Political science is the study of politics in all its aspects. Occasionally politics is used as a synonym for political science: sometimes as the title of university departments of political science. This may be confusing. Although a few political scientists have become politicians, and even more rarely politicians have become political scientists, the activities of the two, despite impinging on each other, are quite different.
1.1 What is politics?
Politics can be regarded in at least four ways.
1.1.1 Politics as an activity
Politics is an activity indulged in, either full-time or part-time, by politicians. They are concerned with some or all of the collective decisions that affect the political unit they live in. It could be a small sub-unit like a parish, or it could be the central government. In most societies there is a divide between politicians and the rest of the citizenry who choose to play only a minimal part in decision-making for the collectivity. The politicians have become professionalized - they are professional politicians. But hypothetically there is no reason why there should be such a divide. There are small communities in existence where all adults participate in making decisions for the whole body politic.
Yet to say 'politics is an activity' is merely the beginning of wisdom. The activity is pursued quite variously in different contexts. In some it is the occasion of great antagonisms. Not all politicians, by any means, want every proposal adopted: on the contrary, they may try to prevent most of them succeeding. In some societies policies will be imposed by rulers and opposition may not be allowed. Here there will be only a few politicians imposing their own decisions. Hence there are numerous
types of political regime (see Chapter 4 below) and numerous kinds of political activity.
1.1.2 Politics as 'current affairs'
To much of the non-political public, politics is a part of life with which they do not want to be involved. Indeed, to some it is disreputable and dangerous. Contention must be avoided: 'politics and religion are two things one should not talk about' is a much-quoted adage. But some citizens are quite interested and view political goings-on as they might a spectator sport. They support political parties as they support football teams, cheering from the sidelines. Students who take up political science often start from the angle of current affairs, a very useful approach to the subject. Another compendious and similar term is 'political life'. Foreign wars, what politicians do and say, praise and abuse of them, commentaries in the papers and on radio and television about their personal lives, gladiatorial argument between them, elections and party politics - all these may be included under the rubric of politics as current affairs.
1.1.3 Politics as what the government does
To govern is to control and all communities at an early stage of development will be concerned with the problem of control. The actions of those who control - the rulers, the incumbent government - may be perceived as politics. Where dissent is not possible this will be the only manifestation of politics.
1.1.4 Politics as conflict and the resolution of conflict
Conflict is here used in a wide sense to mean contestation, including any form of disagreement. Indeed, all group interrelationships will be involved with differences, even when compromise between the parties is regularised and institutionalised. Physical contestation is an extreme form of conflict. An initial assumption is that disagreement is very common. People disagree about objectives to be reached and they disagree about how to reach them. If there were no disagreement there would be no need for politics: to use old-fashioned terms, people disagree about ends and they disagree about means. Problems are likely to be resolved sooner or later and the role of the politician is to participate in the resolution.
Disagreement, of course, may occur at a personal level about quite trivial matters. Indeed, S. E. Finer, Professor of Political Institutions at
Keele, used to begin his lectures with the parable of two dogs fighting over an indivisible bone. One would eventually get it and the other dog would be dissatisfied with the outcome. But combat is not the only method of resolving disagreement. Brian Barry also lists contests (running a race or a boxing match), drawing lots, authoritative determination by setting up an arbitrator, bargaining, discussion on merits and voting.1 While most of these are not appropriate to dogs they are all possible with human beings. Collective social objectives are not analogous to bones and people who disagree about them can choose several other methods of resolving their disputes.
This does not rule out combat, but many will feel that this is a risky and unpleasant way of resolving conflict. Foes defeated in war may replenish their arsenals, reinvigorate their morale and attempt revenge. Thus a victor in war should perhaps kill all enemies to be secure, which is not always very practical. Hence a sensible way of settling conflict may be one that maintains a certain stability, peace and order in society. Many see this as the basic problem in politics. It is also the best justification for politics that it is concerned with the resolution of conflict with as little disorder as possible. As Bernard Crick points out, this is something that Aristotle was aware of when he said politics was the 'master science'.2 It is an activity that calls for great skill, flair, experience and knowledge to be used in the service of resolving social conflicts that will destroy society if they are not resolved. This also includes, in the last resort, dealing with the allocation of scarce material resources. Markets cannot do this if people draw guns in them. A framework of law must be maintained if markets are to allocate freely. Thus political activity determines the continuation or discontinuation of all other activities and studies. That politics may be a necessary activity for a decent existence is something only anarchists will disagree with, though some forms of political activity may end in a very indecent existence.
