Session 2-Various approaches to Politics

Politics is defined as the activity in which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. It is linked to the phenomenon of conflict and cooperation. This is why disagreement is called the heart of politics. Disagreement depends upon the nature of subject under consideration and how it should be studied. Hence there are numerous approaches to study Politics. 

Philosophical Tradition involves analytic study of ideas and doctrines that have been central to political thoughts. It has a characteristic of Literary Analysis, that is, to analyze what major thinkers (Plato, Aristotle) said and how they developed their views. It is mainly concerned with normative questions and involves making judgments and offering recommendations.

Empirical Tradition states that all political analysis should be based on personal experience, observation and experiments.

Scientific Tradition includes concept of behaviorism which provided objectivity and quantifiable data against which, hypotheses can be tested.

With the diversity of approaches to view and analyze politics, comes disparity among each methodology which is the heart of politics. Concepts such as ‘Justice’ and ‘Rights’ are empirical topics which need interpretations and personal observations but they cannot be factually proven. Questions arise about behavioral approach because it cannot answer normative questions.

Scientific Approach to politics helps to distinguish between “facts” (empirical evidence) and “values” (normative believe). But this also proposes some problems. Analytics lack accurate information and data to analyze. Secondly, there are always hidden biases while analyzing something hence the myth of neutrality in politics seems false.

It is exciting and interesting to see that Politics can be viewed and analyzed from so many points of views and people may have numerous opinions about the same topic.