state as "public" and the
common society as "private". The organizations of the express (the mechanical
assembly of the public authority, the courts, the police, the military, the general
public security framework thus forward) can be viewed as "public" as in they are
answerable for the aggregate association of the local area life.
CHARACTERISTIC of POLITICS
Use or threat of use of legal force it allows the legal authority to use force. If
David Easton speaks of “authoritative allocation of values”, Dahl of “Power, “rule”
and authority”. All these definitions imply that legal authority can use force to
compel anybody to obey its orders.
Interactions
“Political system is that system of interactions to be found in all independent
societies which perform the functions of integration and adaptation (both
internally and vis-a-vis other societies) by means of the employment or threat of
employment or more or less legitimate physical compulsion”. Thus, the political
system not only includes governmental institutions such as legislatures,
executives, courts, administrative agencies but all structures in their political
aspect.
Interdependence of Parts when the properties of one component in a system
change, all the other
components and the system
as a whole are affected. In
political system the political
parties having a wider base
and mass media (Television,
radio and newspapers)
change the performance of all
other structures of the system
and affect the general working
of the system.
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 Table 5.2. the
political system that it revolves on. For democratic systems, the aim of the
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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).
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, democracy was considered by
Aristotle as an ineffective type of government. He said that democracy had a
potential for chaos and corruption, given that it is ruled by the masses that are
generally economically challenged and lacking proper education.
Power is a political value that is limited in distribution but highly demanded
by the populace
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
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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: 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, the connecting the islands of
the archipelago, regardless of their
breadth and dimensions, from part of the
internal waters of the Philippines. This
definition can be further understood
using this map.
People
This fourth element of a state is the most
crucial of all, as it is through the
existence of the people that concepts on
government, state, territory, and sovereignty take shape. In the context of political
science, the term people is synonymous to a nation. A nation is a concept that is
related to ethnicity, as people within it are bound by cultural and historical ties. A
state can consist of many nations. For example, pluralistic societies such as the
United States, Singapore, and the European Union have multicultural populations
under one administration. In the same way, a nation can be framed within different
forms of government. For example, the Arab nation, which is distributed around
the world, is subjected to varying forms of government. Hence, the Arab nation in
the Global South experiences a different form of governance from those who are
in the Global North. When a state is composed of people who share the same
culture and history, it gains the compounded identity of being a nation-state. Not
all states can be considered as such due to the lack of shared identity among its
people.