All you should Know about political theory.

Know about Political Theory

As Human beings, we live in a society and society includes groups and institutions. Every institution serves a specific purpose. For specific purposes, we need some rules and regulations. That called politics.

For understanding Political Theory, we divide it into two terms and understand one by one.

Political and Theory.

First, we discuss what is political.

What is political

The Term ‘political ‘ refers to something applicable to a polity, that is ‘ public’, as distinguished from private or something applicable to a limited numbers of persons.

The terms ‘ polity’, ‘ politics’, and ‘ political’ are derived from the Greek word ‘ polis’ which stood for ancient Greek city-state.

In the present- day society the scope of politics is not regarded to be so comprehensive. Today we draw a distinction between public and private spheres of human life, and confine the usage of the term ‘ politics’ to the institutions and activities falling I the public domain.

 The term ‘theory’ stands for systematic knowledge.

This, ‘political theory’ refers to a systematic knowledge of political phenomena.

 Political theory is concerned with three types of statements –

• Empirical statement – which is based on observation, through sense- experience alone, that is the experience gained through sight, sound, smell, taste and touch of the concrete phenomena.
• Logical statement –  which is based on reasoning
• Evaluation – which is based on value judgment.

The political theory includes both political science and political philosophy.

 Political science , relies only on empirical and logical statements.

NATURE OF POLITICAL THEORY

George Catlin observed : “The theory itself is divided into political science and political philosophy.”

 In short, Catlin proceeds to identify the nature of political theory by pointing to its two important components- political science and political philosophy.

Andrew Hacker – “ Every political scientist plays a double role. He is part scientist and part philosopher.

SCOPE OF POLITICAL THEORY

1. One point of its focus is the study of political concepts and it’s method of study. For this purpose, the normative -philosophical method is regarded to be suitable .
2. Another point of it’s the focus is the study of political institutions and behaviour. For this purpose, the descriptive-scientific method is regarded to be suitable.

DEBATES ON THE DECLINE OF POLITICAL THEORY

The political theory seems to decline in the mid-twentieth due to questions started to raised by the exponents of new political science.

There were two major causes of the decline of political theory :

1.  The rise of positivism led to the craze for science.
2. The prevalence of political ideologies culminating in Marxism.

It is now widely held that political science, like other social and natural sciences, enables us to strengthen our means but we will have to resort to political philosophy to determine our ends.

Means and ends are interdependent. Hence , political science and political philosophy play complementary roles in our social life.