IS POLITICAL SCIENCE SCIENTIFIC - Essay Example

Political science is the study of behaviour of people in regard to governance, organization and power play. As such it not only studies the public actions of political activists, but also studies the making and functioning of political institutions, structures, laws and constructs of politics. Since political science deals with observation and deductions of theories and facts from actual situations, it can be classified as a science. An empirical theory of politics, then, is an explanation of why people behave the way they do politically (The Powermutt* Project).

Ancient philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates in Greece and Chanakya in India studied politics on basis of observed phenomenon. In the medieval times, Machiavelli, of the Italian Resistance movement was among the first to study politics in a systematic way. Later, with the advent of various democratic movements, and intellectual resurgence in Europe philosophers like Hume, Hobbes, Roussseau, Marx, Locke and Voltaire made vigorous studies in political science In the present times, political science is being studied both as a normative and behavioral science and is generally categorized as social science.

Though research methods like statistics, stating and testing of hypothesis, drawing of inferences and supporting a political theory with observable facts, and making political analysis thereof, is commonly practiced, yet, political science is not considered an exact science like physics, chemistry, and mathematics. This is because, although, some postulates can be proved true but they are not as fixed, rigid and universally true as the Laws of Motion, Laws of Thermodynamics, Quantum Theory, etc.

Political science lacks the exactness and precision with which exact or natural sciences are studied. Thus theories, concepts and their causes differ in political science unlike those of exact sciences. For example, the causes of Republicans