Lesson 2 The main stages in the development of Political Science

The brief content:

1. Brief explanation of idea Political Power;

2. Classification of Political Thoughts;

3. First schools of Political Science.

As well as any social subjects in political science also has history of the development. Generally Political Thoughts to classify to 7 stages:

1. Ancient influences;

2. Medieval. Early Christian thinkers;

3. Early modern developments (14th -17th century);

4. 19th-century roots of contemporary political science;
5. The early 20th century developments in the United State.

1. Ancient influences:

1. Confucius (551–479 bc) in China;

2. Kautilya (flourished 300 bc) in India;

3. Plato (428/427–348/347 bc) - ideal of a stable republic;

4. and Aristotle (384–322 bc) - discipline’s true founder;

5. Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) in North Africa etc.

Plato and Aristotle focused on perfecting the polis (city-state):

The conquest of the Mediterranean world and beyond by Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great (336–323 bc) and, after his death, the division of his empire among his generals brought large new political forms, in which society and political system came to be seen as separate entities.

6 typology of political systems of Aristotle:

1. Monarchy - rule by one;

2. Aristocracy - rule by the few;

3. Oligarchy - rule by privileged group;

4. Polity – power of middle layer;

5. Tyranny - a state ruled by a tyrant or absolute ruler;

6. Democracy – government by the people.

Julius Caesar - He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

2. Medieval. Early Christian thinkers, such as:

St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–1274) Christianized Aristotle’s Politics to lend it moral purpose. Aquinas took from Aristotle the idea that humans are both rational and social, that states occur naturally, and that government can improve humans spiritually.

3. Early modern developments (14th -17th century)

The first modern political scientist was the Italian writer Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527). His infamous work The Prince (1531);

Machiavelli’s political philosophy, which completed the secularization of politics begun by Marsilius, was based on reason rather than religion.

4. 19th-century roots of contemporary political science:

Antoine-Louis-Claude, Comte Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), who in the 1790s coined the term ideologie (“ideology”) for his “science of ideas,” which, he believed, could perfect society.

Contemporary political science traces its roots primarily to the 19th century, when the rapid growth of the natural sciences stimulated enthusiasm for the creation of a new social science.

Antoine-Louis-Claude;

Comte Destutt de Tracy(“ideology”)

Henri de Saint-Simon (Christian socialism).

5. The early 20th century developments in the United States:

Some of the most important developments in political science since it became a distinct academic discipline have occurred in the United States.

Political science as a separate discipline in universities in the United States dates from 1880, when John W. Burgess, established a school of political science at Columbia University in New York City.

Although political science faculties grew unevenly after 1900, by the 1920s most major institutions had established new departments, variously named political science, government, or politics.

Additional material: Analyses of politics appeared in ancient cultures in works by various thinkers, including Confucius (551–479 bc) in China and Kautilya (flourished 300 bc) in India. Writings by the historian Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) in North Africa have greatly influenced the study of politics in the Arabic-speaking world. But 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 (384–322 bc), who introduced empirical observation into the study of politics, to be the discipline’s true founder.

The oldest Political scientist works of Confucius. The Analects (Chinese: pinyin: Lúnyǔ; also known as the Analects of Confucius, is a collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Another one is Kautilya The Arthashastra (IAST: Arthaśāstra) is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, written in Sanskrit.

Plato’s strategy in The Republic is to first explicate the primary notion of societal, or political, justice, and then to derive an analogous concept of individual justice. In Books II, III, and IV, Plato identifies political justice as harmony in a structured political body.

An ideal society consists of three main classes of people—producers (craftsmen, farmers, artisans, etc.), auxiliaries (warriors), and guardians (rulers); a society is just when relations between these three classes are right. Each group must perform its appropriate function, and only that function, and each must be in the right position of power in relation to the others. Rulers must rule, auxiliaries must uphold rulers’ convictions, and producers must limit themselves to exercising whatever skills nature granted them (farming, blacksmithing, painting, etc.) Justice is a principle of specialization: a principle that requires that each person fulfill the societal role to which nature fitted him and not interfere in any other business.

Contemporary political science traces its roots primarily to the 19th century, when the rapid growth of the natural sciences stimulated enthusiasm for the creation of a new social science. Capturing this fervour of scientific optimism was Antoine-Louis-Claude, Comte Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), who in the 1790s coined the term idéologie (“ideology”) for his “science of ideas,” which, he believed, could perfect society. Also pivotal to the empirical movement was the French utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), a founder of Christian socialism, who in 1813 suggested that morals and politics could become “positive” sciences—that is, disciplines whose authority would rest not upon subjective preconceptions but upon objective evidence. Saint-Simon collaborated with the French mathematician and philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857), considered by many to be the founder of sociology, on the publication of the Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for the Reorganization of Society (1822), which claimed that politics would become a social physics and discover scientific laws of social progress. Although “Comtean positivism,” with its enthusiasm for the scientific study of society and its emphasis on using the results of such studies for social improvement, is still very much alive in psychology, contemporary political science shows only traces of Comte’s optimism.

Post-World War II trends and debates:Some of the most important developments in political science since it became a distinct academic discipline have occurred in the United States.

Political science as a separate discipline in universities in the United States dates from 1880, when John W. Burgess, established a school of political science at Columbia University in New York City.

Although political science faculties grew unevenly after 1900, by the 1920s most major institutions had established new departments, variously named political science, government, or politics.

