----Political Science is a social science which deals with systems of

governance, and the analysis of Political activities, political

thoughts, political behaviour. It deals extensively with the theory
and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as
determining of the distribution of power and resources.
----occasionally called POLITICOLOGY; comprises numerous
subfields, including COMPARATIVE POLITICS, POLITICAL ECONOMY,
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS POLITICAL THEORY, ADMINISTRATION,
PUBLIC POLICY, and POLITICAL METHODOLOGY.
 POLITICAL SCIENCE, as one of the social sciences, uses methods
and techniques that relate to the kind of inquiries sought:
--Primary sources such as historical Documents and Official
Records
--Secondary sources such as scholarly Journal Articles, Survey
Research, Statistical Analysis, Case Studies, Experimental
Research, and Model Building.
•POSITIVISM
•INTERPRETIVISM
•RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
•BEHAVIORALISM
•STRUCTURALISM
•REALISM
•INSTITUTIONALISM
•POSITIVISM- is a philosophical theory stating that certain (positive)
knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and
relations. Positivism holds that valid knowledge 9certitude or truth) is
found only in this a posteriori knowledge.

•INSTITUTIONALISM OR VERSTEHEN- literally. “ to understand”, in the

context of German philosophy and social sciences . With the particular
sense of ‘interpretative or participatory” examination of social
phenomena.

•RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY – also known as choice theory or rational

action theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally
modeling social and economic behaviour.
BEHAVIORALISM– is an approach in political science that emerged in the 1930’s in
the US. It represented a sharp break from previous approaches in emphasizing an
objective quantified approach to explain and predict political behaviour.

STRUCTURALISM– is a methodology that implies elements of human culture must

be understood by way of their relationship to a broader, overarching system or
structure.

POST STRUCTURALISM– associated with the works of a series of mid 20th century.
The term is defined by its relationship to the system before it.

REALISM-- about a given object is the view that this object exist in reality
independently of our conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic, practices beliefs,
etc.
HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM– is a new institutional social
science method that uses institutions to find sequence of
social, political, economic behaviour and change across time.
It is the comparative approach to the study of all aspects of
human organizations and does so by relying heavily on case
studies.
Contemporary political science started to take shape in the latter half of
the 19th century. At that time it began to separate itself from political
philosophy, which traces its roots back to the works of Aristotle, and Plato
which were written nearly 2500 years ago. The term “political science”
was not always distinguished from political philosophy , and the modern
discipline has a clear set of antecedents including also moral philosophy,
political economy, political theology, history, and other fields concerned
with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing
the characteristics and functions of the ideal state.