What exactly is Political Science?

It wasn’t until 313 AD that Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Man, which commanded the official toleration of Christianity and other religions. He would also convert to the religion himself.

In its place is appearing “political system,” a concept that is burdened with few practical political overtones.

Magna Carta is Signed
In 1215, what many consider to be the predecessor to the U.S. Constitution was signed in Great Britain.

In the face of the theoretical limitations inherent in institutional concepts, it is scarcely surprising that efforts were made to develop alternative first approximations to a gross description of the major variables of political science

The Magna Carta included many principles we hold dear, such as “no free man shall be seized or imprisoned…except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land

Dissatisfaction with an institutional approach has given birth to a variety of interpretations that have at least one quality in common: they all identify the subject matter of political science as a kind of activity, behavior, or, in a loose sense, function.

The blogger at Constitutional Law Prof even has the original text for the viewing.

Although some definitions of this kind originated in the nineteenth century, it is only since the middle of the twentieth century that they have finally come to be accepted as an approach superior to an institutional one.

Parliament is Born
During the rule of Henry III, the nobles mounted a rebellion and arranged the first ever meeting of Parliament in 1265. Their purpose was to “suggest laws, give advice, and approve tax bills.

The specification of the political function in a society permits political scientists to generalize their subject matter.

This new branch would have ultimate say on whether or not taxes were levied. It would later evolve into the power it is known as now, making it an interesting moment in political science history.

It is no longer limited in any way by the variable historical structures and institutions through which political activities may express themselves, whether they be in the form of highly centralized “states,” undifferentiated tribal systems, or diffusely organized international systems.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses
Up until the 1500’s, the Christian church was one church: the Catholic church. It wasn’t until Martin Luther questioned the doctrine of the church by outlining 95 questions he felt the church wasn’t answering properly.

Power. During the nineteenth century, conceptualization of political science as the study of the state had reached its zenith in the Staatslehre (state theory) school of political inquiry in the German-speaking countries

His original intentions were to just get better answers, but the results involved the separation into two churches and then many, many sects of Christianity after that. You can read all 95 theses in this blog.

Its major characteristic was that it reduced political inquiry to an idea of the state interpreted as a body of formal constitutional norms.

Ultimately this converted political science to an arid legal formalism that turned away entirely from social reality and at times even seemed to escape contact with legal reality itself.

First Prime Minister
The political power in England didn’t shift from the crown to the people overnight, but this was a key step.

The opponents of this school saw the state not as a body of legal norms but as a set of social groups in eternal competition for power over its instrumentalities.

In 1721, Sir Robert Walpole became the first Lord of the Treasury and would be officially recognized as the first prime minister. He took on many of the responsibilities that the current one does.

For example, Marx, Treitschke (1897–1898), and the early political sociologists, such as Gumplowicz (1885), Ratzenhofer (1893), and Oppenheimer (1907), saw force and power, especially in the struggle and conflict among groups or classes, as an inherent aspect of political relationships.

An interesting fact was that it was suspected he held the position for so long through the influence of bribes.

In the United States it took somewhat longer for this change to gain acceptance, if only because it was frequently associated with unacceptable European social philosophies.

The Treaty of Versailles
Up until this point, World War I was referred to as The Great War. Over eight million were killed in the war between Germany and its allies,

But by the 1930s Catlin (1930) and Merriam (1934) were arguing for an interpretation of politics as a set of power relationships, and they were joined in short order by many others (Lasswell 1936; Lasswell & Kaplan 1950; Key 1942).