Module 4

Political Science and the

Study of Politics
(Understanding of Politics)
What is Political Science?

 Political science come from two Greek words: polis later termed as politikus refers to the
city/state in ancient Greece and scire means to know. Thus, political science aims to know
the activities within the state. Such activities include the following: human interaction and
conflict, human and state relations, and power distribution. Political science defined as “the
study of governments, public policies and political processes, systems, and political
behavior (American Political Science Assoc., 2013). Political science treats the foundations
of the state and the principles of government (Paul Janet). Jacobshn (1998) describes
political science as the analyses of the state and the relations that people have with
government.
 Politics is the central concept of this discipline, as much society is
to sociology and culture is to anthropology. Politics is the interaction
between the civil society and the government in the activity of
governance (Boyer, 1976). Max Weber (1976) describes politics as the
exercise of power within a state.
Topics are covered by the sub disciplines of political science such as
political theory, comparative politics, international relations, political
behavior, public policy and public administration.

6 Sub disciplines of Political Science

1. Political theory – examines the contemporary application of political concepts such as

human rights, equality, peace and justice.
2. Comparative politics – aims to provide context to the differences in government and
political systems.
3. International relations – is the study of state-to-state relations and the wider margin
of the impacts of globalization and climate change.
4. Political behavior – covers the attitudes, knowledge and actions of an individual in
response to political variables.
5. Public policy – inquires on the types of government policies and the underlying
motivations for their enactment and implementation.
6. Public administration – examines the various administrative schemes implemented by
government officials.
Power is the capacity to direct and influence the decision of others. This means that person A has the
ability to make person B do what person B would not otherwise do.
Whereas, state is a community of persons more or lee numerous, permanently occupying a definite
portion of territory, having a government of their own to which the great body of inhabitants render
obedience, and enjoying freedom from external control. State is a political entity that consists of four
elements:
a. Territory

 This is the geographic space in which the sovereignty of state is exercised. A territory includes: the
terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including territorial seas, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular
shelves, and other submarine areas. Read Article I of the 1987 Philippine Constitution that
declares the territory of the Philippines.

a. Government

 The set of personnel who manages the affairs of the state in its act of allocating scarce values. It
is the political organization through which the collective will of the people is formulated, expresses,
and executed. (Search for different government system)

Number of Ruler/s Normal Form Perverted Form

One Monarchy Tyranny

Few Aristocracy Oligarchy

Many Polity Democracy

a. People

 This is the crucial element of state, as it is through the existence of the people that concepts on
government, state, territory, and sovereignty take shape. In the context of political science, the
term people is synonyms to a nation. A nation is a concept that is related to ethnicity, as people
within it are bound by cultural and historical ties. A state can consist of many nations and a
nation can be framed within different forms of government.

a. Sovereignty

 This is the capacity of political system to make independent decisions within its territory. It has
two term of scope: Internal Sovereignty refers to the capacity of a political system to
implement rules and policies within its territory, whereas, external sovereignty refers to the
recognition of that system’s existence and authority by other actors and systems.
State and Class
Class as a social relation generally refers to the dominant/ruling class
and the dominated/ruled. There are various signifiers of class, namely,
status, lifestyle, distinction, etc. but in the last instance, what determines
class is its economic basis. Social class in modern as well as in feudal
societies is based on the relationship between property ownership and
dispossession. Those who own property or the means of production that is
productive of value are in the position to rule the ones who surrender their
labor by tilling the land or selling their labor power as a worker in a factory
in exchange for wages.
 Russian philosopher and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin succinctly articulate the relationship between
State and Class: The State is the instrument of class rule. This means that in every society, the
economically dominant social class takes over the State and rules. State power, therefore, is the rule
of one class over the rest of society. Under global capitalism, the State is an instrument for the
advantages, interests, and privileges of the capitalist class. In socialist states such as the Soviet Union
and China before their systems reverted back to capitalism, the state power was seized throuh a
proletarian (working class) revolution so that state became the instrument of proletarian rule.
Politics and Social Organization
All known societies are organized in ways that facilitate and maintain the everyday life and culture
of different social groups. This means that the morality made up of norms, mores, and folkways that
people live by are part of an organized system of “ways of doing and mixing” are ways of living in a world
where each individual needs to mix with other people. In other words, there are rules, unwritten or
written, that guide people’s ways of socializing. This way of inhabiting the world is conceptualized as
social relations. Power is a nominal term or another word we use to refer to
social relations. This means that the rules for relating socially are observed depending on one’s position
in society. This is why all social relations are power relations. This why politics is not even a choice that
those who can get into. Politics is part and parcel of social life. It shapes the way people live and die.
TYPES OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
BANDS
 Is the least complex form of political organizations, as it has neither a rigid form of government nor
a structured form of leadership.
 Consists of 20-50 individuals who are usually related by virtue of kinship
 Based on foraging (hunting and gathering)
 Decision-making is often made by entire group
 Form of leadership is informal
 Egalitarian in social composition.
 Reciprocity is a primary form of exchange among members.
TRIBES
 Is political organization that consists of segmentary lineages.
 This type of kinship relation is marked by loyalty per family cluster or segment.
 Immediate family--cousins--distant cousin
 Less mobile than bands as their form of economic subsistence requires a degree of settlement.
 Either horticultural or pastoral
 Leaders should posses special skills and aptitudes that relate to the economic activity
 Leaders have no concrete political powers over their members
CHIEFDOMS
 Headed by a chief, who holds power over more than one community group
 Social structure is hierarchal
 It embodied its characteristics that include a political leader with an advisory council, a leader who
exercises power that is based on legitimacy, and the existence of social stratification
 More complex than tribe
 Tied with horticulture and pastoralism
 Tribute is practiced
 the existence of social stratification that segregates society into the elite and commoner.
 State and Nation
State (Political Concept)
• an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities within its territory and having a
centralized government with power to collect taxes, draft men to work or to war, and enforce laws.
• Most formal of political organization
Nation (Ethnic Concept)
 A people who shares a collective identity based on a common culture, language, territorial base, and
history.
 State using absolute powers in directing the path of a society.
 To attain societal goals and objectives, a state uses complete political coerciveness, which may come in
the form of armed personnel, stricter laws, and rigid government policies.
 As a citizen of a country, an individual is subjected to legal norms in the territory.
 Being a citizen of a country also entails the enjoyment of certain privileges that are labelled as right.
 Natural right- those are expected to be enjoyed all individuals regardless of citizenship.
 Legal rights- those that are awarded to an individual by the state as part of the culture, traditions and
norms.
Comparison
Authority and Legitimacy
Authority
 Refers to the right to command or the power to give orders
or enforce rules.
Legitimacy
 Is a value whereby something or someone is acknowledged
as acceptable, lawful, right, and proper.
 In the scientific study of politics, there are typically three types of legitimacy or kinds of
legitimate rule. But first, what does it mean to be legitimate? Legitimacy means the
recognition, acceptance, and support for an existing form of rule or government as right and
proper. A legitimate government is one which has a recognized, accepted, and supported
sphere of influence by the majority. A popular consent of the governed is the basic condition
for legitimate authority.
German Sociologist Max Weber identifies 3 types of legitimacy which concretizes the same
in its various concrete forms:

