Research in an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the use of techniques and methods in understanding the conduct of state strategy is carried out by political sciences. Thus, personnel are trained to solve various problems of the life of the state. Political sciences are purely applied, in contrast to the "pure" sciences. The range of problems in this sphere is extremely wide, therefore absolutely any disciplines can adjoin political ones, not only social sciences, but also physical, biological, mathematical, sociological ones.
The most closely related to the approach used by political sciences are political science, sociology, management, law, municipal and state administration, and history. Ways of cognition are also often borrowed from areas of such boundary disciplines as operations research, systems analysis, cybernetics, general systems theory, game theory, and so on. All this becomes a subject of study if it helps to find a solution to issues of national importance, which political science is involved in.
Goals and means
Research is conducted in such a way as to clarify goals, evaluate alternatives, recognize trends and analyze the situation, and then develop a specific policy for solving state problems. There is no need to talk about fundamental values, you need a proposition of fact to be investigated, which is what political science does. The development of political science is faster if its representatives independently participate in the selection of goals, talk about the suitability or unsuitability of funds, lay out possible choices and anticipate the consequences of alternative options.
Most of the modern and historical political systems have always assigned and are assigned one of the most important places "at the helm" to highly-skilled experts who provide their knowledge and skills to the main developers of government policy. But a truly scientific, coordinated multidisciplinary approach to the effectiveness of state strategy was developed not so long ago. The formation of political science began not earlier than 1951, when the term was coined by the American psychologist, and later by the political scientist Harold Lasswell. Since that time, an individual contribution by scientists, political scientists, has been purposefully made to the entire structure of public policy support. And interdisciplinary cooperation is really effective.
Policy Making Science
What do political sciences study? They examine everything, depending on the situation. This is very clearly seen by participating in the development of the strategy of such a discipline as system analysis, which develops first planning, then programming, then financing of each specific government program. The boundaries between disciplines are eroding more and more, and politicians are seriously considering that they will completely disappear soon. This course of events is characterized by the fact that a variety of scientific knowledge is applied integrally to the political process. Perhaps they are right, and that studying political sciences will make them supradiscipline.
Here it must be taken into account that this is by no means political science itself (that is, a great political science), but rather what is put in the heading - the scientific support of the state strategy. The term, which has already come into use, is applied political science, a kind of institute of political sciences, dealing with the laws of the appearance of various phenomena in the work of a huge state machine. These are relations and processes related to the life of the country. Applied political science is also engaged in the search for ways, forms of functioning, development and management methods in political processes, it takes care of both political consciousness and culture.
Probably, there is no area where political science would not find application. The development of political science cannot be stopped, since it covers almost all human activity. Political science as a pure science studies the real state of the political life of states, but applied science aims to study and accumulate knowledge about political processes, as well as transfer them to the widest possible range of people.
Objects and objects
It is imperative to distinguish between objective reality, which does not depend on the knowing subject, and the subject of research itself, that is, certain properties, qualities, facets of the object being studied. The subject is always chosen in connection with the tasks and goals of a specific study, and the object itself is a given, which does not depend on anything. The object can be explored by arbitrarily numerous sciences.
The social class, for example, is studied by psychology, and sociology, and political science, and entology, and a whole range of diverse sciences. However, each of them in this object has its own methods and its own subject of study. Philosophers, apologists for the science of speculative and contemplative, investigate in the social class the enduring problems of human being, historians will help to compile a chronology of the events of the development of this social class, economists will trace aspects of life characteristic of their science to this part of society. So modern political science gets its real significance in the life of the state.
But political scientists are studying in the same object everything that is associated with the word "politics" in the life of people. These are political structures, institutions, relations, personality traits, behavior, and so on (can be continued for a long time). All this means that the object of research for political scientists is the political sphere of society, since the researcher cannot change it in any way. The subjects of political research can not only be different, but can also be changed for the better on the degree of study and propaganda (although there are opposite examples when the result was too dependent on the human factor and the goals were set incorrectly in relation to other political systems, but this is already international political science, about it a little lower).
Method and Direction
Applied political science is a multifunctional science that uses a variety of directions and methods in research according to the materials of the disciplines involved in the work. By studying certain categories of political science, mankind gains power over the course of the historical development of society, replenishes the arsenal with effective methods of influence, acquiring specific research methods. Of the most basic areas of research - political institutions, and this is the state and government, law, various parties, social movements, that is, all kinds of formalized or not political institutions. What is meant by this term? This is one or another area of politics with a set of established norms and rules, principles and traditions, as well as with relations that can be somehow regulated.
The methodology of political science will help to consider, for example, the institution of the presidency with its rules of procedure for the election, limits of competence, methods of removal from office, and so on. An equally important area is the study of political phenomena and processes, where they study the revealed objective laws, analyze the patterns of development of the entire system of society, and develop political technologies for their practical application in this area. The third area explores political consciousness, psychology and ideology, a culture of behavior, motivation, communication methods and methods of managing all these phenomena.
History of Political Science
For the first time, they tried to theoretically generalize knowledge of politics back in antiquity. The basis of these studies were mostly speculative philosophical and ethical ideas. Philosophers of this direction Aristotle and Plato were mainly interested not in some real state, but in the ideal state, in what it should be in their ideas. Further, in the Middle Ages, Western European concepts had religious dominance, and therefore political theories had corresponding interpretations, since any thought, including of a political nature, could develop only in the territories of the theological paradigm. The directions of political science have not yet developed, and the prerequisites for this will appear very soon.
