Write an essay on defination and scope and its career option of political science
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Answer:
The root word of politics is the Greek term polis which means city state. So political science is concerned with the problems of city state. It is a common knowledge that the ancient Greeks made no difference between the states and cities.
This archaic meaning of politics holds good even today. So it is trite that right from the fifth century B.C. to the present twentieth century A.D. political science carries the same root meaning. So, whether one likes it or not, political science continues to be predominantly concerned with the state.
The expression “political science” has not been explained by any political thinker in a clear and scientific way. The definition given by them is rather the subject-matter of political science and not any definition as such. Whether we accept these definitions or not, there is no denying the fact that the subject-matter as hammered home by the political scientists serve as the acceptable groundwork of political science.
So Paul Janet, to begin with, defined political science as “that part of social science which treats of the foundations of the state and the principles of government. Politics means science and art of running government. Although in olden days the term was used only for the specific purpose, i.e., for administering a country, the position has undergone a tremendous metamorphosis. So Gareis is of the view that political science considers the state as an institution of power in the totality of its relations, its origin, its setting (land and people), its object, its ethical signification, its economic problems, its life conditions, its financial side, its end etc. “The subject-matter of political science begins and ends with the state. So the Swiss Scholar J. K. Bluntschli is of the view that political science attempts to understand the state in its fundamental conditions.
The same is the view of H. G. James – “Political science may be defined as the science of the state.”
It makes a thorough study of the state in its entirety. So the state is the be-all and end-all of political science. But Stephen Butler Leacock and Sir John Seeley hold a contrary opinion. According to them, the subject-matter of politics is government, not the state asPolitical science investigates the phenomena of government as political economy deals with wealth, biology with life, algebra with numbers and geometry with space and magnitudes.”
It is for this reason that we do not find the mention of the state in the definition of political science as handed down by Stephen Butler Leacock and Sir John Seeley.
In our opinion political science is a study of both the state and the government. It is neither possible nor desirable to separate the state from the government. One cannot be divorced from the other. While the state is the dominant subject of political science, the government is the agency through which the state expresses itself.
The French scholar Paul Janet defined political science as that part of social science which deals with the foundation of the state and the principles of government. J. W. Garner makes it very comprehensive; “In a general way its fundamental problem includes, first, an investigation of the origin and nature of the state, second, an enquiry into the nature history and forms of political institutions, and third, a deduction there-from, so far as possible, of the laws of political growth and development.”
But the socialist thinker H. J. Laski triggered in the element of man in relation to the state as the focal point of political science. To say in his words – “The study of politics concerns itself with the life of man in relation to organised states.”
Thus there cannot be a study of political science minus the man or the citizen. So we may conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi – “The root meaning of politics is the science of citizenship.” We accept the views of Laski and Gandhi.