If conflict is to be resolved rationally and peaceably on a regular basis, conditions must be devised allowing discussion and consultation with compromise, possibly, as the final end. Once such procedures are stabilised we have a set of institutions a political system. (see Chapter 6) Structures of this kind can only exist within a framework of order. For them to exist for long, rules must be drawn up at first they may be accepted customs but later they will be written and promulgated and steps taken to see they are observed. Law can only be sustained where there is a framework of order. This explains why the term 'international society' (see Chapter 25) is only a hope and an aspiration: international law cannot be enforced because there are no effective forces of order.
To sum up: politics is a term with several usages. Fundamentally
however, political activity is concerned with conflictual activity and its resolution in the widest sense.
1.2 What is political science?
Political science is the study of politics in all its dimensions. At least four can be distinguished.
1.2.1 Political science as philosophy and theory
Early study of politics took place in small communities. The ancient Greeks who asked many of the important questions (and answered some of them well enough to satisfy many people today) lived in city states where rulers and decision-making were not remote. Their primary concern was with the nature of the good and just society and what the attitude of the citizen should be towards authority. The nature of our obligation to our rulers became an important theme in the early study of politics. Why do we obey the state? (see Chapter 3).
The easy answer to this question is that people obey out of habit. It does not occur to them to disobey. In modern times the question might be answered by anthropologists studying primitive societies, or by psychologists studying small groups of people and their response to leadership in laboratory situations. The ancient philosophers believed the answer lay in the nature of man. Aristotle perceived man as an animal of the polis: outside society people could not attain true happiness. The real nature of man could only be realised by associating with others. He assumed that the good life lay in the polity and that legally constituted government was the natural form, so that corruptions of good government were aberrations. Hence harmony was more natural than conflict. Neither Plato nor Aristotle seems to have conceived that disagreement could be irreconcilable. Christian philosophers believed that authority came from God and, therefore, should be obeyed. Later dynastic rulers transformed this into the claim that hereditary rulers were appointed by divine law and so disobeying them was unthinkable.
Once the acknowledgement of basic disagreement arose the question of political obligation either disappeared or became far more complicated. The Scientific Revolution, the Renaissance, the Reformation and finally the eighteenth-century Enlightenment removed many of the old certainties. Machiavelli (1469-1527), who had been imprisoned and tortured by rulers' commands, believed people were fickle and prone to evil. He was the holder of high office at the period of the expulsion, and then reinstatement, of the Medici in Florence. Instability -
he held, could always be round the corner. When the safety of the country is ultimately in question, he wrote, there must be no question of justice or injustice, of mercy or cruelty, of praise or ignominy. It was not a matter of obligation, but of success or failure. Similarly Hobbes (1588-1679), writing in the period of the English Civil War and religious intolerance, perceived man's nature as fearful in consequence of the struggle for survival. People battled against one another to achieve their ends and in consequence life was 'nasty, brutish and short'. Hence a sovereign was needed to enforce law and order. We obey the sovereign because if people start disobeying everyone will be miserable in a state of mutual conflict. It is not a moral obligation, it is a necessity.
From the late seventeenth century onward the question of the relationship between the individual and the state generally shifted from the obligation to obey to the circumstances in which one could disobey. It was argued by John Locke (1632-1704) that rulers rule with the consent of their people with whom they have a contract. If the ruler breaches their individual rights the people have a right to replace him. This justification of the English Revolution of 1688, when Parliament replaced a hereditary monarch it disapproved of, became an inspiration for the American Revolutionaries. Thus the study of political thought turned to constitutional liberalism and the need to control powerful government. Montesquieu (1689-1755) believed that this could only be done by separating the powers of the judiciary, legislature and executive from each other. Rousseau (1712-1778), with his belief in equality and sovereignty belonging to the people, challenged all previous ideas about authority.
After the American and French Revolutions obedience was no longer either a habit or an accepted and expected pattern of behaviour. Conflict among the people, who were rarely even 90 per cent in favour of any proposal, had to be assumed. The arrival of the Common Man and the pluralistic society meant that philosophic thinking about politics could no longer be the simple matter of the relationship between the individual and the state.
This is only the briefest summary of that part of most political science syllabuses known as political philosophy or political theory. (In Chapters 2 and 3 more recent developments are discussed.) It is possible to make a distinction between these two rubrics. Political philosophy is more concerned with implicit assumptions and internal logic, while political theory tends to be more related to intellectual influences and to cultural and historical environments, but the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
1.2.2 Political science as the study of conflict
At its core political science is concerned with the study of conflict. This can take place at several levels. Personal conflict, usually studied by psychologists, can be of service to political scientists. The study of aggressive instincts, for example, or the ability to compromise are obvious examples and these themes can also apply to group conflict.