1.Traditional legitimacy (TL)

TL is the kind of moral authority that keeps society together by virtue of custom and
habit. This type of legitimacy emphasizes the authority of tradition by virtue of its historical
practice by a particular group. This form of rule is understood as historically accepted by its
practitioners: “This is how we have always done things.” Governments or forms of rule that are
based on traditional legitimacy are historically continuous such as monarchies and the
traditional legitimacy of customary law that govern tribal societies.
2.Charismatic Legitimacy (CL)
 In his book “Charisma and Institution Building,” Weber studies the transition of power from
one regime to another through the seizure of power or revolution. He studies a dimension of
regime change or revolution focusing on a charismatic leader. He argues that seizure of power
is often initiated by a leader who questions traditional authority, brings together and leads
followers to oust the old regime and bring forth a new one. Fidel Castro of Cuba’s 1959
revolution, Mao Zedong of the 1949 Chinese Revolution, Vladimir Lenin of the 1917 October
Russian Revolution. Other examples of charismatic leaders in world history are Zapata,
Khomeini, and Mandela. The charismatic leader is often regarded as endowed with
exceptional powers and superhuman qualities. Charisma is the quality of political leaders
whose individual characteristics set him apart from ordinary people. Weber, however,
highlights that the charismatic leader’s authority over her followers can only be maintained
and reinforced when solidified in political institutions. This means that as a quality of a leader,
charisma must itself undergo institutionalization, the most effective of which are formal
bureaucracies or modern governments that have replaced the traditional and hereditary rule
of monarchs.
3.Rational-legal legitimacy (RLL)
Authority in this context derives from formal procedures of institutions. This
is a type of legitimacy that is based on a government’s capacity to use public
interest as the rationale for establishing and enforcing law and order. Rational-
legal legitimacy is therefore the basis of power and leadership of a government
that pledges to abide the law and wins consent from the people through public
trust. Modern states or governments premised on representative or participative
democracies are examples of the kind of authority that is derived from rational-
legal legitimacy. Betrayal of trust and culpable violation of the constitution by a
government official strips him or her of rational-legal authority. This explains the
phenomenon of presidents leaving their office due to public clamor and/or
people power.
Origins of the Philippine Modern State
Modern Principalia: “A continuity of leadership recruitment from a tiny minority
of elite families and, inspite of “democratic” elections, members of these families
get elected again and again.” –Dante Simbulan

Elections are largely a result of the methods of manipulation used on the

electorate identified by Simbulan as follows:
1. widespread use of bribery
2. vote buying by politicians using taxpayers’ money
3. hiring journalists and other media people as the as polticians’ public relations
agents.
Polticians’ wanton use of the 3 Gs, that is, guns,goons, and gold is no longer an
expose about the Philippine electoral system.
Branches and Functions of State Power

The Philippine Government

The Philippines is a republic with a presidential form of government wherein power is equally divided
among its three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
One basic corollary in a presidential system of government is the principle of separation of powers
wherein legislation belongs to Congress, execution to the Executive and settlement of legal controversies
to the judiciary

The Legislative branch - is authorized to make laws, alter, and repeal them through the power vested in
the Philippine Congress. This institution is divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives.
1. The Executive branch - is composed of the President and the Vice President who are elected by
direct popular vote and serve a term of six years. The Constitution grants the President authority to
appoint his Cabinet. These departments from the large portion of the country’s bureaucracy.

2. The Judicial branch - holds the power to settle controversies involving rights that are legally
demandable and enforceable. This branch determines whether or not there has been a grave abuse of
discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part and instrumentality of the
government. It is made up of a Supreme Court and lower courts.
 The Constitution expressly grants the Supreme Court the power of Judicial Review
as the power to declare a treaty, international or executive agreement, law,
presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation
constitutional.

Goal of Political Science

1. Education for citizenship
2. Essential parts of liberal education
3. Knowledge and understanding of government

Why is it important to study political science?

 It is important to study political science because as citizens we have specific roles
and responsibilities towards the State. The State has also a duty to uphold the
rights of the citizens. By studying political science, we come to know our rights and
obligations in the state. Studying political science also helps us realize the
multifarious function of the State, thereby enabling the learners to assess their own
government (Alauddin, 2011).