I think contemporary “Political Science” is a farce.
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.[1]
I’m pretty sure “politics,” is the margin of error in the organization and delivery of services of a government. In essence, a perfect government delivers its services completely and efficiently, and therefore, there is no need for “politics.”
And basically what I am getting at is that the world is missing a reliable government charter, and it would seem that Political Science would be the guardians of the ambition, but they are not even trying.
Political science, as per your definition you quoted, falls under social science:
Is Sociology and psychology farces? They too fall under the social sciences. If you understand the sciences of sociology and psychology, you’ll understand the definition you gave of Poli Sci. It not only deals with governance and power, but also behaviours and thinking. It’s not just about politics, but also the behaviours and thinking that goes with it.
quote=“cyberhiker, post:1, topic:8587”]
It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.[1]
Note the absence of the term “services”?
[quote=“cyberhiker, post:1, topic:8587”]
I’m pretty sure “politics,” is the margin of error in the organization and delivery of services of a government. In essence, a perfect government delivers its services completely and efficiently, and therefore, there is no need for “politics.”
I partly agree with you, but “social services” are not provided by politicians but by professionals.
Politicians are representative of their constituents and actually need be very sensitive to the views held by the local citizenry they represent.
When politicians deliberate what laws are useful and of general benefit to their constituents, the debate and eventual vote is proposed and deliberated to address all the issues and consequences of such laws such as funding those programs.
Politicking is the civil deliberation of what social services the government must or should provide for the benefit of the entire population and the fair distribution of such services to those who cannot afford some of the basic services such as clean water.
Example is the “weatherization program” that offers home insulation assistance to poor people who live in older homes, in order to conserve energy that in the long run results in a benefit to all energy users.
This is why most social services are outsourced to independent contractors and most large infrastructure projects are awarded to private contractors by competitive bidding.
The problem is in streamlining and codifying the chain of claims for services performed in accordance to federal or state minimum requirements.
But the politicians are not really involved in the details of service delivery. They should have knowledge of their constituents and the specific social requirements based on climate , industries, horticulture, natural resources of their state, and the reasoning ability to consider all these activities with a view to the future.
In my opinion, you totally misrepresent the nature of politics and you mix politics and management of the public services. Management of the public services is a small part of the function of the state.
Basically, politics comes from the Greek world “polis” meaning city. It includes everything about the collective life of the city.
A people is formed by a set of individuals. A state may include more or less that one people.
The state appears when society becomes more complex with the division of labor and roles. It becomes one of the places and one of the stakes of the class struggle, hence the politics.
And, not only that, but any state must make choices. This choices are made by political process.
The choice to have public services, beyond the management of the ones related to the sovereign functions of the state, army, police, justice, is a political one.
To choose between promoting big business or the ordinary people needs is a political choice.
The new deal of F. D. Roosevelt was an economical and political choice, to send soldiers in Vietnam was another one political choice.
Politics is the field where people fight to promote these choices.
Politics is the way people fight for their interests and their values.
To allow or forbid death penalty, abortion or to make vaccination compulsory are political choices.
Political science studies the way theses fights are led, by whom, with which issues.
Management is another science, a tool of the state.
Amazingly, you got the closest to the intention of my post, but still missed.
The problem is we lack a reliable government charter to provide for the developing societies. Who might be the professionals responsible for figuring out a reliable government charter, if it is not political scientists?
Platon wrote about an ideal government, Moore wrote Utopia. Marx tried also.
Many have tried but perfection is not possible for a human.
I am not sure there is an ideal government. Each state has the form of government defined by its history, its value. What is ideal in some circumstance can become a disaster when times change.
Political scientists are men with their lacks, their prejudices.
And any form of gouvernement is no more, no less that what the men do with it. Look at the state of the USA political system nowadays.
Politics is the art of providing concrete solutions to concrete problems. It is also the art of making possible what is needed.
Interesting. I’m a little uncomfortable with the introduction of authoritarianism. We’ll see where you go with this. If you are talking about the think-tankers and talking heads, well, no argument from me. If you are proposing some kind of AI system that decides for us, well, not so much on board with that.
It seems like you are asking why we don’t have a one size fits all program for political development; history shows that is impossible. If it were possible then political scientists would probably be the ones to write it.
It is amazing that you do not see the contradictions of thought you have here.
I cannot be sure of what you are trying to say here. Was the original system reliable, or unreliable to begin with, and then deteriorated by incorrect adjustments, because the unreliable system guided the descendants further away???
Do you see what I am getting at?
So, what does it mean when a politician criticizes another politician as “playing politics”?
I think I did a fairly descent job of trying to describe the delemma that MorganKane does not seem to understand.
If you do not have a reliable government charter to begin with, then things tend to deteriorate more rapidly than what would probably be with a reliable government charter.
We do not know.
We only agree that some of the founders of the United States’ three-part separation plan were not convinced that the Constitution was “perfect.”
And we know that nobody has tried to improve upon the separation plan.
