What is Political Science?

Political science is the study a range of political ideas, events, actions, and institutions. It includes both understanding and explaining the world of politics that is all around us. We all participate in politics, though most of the time we do so unknowingly. Politics is much more than simply voting in an election or working in government. Reading or listening to news, making donations to aid groups, or talking with friends and family about social issues and values are a few of the many examples of political activity in our every day lives.

Political Science is concerned with the many institutions, organizations and norms that determine how people perceive society, and in turn, how they interact within it. In Political Science, we discuss basic concepts, such as “power”, “government” or “democracy”, in order to get us thinking about the world around us, and our place in it. Once that we understand the many concepts, we study the connections between them in order to better explain political outcomes, such as: why people vote for one political party as opposed to another, why governments and policies differ in different countries, or why armed conflicts happen in some cases while they are avoided in other cases.

Citizen participation and engagement occurs because of the nature of the institutions that structure society: we work and live within them, and sometimes we rebel against them. If you study Political Science, you will look at how and why.