Political Science

A

Comparative Politics

Comparative politics involves study of the politics of different countries. Some political scientists, known as area specialists, study a single country or a culturally similar group of nations, such as the countries of Southeast Asia. Area specialists tend to be versed in the language, history, and culture of the country or group of countries they study. Other political scientists compare culturally dissimilar nations, and investigate the similarities and differences in the politics of these nations. Political scientists who undertake these comparisons are often motivated by the need to develop and test theories—for example, theories of why revolutions happen. This may lead them to discover commonalities between countries that are widely separated and appear very different. For example, political scientists have found many similarities between the transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.

B

American Politics

Research institutions in most of the world classify American politics as a subfield of comparative politics. However, political scientists usually organize the study of their own country into a separate field, so within the United States, American politics is recognized as its own specialty. Given the size of the United States and the number of students who study U.S. politics in colleges and universities, the American politics subfield is very large. Political scientists interested in American politics often study the Congress of the United States, judicial politics, constitutional law, the presidency, state and local politics, voting and elections, and American political history.

C

International Relations

International relations is the study of the international system, which involves interactions between nations, international organizations, and multinational corporations. The two traditional approaches used by political scientists in the study of international relations are realism and liberalism (which is not the same as liberalism as a political ideology). Realism emphasizes the danger of the international system, where war is always a possibility and the only source of order is the balance of power. Liberalism is more idealistic and hopeful, emphasizing the problem-solving abilities of international institutions such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended, the balance of opinion briefly shifted in favor of liberalism, but realists were quick to point to the potential for future international conflicts.

Beginning in the 1980s constructivist political scientists asserted that the interests of nations and the character of their interactions are not fixed, but can be determined by policy makers. For example, for the past 50 years, U.S. policy makers have constructed the identity of Canada and Cuba in quite different ways. In spite of the fact that Canada and the United States were rivals in the early part of their history, during the 20th century the U.S. has established military and economic alliances with Canada and regards it as a close ally. In contrast, since Cuba’s 1959 revolution and subsequent adoption of Communist principles, the United States has treated Cuba as a potential threat to American national security. Many European nations and allies of the United States believe this fear is unwarranted. According to constructivist political scientists, the identities that U.S. policy makers have constructed for countries like Canada and Cuba help to determine whether the fears of realists or the hopes of liberals are more likely to be realized.

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D

Political Theory

Political theory involves the study of philosophical thought about politics from ancient Greece to the present; the interpretation and development of concepts such as freedom, democracy, human rights, justice, and power; the development of models for government, such as participatory democracy or constitutional systems; and the logic that political scientists use in their inquiries. Political theory overlaps law, philosophy, and the other fields of political science. In 1971 John Rawls, a professor of philosophy at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, published A Theory of Justice, which revitalized political theory. Rawls’s book showed that it was still possible to generate sophisticated and challenging philosophical arguments about the way that political systems should be organized, and that political scientists should not just look to the ideas of the great philosophers of the past.

E

Public Administration

Political scientists interested in public administration study government organizations and their relation to other parts of government. Political scientists investigate how these organizations work, and try to devise methods of improving them. For example, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s book Reinventing Government (1992) inspired many national, state, and local governments to adopt more-competitive and less bureaucratic ways of delivering services to the public.

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