1.

What is Political Science

- political science studies institutions and behaviour, favours the descriptive over the normative, and
develops theories or draws conclusions based on empirical observations, which are expressed in
quantitative terms where possible.
- involves empirical investigation
- Academic study of politics and government.
- It is an ancient discipline.
- It remains central to any classical study of the liberal arts, firmly grounded as it is in the work of Plato
and Aristotle.
- Study of governments, public policies and political processes, systems, and political behavior.
- Subfields include political theory, political philosophy, political ideology, political economy, policy
studies and analysis, comparative politics, international relations, and a host of related fields.
- Academic discipline dedicated to the study of power, politics, and government.
- It is both a humanistic and social scientific discipline.

2. How did Political Science originate?
- Its intellectual roots lie in ancient and early modern tracts and treatises that theorized about life and
death, struggle and cooperation in the polis, polity, or state. Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes,
Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Mill and Marx are a few of the most famous theorists who imagined,
explained, or criticized the realities or possibilities of political life. Their works still merit reading as
contributions to political science.
- Analyses of politics appeared in ancient cultures in works by various thinkers,
including Confucius(551479 BC) in China and Kautilya (flourished 300 BC) in India. Writings by the
historian Ibn Khaldn(13321406) in North Africa have greatly influenced the study of politics in the
Arabic-speaking world.
- The fullest explication of politics has been in the West. Some have identified Plato(428/427
348/347 BC), whose ideal of a stable republic still yields insights and metaphors, as the first political
scientist, though most consider Aristotle (384322 BC), who introduced empirical observation into
the study of politics, to be the disciplines true founder.
3. Socrates
- classical Greek philosopher who is credited with laying the fundamentals of modern Western
philosophy.
- Socratic Method - break it down to a series of questions and you find your required answer in those
responses.
- "Ideals belong in a world that only the wise man can understand".
- He had no particular beliefs on politics but did object to democracy, but disliked its Athenian form.
Basically, he objected to any government that did not run on the basis of his ideas of perfect
governance.
- Refused to enter politics because he could not tell other people how to lead their lives when he didn't
know how to live his own.
- He thought he was a philosopher of truth, which he had not fully discovered. Towards the end of his
life, democracy was supplanted by the Thirty Tyrants for around one year, before being restored. For
Socrates, the Thirty Tyrants were no better and arguably worse rulers than the democracy they sought
to replace.
4. Plato
- The Republic and Laws
- Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle
- first real political philosopher of the Western world
- developed the Academy, a university of political science.
- argues that society requires a successful division of labor- differently skilled people (artisans,
craftsmen, statesmen, etc.) performing their skilled labor to the best of their ability, under the
leadership of philosopher-kings.
- justice was the primary virtue and that justice is achieved by properly balancing wisdom, courage, and
temperance.
- argues that, even if an ideal society could be developed, it would certainly self-destruct because of the
inevitable human condition.
5. Aristotle
- Father of Political Science
- Nicomachean Ethics
- Aristotles students gathered descriptions of 158 Greek city-states, which Aristotle used to formulate
his famous sixfold typology of political systems.
- He distinguished political systems by the number of persons ruling (one, few, or many) and by
whether the form was legitimate (rulers governing in the interests of all) or corrupt (rulers governing
in their own interests). Legitimate systems included monarchy (rule by one), aristocracy (rule by the
few), and polity (rule by the many), while corresponding corrupt forms were tyranny, oligarchy,
and democracy.
- Aristotle considered democracy to be the worst form of government, though in his classification it
meant mob rule. The best form of government, a polity, was, in contemporary terms, akin to an
efficient, stable democracy.
- Aristotle proposed that there are six types, or forms of government that accomplish the distribution of
political power. Three are good forms and three are considered bad forms, although in varying
degrees. The most desirable form is the monarchy (rule by one), followed by aristocracy (rule by a
few), followed by polity (rule by many). The least desirable forms of government are tyranny,
oligarchy, and democracy and these represent the arch-types or the perverted manifestations of the
desirable forms.