Political notions were interpreted as one of the many areas of theology, where the highest authority is God. The civic concept appeared in political thought only in the seventeenth century, which gave a certain impetus to the emergence and development of truly independent research methods of current political processes. The works of Montesquieu, Locke, Burke became the basis of the institutional method, which is so widely used in modern applied political science, although political science itself has not yet developed. This concept took shape only in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was the study of political institutions that the best minds in their works were engaged in. And what this method is, you need to consider in more detail.
Institutional method
Using this method, as mentioned above, one can study various political institutions: states, organizations, parties, movements, electoral systems, and many other process regulators in the activities of society. The stages of political science in its consistent development can be continued with studies of the external activities of states and the international political process. Institutionalization is the streamlining, standardization and formalization of social relations in the studied sphere of human life. Thus, when using this method, it is assumed that most of the society recognizes the legitimacy of such a social institution and that the legal formation of relations and the establishment of rules that are common for the whole society and regulate all social activities can ensure the planned behavior of all subjects in social interaction.
This method also drives the process of institutionalization. Applied political science by precisely this method checks political institutions for their legal legitimacy, social legitimacy and mutual compatibility. Here it must be remembered that the concept of institutional agreement is key to the development of society. Any violations of institutional norms that have already become generally accepted, as well as the transition to new rules of the game without convincing reasons, lead to social conflicts of varying severity. When applying the institutional method of research, the political sphere becomes visible as an integral system of social institutions that have their own structures and rules for their activities.
Sociological, anthropological and psychological methods
The sociological method of research is called upon to identify the social conditioning of phenomena. It allows one to better reveal the nature of power, to define its strategy as the interaction of huge social communities. Applied political science combines for this purpose various social political sciences that collect and analyze real facts, that is, specific sociological studies. Thus, the foundation is laid for the work of political strategists focused on the application of results in the practice of building plans for the further development of the political process under study.
The anthropological method analyzes the political phenomenon if only the collectivist nature of the individual is considered. According to Aristotle, a person cannot live alone, apart, because he is a political being. However, evolutionary development shows how long it takes to improve a social organization in order to reach the stage when it will be possible to move on to the political organization of a society where a person is constantly trying to isolate himself.
Motivation and other behavioral mechanisms are examined by a researcher who uses the psychological method of research. As a scientific direction, this method arose in the nineteenth century, but it was based on the ideas of Confucius, Seneca, Aristotle, and the scientists of the New Age - Russo, Hobbes, Machiavelli supported the ancient thinkers. Here the most important link is psychoanalysis, developed by Freud, where processes in the unconscious are studied, which can have a significant impact on the behavior of an individual, including political.
Comparative method
A comparative, or comparative, method has come in our days from ancient times. Even Aristotle and Plato compared various political regimes and determined the correctness and incorrectness of the forms of statehood, and then constructed, in their opinion, ideal ways of arranging the world order. Now the comparative method is quite widely used in applied political science, even a separate branch has grown - comparative political science - and has become a completely independent direction in the general structure of political science.
The essence of this method is in comparing various and similar phenomena - regimes, movements, parties, political systems or their decisions, development methods and so on. Thus, it is easy to identify the special and the general in any studied objects, as well as objectively assess the realities and identify patterns, which means finding the most optimal solutions to problems. Having analyzed, for example, two hundred different states and the largest possible number of their characteristic features, all similar and different features are selected by comparison, similar phenomena are typologized, and possible alternatives are identified. And you can use the experience of other states, developing your own. Comparison is the best way to acquire knowledge.
Behaviorism in Political Science
The behavioral method is based on purely empirical observations. The social behavior of the individual and individual groups is investigated. In this case, the study of individual characteristics enjoys priority. That is, social political sciences do not participate in these studies. Using this method, the electoral behavior of voters was examined and studied, and with its help, election technologies were developed. Despite the fact that the contribution to the formation of empirical research methods, behaviorism has made a significant, as well as the development of applied political science, the area of application of this method is quite limited.
The main drawback of behaviorism is that it gives priority to researching individual, atomized groups or individuals divorced from the general structure and social environment. This method does not take into account either historical traditions or moral principles. Everything in it is only bare rationality. Not that this method was bad. It is not universal. America fits. But Russia, for example, does not. If a society is devoid of the natural roots from which its history grew, in it each individual is like an atom, he knows only one external limitations, because he feels the pressure of other atoms. Such an individual has no internal limitations; he is not burdened either by traditions or moral values. This is a free player, and he has one goal - to furnish the rest.
Briefly about a lot
System analysis, widely used in applied political science, was developed by the works of Plato and Aristotle, continued by Marx and Spencer and finalized by Easton and Almond. This is an alternative to behaviorism, since it considers the entire political sphere as an integral self-regulating system that is in the external environment and actively interacts with it. Using a theory common to all systems, system analysis helps to streamline ideas about the political sphere, systematize the diversity of events, and build a model of action. Then the studied object appears as a single organism, whose properties are in no way the sum of the properties of its individual elements.
The synergetic method is relatively new and comes from the natural sciences. Its essence is that structures that lose order in chemical and physical processes can self-organize. , - , , , .
. , , , , . , . , . . , , .
Theoretical political science is developing common methods for researching the public political sphere. However, all theories are somehow always aimed at practical problems and are capable of solving them in most cases. Applied political science studies each specific political situation, obtains the necessary information, develops political forecasts, gives practical advice and recommendations, and solves emerging social and political problems. For this, the above methods of political research have been developed and reused. Applied political science not only describes political systems, phenomena and relations, it tries to identify patterns, trends, analyzes the development of social relations and the functioning of political institutions. In addition, her vigilant attention is focused on the study of the essential aspects of the object, the motivating forces for political activity and the principles on which this activity is based.