Collective conflict is obviously the main field of investigation. It is of a different order from personal conflict because it involves all sorts of considerations about group coherence and group fragmentation. Political sociologists investigate for what reasons and to what extent people identify with others and to what degree they emphasise their distinction from those in other groups. When a group achieves a level of continuous existence, develops rules and decision-making procedures and systematically begins to recruit members, it is called an 'association'.
The part of the subject variously called political institutions or comparative institutions (see below) is involved with the study of conflict within the framework of a set of institutions. A political institution is a public body with formally designated structures and functions intended to regulate defined activities applying to the whole population. Governments, parliaments and the law courts are political institutions. Their interrelationships are defined in constitutions.
Collective conflict may take place at three levels at that of local associations, at that of national associations and at that of nation states. Often collective conflict takes the form of a clash between those associations and interests involved in the government and those outside it. In authoritarian regimes (see Chapter 4), however, where governments rule virtually unchallenged, conflict at the first two levels is submerged or likely to be repressed. Unless there is one-man rule, however, there will be conflict in private cabals. Such situations are not easy for the researcher to examine. Conversely, the study of politics in democracies, where conflict is permitted and even encouraged and where it often takes place publicly, is so much easier.
The study of conflict between local groups may be made at the community level. It may be about the building of a new bypass or the closing of a footpath. Increasingly nationwide groups associate themselves with such matters, but there may be other local issues, such as a dispute between travellers and local landowners, which proceed no further than local government. In the Western world physical conflict at this level is rare, but there are areas where internal disputes, especially ethnic rivalries, deteriorate into armed conflict.
A very large proportion of the literature of political science is con
cerned with conflict between nationally organised associations. There are two kinds of political association: pressure groups and political parties (see Chapter 10). Pressure groups do not want to participate in governing, although they do want to obtain access to the decision making process and to influence its outcome. Unlike parties they usually have a specific political objective. Parties tend to be coalitions of interests with many objectives concerned to govern or share in the task of governing. Political scientists sometimes study one of these organisations separately as a political system in itself: usually within large pressure groups and parties there are factions in conflict. At other times relationships between different groups are examined.
It should be said that increasingly pressure groups operate on an international scale and lobby at international conferences the so called non-governmental groups (NGOS). This is particularly the case with women's and environmental groups. (see Chapter 5).
Collective group conflict of this kind would usually be included in the study of comparative institutions where the role of associations in relation to political institutions, especially legislatures and executives, is clearly a necessary component (see Chapters 6-10) Wider study of the social and cultural backgrounds of association memberships and leaderships is likely to be dealt with under the heading of political sociology.
1.2.3 Political science as international relations
Conflict between states is the core of international relations (see Chapter 21). This is sometimes taught in departments separate from political science. It can be argued that the subject matter is quite different because there is no such thing as international society (see Chapter 25) or world government. A world system does not exist: world society is an unregulated state of nature. On the other hand, as Michael Sheehan argues, some societal elements international courts of law and world declarations of human rights can be seen and are growing in importance.
1.2.4 Political science as the study of institutions
Political scientists are also involved with the resolution of conflict in policy-making and decision-making and the imposition of decisions once they are finalised. Here there is scope for numerous fields of study.
In most developed states a good deal of decision-making, certainly the most visible part, is standardised by procedural rules, institutional processes and constitutions. The study of political institutions is a major part of the discipline. Frequently the political institutions of
one country are studied, but quite as often countries and their political institutions are compared under the heading of comparative institutions. The subject may require knowledge of constitutional law, historical background and social and cultural environment. It is the framework which shapes the political life of countries and within which decision-making takes place.
The imposition, or implementation, of decisions once they are made is another wide field of study. The modern state has a large apparatus of administrators concerned with applying the numerous laws which modern legislatures produce (see Chapter 4). This apparatus, or bureaucracy, needs coordination and supervision. As its officials are often appointed for life while the incumbency of democratic politicians is transitory, the bureaucracy may also wield some power. All these themes come under the heading of public administration (see Section Four) which was one of the early foundations on which university political science was built. It has always been concerned with management and in recent years management studies has partly developed from it. In addition, the study of policy-making has become important because of the increasing degree to which specialised administrators, or technocrats, have moved away from the role of the neutral administrator as a mere implementer of policy.
