Fundamentals of Political Science

1. Fundamentals of Political Science Dr. Sujian Guo Professor of Political Science San Francisco State Unversity Email: sguo@sfsu.edu http://bss.sfsu.edu/sguo

2. Historical development and competing schools of thought in Political Science Political science is a social science discipline that studies the theory and practice of politics and seeks to explain patterns or regularities that exist in political systems and political behavior. 3 historical eras 3 major groups of scholars 3 major methodological approaches

3. Historical Development

4. Three Methodological Approaches Traditionalism Historicism is its intellectual origin. The classical thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc. were primarily concerned with �what is politics for� and sought for a good government or society. Just, good, fair, or virtue were their language in the study of politics. The classical German thinkers, such as Hegel, Marx, believed that knowledge was socially determined and historically variable- correspond to distinctive history or culture which was unique for every society. Their focus was on the formal structures or a mixture of law, philosophy and history.

5. Major Characteristics 1. Normative: it is concerned with the question �what it ought to be� � (i) the nature of man and politics, (ii) the moral goal of government and society, (iii) the desirable form of government, (iv) such formal structures as institutions, constitutions, legislation, and (v) such a mixture of law, philosophy, and history.

6. Major Characteristics 2. Descriptive: not aims at explaining and predicting patterns or regularities. Ex. describe the phenomenon of the falling apple, but does not ask why it falls down or up to sky. But science tries to seek patterns and discover laws such as gravity law that explains it. 3. Historical (knowledge is socially and historically determined) 4. Legalistic (focus on constitutions, laws) 5. Institutional (focus on institutional and formal aspects of government) 6. Subjective (subjective assessment of political phenomena)

7. Three Methodological Approaches Behavioralism Positivism is its intellectual origin. David Hume and the classical British empiricism were the pioneer of this tradition. They believed that knowledge was based upon experience and objective observation of the empirical world, and should be verified by rigorous scientific testing procedures. Positivism was embraced by the behaviorialists who focused on the actual behavior of political actors and believed that natural scientific methods could transform political studies into a �veritable� science.

8. Major Characteristics 1. Non-normative: concerned with the question �what is� � the actual political and public process, the actual behavior of the political actors in the process, and the informal aspects of the process. Reject the legitimacy of normative research in political science.

9. Major Characteristics 2. Scientific (follow rigorous testing procedures; scientific explanation for the observed patterns) 3. Empirical (knowledge based upon observation and experience) 4. Behavioral (informal aspects of political process and individual political behavior) 5. Quantitative (mathematical manipulation of empirical data) 6. Objectively verifiable / falsifiable

10. Three Methodological Approaches

11. Major Characteristics

12. Theories in Political Science System theories State theories Political culture theories Rational choice theories Institutionalism Political economy theories Theories of development and underdevelopment Democratic transition theories

13. The State of the Discipline - I Progress Expansion of the scope into all parts of the world and the perspectives became less parochial but more multifaceted. Greater depth within individual countries; more attention given to informal processes, attitudes of mass and elites, and cultural influences on politics. Greater consciousness in the logic of comparative inquiry; more efforts to make generalizations across a set of political units rather than interest in particular information about specific countries; and more attention given to the research strategy, design, methods, and logic of methodology. Greater theoretical richness; all make the discipline more diverse and pluralism in methods and perspectives.

14. The State of the Discipline - II Problems It is difficult to define the precise boundaries of the academic discipline, and the discipline lacks broadly shared conceptualization of the important problems and adequate theory to guide us in the solution those problems. Political science encounters more methodological difficulties than other disciplines such as psychology, economics, and sociology. Individual case data, such as in comparative politics and international relations, have not be incorporated into more coherent and comprehensive data base due to the lack of common basis for the measurement of variables in different political, cultural, and sociological contexts.

15. The State of the Discipline - III What is the direction? The achievements of political science in the past decades have significantly expanded the scope, improved the methods and designs, and developed more theories. However, the discipline has not moved in the direction of what Kuhnian theory of scientific evolution suggests in his term �paradigm�. Instead, different theoretical approaches have formed �islands of theories,� and the discipline is moving toward pluralism in social norms, values, methodologies, and epistemologies. This is actually not a bad thing; this keeps the discipline open to new and unorthodox ideas and varieties of theoretical approaches. Since the discipline lacks broadly shared conceptualizations of the important problems or concepts, the discipline will be more likely to be characterized by a bunch of competing theories that reflect epistemological differences and significant political and normative differences.