The+Science+of+Politics

The Science of Politics
**Historical Development of the Scientific Approach To The Study Of Politics ** Prior to the behavioural revolution, which was a major paradigm shift from traditionalism to scientific approach in the study of politics 1, the approaches that dominated politics up to the 1900s was the normative-philosophical and descriptive-institutional approach. In the Normative-philosophical approach politics was dominated by philosophical reflections on those universal political values that were regarded as essential to the just state and the good citizen. The political philosophers behind this approach includes; Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacque Rousseau. The Descriptive Institutional approach to the study of politics focuses on the evolution of institutions for making, enforcing and interpreting laws. Such institutions include; the legislature, executive and the judiciary. As the approach developed institutions such as political parties, bureaucracies, interest groups were included. The behaviouralism or behavioural approach developed in opposition to the normative and descriptive orientations to the study of politics. The behaviouralist not only exercised facts over values but also argued that it is the behaviour of individuals in political institution rather than the institution themselves that is the essence of politics. The behaviouralist thus advocated for the scientific and empirical methods in political research and stressed the fact that political science can become as sophisticated and rigorous as the natural sciences. Therefore, behaviouralism changed the study of politics from the traditional approach to a scientific approach. Major behaviouaralist behind this paradigm shift includes; David Easton, Robert Dahl, Karl Deutsh, Gabriel Almond, David Truman etc. **Approaching politics scientifically ** One question that we must first of all answer is what is science? Science is simply the systematic study of knowledge. According to David Burnie science is the “systematic study of anything that can be examined, tested, and verified. The word //science// is derived from the Latin word //scire//, meaning “to know.” From its early beginnings, science has developed into one of the greatest and most influential fields of human endeavor. Science develops through objective analysis, instead of through personal belief. Knowledge gained in science accumulates as time goes by, building on work performed earlier.” In all scientific fields including the social sciences in general and political science in particular, researchers use the systematic approach which is also known as scientific methods to add to the body of knowledge. Scientific method is based on the assumption that knowledge is dependent on what is experienced through the senses and that if a statement concerning natural phenomena is to be accepted as meaningful and true it must be empirically verifiable thus any scientific law must be based on empirical evidence. So how do political scientists apply scientific methods in the study of politics and what makes them scientist? Kellstedt and Whitten outlined the process of the application of science to the study of politics. Basically, political scientists develop and test theories. A theory is a speculative supposition about the causes of some phenomenon of interest. “Once a theory has been developed, we can restate it into one or more testable hypotheses. A hypothesis is a theory-based statement about a relationship that we expect to observe. For every hypothesis there is a corresponding null hypothesis. A null hypothesis is also a theory-based statement but it is about what we would expect to observe if our theory was incorrect. Hypothesis testing is a process in which scientists evaluate systematically collected evidence to make a judgment whether the evidence favors their hypothesis or favors the corresponding null hypothesis. If a hypothesis survives a series of rigorous tests, scientists start to gain conﬁdence in that hypothesis rather than in the null hypothesis, and thus they also gain conﬁdence in the theory from which they generated their hypothesis.” 3 Therefore, political science is truly a science because of the scientific methods adopted in studying the discipline. That is why political science is simply defined as the scientific study of politics and political life. The scientific method in the study of politics was largely developed by the behaviouralist in the United States and it has spread to all parts of the world. Thus, most political scientist who engages in research work today applies scientific process or systematic steps to implement their work. Hence, science of politics is not only possible, it is in vogue. **References ** 1. Paul M. Kellstedt and Guy D. Whitten The Fundamentals of Political Science Research Cambridge University Press. 2. Burnie, David. "Science." Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008. 3. Ibid. p.3