Behavioralism: Behavioralism, which was one of the dominant approaches in the 1950s and ’60s.

It assumes that political institutions largely reflect underlying social forces and that the study of politics should begin with society, culture, and public opinion.

Modern political science

Because political science is essentially a study of human behavior, in all aspects of politics, observations in controlled environments are often challenging to reproduce or duplicate, though experimental methods are increasingly common (see experimental political science). Citing this difficulty, former American Political Science Association President Lawrence Lowell once said "We are limited by the impossibility of experiment. Politics is an observational, not an experimental science." Because of this, political scientists have historically observed political elites, institutions, and individual or group behavior in order to identify patterns, draw generalizations, and build theories of politics.

Like all social sciences, political science faces the difficulty of observing human actors that can only be partially observed and who have the capacity for making conscious choices unlike other subjects such as non-human organisms in biology or inanimate objects as in physics. Despite the complexities, contemporary political science has progressed by adopting a variety of methods and theoretical approaches to understanding politics and methodological pluralism is a defining feature of contemporary political science.

The advent of political science as a university discipline was marked by the creation of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the late 19th century. In fact, the designation "political scientist" is typically for those with a doctorate in the field. Integrating political studies of the past into a unified discipline is ongoing, and the history of political science has provided a rich field for the growth of both normative and positive political science, with each part of the discipline sharing some historical predecessors. The American Political Science Association was founded in 1903 and the American Political Science Review was founded in 1906 in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena.

Behavioral revolution and new institutionalism

In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. A focus on studying political behavior, rather than institutions or interpretation of legal texts, characterized early behavioral political science, including work by Robert Dahl, Philip Converse, and in the collaboration between sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld and public opinion scholar Bernard Berelson.

Despite considerable research progress in the discipline based on all the kinds of scholarship discussed above, it has been observed that progress toward systematic theory has been modest and uneven.

Political science in the Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union, political studies were carried out under the guise of some other disciplines like theory of state and law, area studies, international relations, studies of labor movement, "critique of bourgeois theories", etc. Soviet scholars were represented at the International Political Science Association (IPSA) since 1955 (since 1960 by the Soviet Association of Political and State Studies).

In 1979, the 11th World Congress of IPSA took place in Moscow. Until the late years of the Soviet Union, political science as a field was subjected to tight control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was thus subjected to distrust. Anti-communists accused political scientists of being "false" scientists and of having served the old regime.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, two of the major institutions dealing with political science, the Institute of Contemporary Social Theories and the Institute of International Affairs, were disbanded, and most of their members were left without jobs. These institutes were victims of the first wave of anticommunist opinion and ideological attacks. Today, the Russian Political Science Association unites professionals-political scientists from in Russia.

Recent developments

In 2000, the Perestroika Movement in political science was introduced as a reaction against what supporters of the movement called the mathematicization of political science. Those who identified with the movement argued for a plurality of methodologies and approaches in political science and for more relevance of the discipline to those outside of it.

Evolutionary psychology theories argue that humans have evolved a highly developed set of psychological mechanisms for dealing with politics. However, these mechanisms evolved for dealing with the small group politics that characterized the ancestral environment and not the much larger political structures in today's world. This is argued to explain many important features and systematic cognitive biases of current politics.

The early 20th century developments in the United States. Some of the most important developments in political science since it became a distinct academic discipline have occurred in the United States. Politics had long been studied in American universities, but usually as part of the curricula of law, philosophy, or economics. Political science as a separate discipline in universities in the United States dates from 1880, when John W. Burgess, after studying at the École Libre in Paris, established a school of political science at Columbia University in New York City. Although political science faculties grew unevenly after 1900, by the 1920s most major institutions had established new departments, variously named political science, government, or politics.

The control questions:

1. The main difference period of political thought?

2. First Political science Schools?

SIW:

1. Briefly describe basic stages of Political thoughts;

2. Main deference between Ancient and Early modern developments (essay 2-3 pages).

SIWT:

1. Meaning of classification of political thoughts?

2. First Political science Schools?

(abstract 3-5 pages)

GLOSSARY

№	English	Russian	Kazakh
	Politics	Политика	Саясат
	Citizenry	Граждане	Азаматтар
	Inhabitants	Жители	Тұрғындар
	Nonprofit	Некоммерческая	Нарықтық емес
	Behavior	Поведение	Іс әрекет
	Identical	Идентичные	Бірегейлік
	Internal	Внутренние	Ішкі

Refernce

Main:

1.Политология: Учебник под ред. В.Н. Лавриненко - М., 2009.

2.Политология. Курс лекций: Учебное пособие /науч.редак.А.А.Радугин.-М.,2009.

3. Соловьёв А.И. Политология: политическая теория, политические технологии. М., 2004.

4. Пугачев В.П., Соловьев А.И. Введение в политологию / – М., 2003.

Additional:

1. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: political science

2. Chaturvedy, J. C. Political Governance: Political theory. Isha Books. p. 4. Retrieved 28 October 2014.

3. Druckman, James; Green, Donald; Kuklinski, James et al., eds. (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-17455-8.

4. Kim Quaile Hill, "In Search of General Theory," Journal of Politics 74(October, 2012), 917-931.

5. Political Thought From Gerson to Grotius, 1414-1625: Seven Studies by John Neville Figgis (PDF at McMaster).

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