Origins of Political Science as we know it today

Political science Handbook

Political Science: It is a science as it includes a methodological analysis of power under constraints.

Beginnings:

Plato (~305AD) there are three kinds of states, democracies, oligarquies and tyrannies.  The most enduring states are the ones that include a mix of these categories. Deductive method (The Republic/ Mixed Constitution).

Aristoteles. Belonged to Plato’s Lyceum for 20 years. After tutoring Alexander the Great, founded his Academy. His methods to analyze politics: Inductive. Comparativist (Polis).

Rome:

Stoics: Polybius. Stoics believed in the existence of a natural order that had to be followed. Roman emperors adopted these ideas that led Christianity to easily blend into Roman politics.

Middle Age:

Thomas Aquinas kept the ideas of a natural order. Governance and natural order should be balanced for governance.

Renaissance:

Machiavelli: Politics without morals. Pragmatic approach to governance. Observed the political behavior of Italian State Cities.

Enlightenment: Hobbes, Locke, Montesqueu, Hume, Madison and Hamilton.

Hobbes: Why do people stand to be governed by others? To secure stability and order.

Locke: People cede to the community their right of enforcing the law of reason so as better to preserve life, liberty and property.  Beginning of the separation of powers.

Montesquieu: Comparativist. Traveled to Persia and around Europe to compare different political systems. Believes in the natural order but also in the construction of collective politics considering variables such as religion, culture, economy. The powers must be separated and balanced. England is a good example of a Republic: aristocracy plus democracy.

Hamilton and Madison: Based on Montesquieu and the experience of the thirteen colonies and European nations in the separation of powers. New formula: Separation + Checks and balances = Liberty.

19 Century

Hegel, Comte, Marx.

Hegel: Prussian bureaucratic monarchy: Example

Marx: Diagnoses capitalism à proletarian socialism = truly free equality.

Comte: Positivism, inaugurated “sociology”. Science = positivism.

Evolutionists: Spencer, Sumner, Toennies. Cultural and political variation shapes politics.

Tocqueville: Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to proceed.

Late 19 Century, PS methodology became historicist.

John Stuart Mill: Democracy as an alternative to other regimes is a major preoccupation. Only the educated, informed and civically responsible can avoid the corruption latent in democracy.

20 Century, the professionalization