Political scientists are also concerned to study reasons for the maintenance and breakdown of political systems. Rebellions and revolutions are, after all, not uncommon and even apparently stable regimes have been known to collapse. The Russian Revolution in 1917 and the dramatic and sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90 are both evidence of political forces erupting in authoritarian states. Even more alarming to liberals are instances of the collapse of democracy as in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s and, more recently, in Greece in 1967. Thus the conditions underlying stability are a natural subject of study. This leads to the investigation of social and other cleavages within states their depth and intensity and how to deal with them. Surprisingly, political scientists have not been active in studying political skills. The art of diplomacy in both domestic and international settings has been somewhat neglected. Only in the area of international relations has crisis management received any attention.
In recent years attention has turned to the environments which affect conflict and its resolution. Especially the economic and social environments of the political system have interested political scientists, leading them to study the areas where the polity overlaps with the economy and society. These two areas are known repectively as political economy and political sociology.
Political economy
This was a seventeenth-century term meaning the public management of the affairs of the state. The contemporary mercantilist doctrine implied that those with political power controlled the economy. There are several reasons why interest in relations between politics and the economy have revived in recent decades. The most obvious is the importance of the economy for democratic politicians. A perception of prosperity is a great help towards winning elections and the reverse is true: a feeling of depression is bad for incumbent governments at the polls. Consequently governments are bound to be tempted to manipulate the economy. Political scientists have identified a 'political business cycle' showing that boosts to the economy are often administered in the months before elections.
The influence, however, is not all one way. An unstable political system can ruin an economy. Visible examples from the developing world are not difficult to find. Political scientists who study development perceive political development as part of the process of modernisation. For the political system this implies the development of specialisation, structural differentiation, accommodation with pluralism and secularisation. It presumes the growth of a bureaucracy and, perhaps, democracy in the end.
There have also been attempts by political scientists to borrow economists' models. (Models are dealt with in Chapter 6). One wellknown example is the analogy between oligopoly, a market with few sellers, and a state with only a few political parties. Another more fundamental one is the claim that the individual voter, faced with an array of policy options to choose from, is in an analogous situation with the sovereign consumer in the market.
Political sociology
The relationship between political science and sociology proceeded in rather the same fashion, from empiricism towards model-building. It was the study of electorates and their motives which led to the conceptualization of political culture (culture is a term whose origins are in anthropology see Chapter 6). This is the set of beliefs, attitudes and values which people hold towards their political system. Then the concept of socialisation, the process through which people are prepared to participate in social systems, was borrowed to construct the concept of political socialisation, the process by which people become aware of their political systems. Other political scientists studying public opinion became interested in propaganda and mass behaviour (on the margins of psychology, though political psychology, as yet, is an infant social science).
A further borrowing from sociology relates to social systems as integrating and stabilising agents, a notion first advanced by Talcott Parsons. 3 David Easton produced a more sophisticated model with input and output functions that owed much to computer systems (see Chapter 6).
1.3 Is political science a science?
Natural scientists sometimes complain about the description of the study of politics as a science. They argue that it cannot be a science because, unlike the natural sciences:
1. The variables in political science are not all subject to measurement. Its elements are not like matter whose weight, volume, temperature and so on can be quantified.
2. Unlike natural scientists, political scientists cannot set up experiments with what are apparently the same ingredients, in the same conditions and produce the same results. Environments cannot be controlled as in a laboratory. The ingredients change because they are human. For example, there can be contagion in that they can learn from each other. They also learn from their experiences and may behave quite differently from one situation to another that appears to be similar.
3. Therefore political scientists can never accurately predict. (Of course, this may also apply to some natural sciences such as meteorology, seismology, zoology.)
Most political scientists accept these objections. They believe the best reason for calling their subject political science is to distinguish it from politics. (Incidentally, no one seems to object to domestic science as a term to cover the culinary and home-building arts.) Science is merely a derivation of the Latin word for knowledge. The argument began with the political behaviouralists who saw numeracy as the key to science and believed quantification of data and analysis by statistical testing would allow them to test the validity of hypotheses. Unfortunately although hypotheses can be presented the results only have validity within a small space and a short time. Moreover, much political data cannot be quantified and the number of variables, anyway, is enormous. Political scientists may claim they are value-freethere is objectivity in their approach but they cannot make authoritative statements of the same universal validity as natural scientists.
1. 'Man is a political animal.' Discuss.
2. ‘If there were no disagreement there would be no politics.' Discuss.
