History of political science
The study of how political science developed as a discipline, tracing changes in its theories, methods, institutions, and professional practices.
Plato's Republic: A philosophical dialogue in which Plato examines justice, political order, and the education of rulers. Its systematic inquiry into political life became a foundational text for the discipline.
Political theory: The systematic analysis of political ideas, institutions, authority, and justice. Its normative and interpretive traditions remained central even as the discipline pursued empirical methods.
Aristotle: An ancient Greek philosopher whose writings covered logic, nature, ethics, and political life. His empirical comparisons of constitutions became an enduring model of systematic political inquiry.
Political science: The systematic study of politics, including political institutions, behavior, ideas, and power. The discipline's present scope emerged through the historical developments traced on this page.
Normative political theory: The study of how political arrangements and actions ought to be judged. Its continuing place tests whether political science can or should separate facts from values.
Aristotle's Politics: A study of constitutions and civic life that compares political communities and evaluates forms of government. Its comparative study of constitutions anticipates a durable approach in political science.
Behavioralism: An approach that studies observable political behavior using systematic empirical methods. Its mid-twentieth-century rise recast political science around measurable behavior and testable claims.
Niccolò Machiavelli: A Florentine diplomat and political writer whose work analyzed power, conflict, and statecraft. His political realism influenced later efforts to study government independently of moral prescription.
American Political Science Review: A scholarly journal of political science published by the American Political Science Association since 1906. Its changing articles and standards provide a record of the field's professional priorities.
Political science and public policy: The relationship between political research and the design, implementation, and evaluation of public policy. Debates over practical relevance echo longstanding disputes about scholarship's public responsibilities.