Political Science

Political science is a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behaviour.

Governance refers to "all of processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market or network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization or territory and whether through the laws, norms, power or language."

Social science is a major category of academic disciplines, concerned with society and the relationships among individuals within a society.

Introduction to Political Science by Professor Tamir Sukkary

It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the distribution of power and resources.

Politics is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group.

Why Major in Political Science? by Duke University Department of Political Science

Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these revelations they attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works."

Political science comprises numerous subfields, including comparative politics, political economy, international relations, political theory, public administration, public policy and political methodology.

Political philosophy, or political theory, is the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

International relations or international affairs, depending on academic institution, is either a field of political science, an interdisciplinary academic field similar to global studies, or an entirely independent academic discipline in which students take a variety of internationally focused courses in social science and humanities disciplines.

Public policy is the principled guide to action taken by the administrative executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues, in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs.

Furthermore, political science is related to, and draws upon, the fields of economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, and anthropology.

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.

Economics is a social science concerned with the factors that determine the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its origins, development, organization, networks, and institutions.

Comparative politics is the science of comparison and teaching of different types of constitutions, political actors, legislature and associated fields, all of them from an intrastate perspective.

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed.

A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city.

International relations deals with the interaction between nation-states as well as intergovernmental and transnational organizations.

A nation state is a type of state that joins the political entity of a state to the cultural entity of a nation, from which it aims to derive its political legitimacy to rule and potentially its status as a sovereign state.

Political theory is more concerned with contributions of various classical and contemporary thinkers and philosophers.

Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in social research.

Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice theory, behaviouralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism.

Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of mid-20th-century French and continental philosophers and critical theorists who came to international prominence in the 1960s and 1970s.

In sociology, anthropology and linguistics, structuralism is the methodology that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure.

Rational choice theory, also known as choice theory or rational action theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior.

Political science, 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.

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data.

A case study is a report about a person, group, or situation that has not been studied.