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WORKSHEET 5
Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Name:_______________________________________________________ Date:_________________
_Strand:________________________ ___________________________
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Political Science and the Study of Politics ___________________________
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At the end of this module, I can:
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1. Identify the subjects of inquiry and goals of political science.
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2. Discuss the concept of power as an aspired value in a society. (Enrichment)
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3. Recognize the value of political science in the 21st century. (Enrichment)
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Political Science as a Discipline ___________________________
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What is the difference between a political scientist and a common individual in discussing
__________________v
the efficiency of government projects? The layman interprets the actions of the government
based on his or her experience of it while the political scientist uses the rigor of scientific inquiry
to evaluate the performance of the government.

Political science comes from two Greek words: polis and scire. Polis refers to the city-
state in ancient Greece. The political activities within a polis are later termed as politikus (Latin).
Scire means “to know.” Combining the two meanings, 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.

The American Political Science Association defined its discipline as “the study of
governments, public policies and political processes, systems, and political behavior” (2013). These
topics are covered by the subdisciplines of political science such as political theory, comparative
politics, international relations, political behavior, public policy, and public administration.

Political Theory

Political theory examines the contemporary application of political concepts such as human
rights, equality, peace, and justice. It seeks to address the variance of its implementation in
societies with the aim of understanding the nature of these concepts and the elements that
affect it. This field is significant in furthering theory building in the discipline as much as it
provides a conceptual critique of commonly held concepts. For example, the Global North concept
of justice is not universal. In some societies in the Global South, conflicts are not resolved by
meting justice in the context of punishment but in the form of reconciliation of parties.

Comparative Politics
 Comparative politics is a branch of political science that aims to provide context to the
differences in government and political systems. It examines the parallelism and divergence of
political systems to provide analyses on the factors that make governments efficient and the
factors that make them fail. This field provides a scientific comparison of governments and
political institutions that could help aid policy formulation that is locally relevant. For example,
the practice of democracy in the most members of the Global North is oftentimes different from
how it is practiced in democratized countries of the Global South as it is embedded in local
political culture. Hence, campaigns for the democratization of all societies may be perilous for
some, whose local culture is at odds with the framework of democracy.

International Relations

The study of state-to-state relations and the wider margin of the impacts of globalization
and climate change such as terrorism, piracy, and democratization of non-Western territories
fall into the category of international relations. This field also covers the interaction between
states and non-state global actors such as international organizations and human groups. The case
of China and Philippines on the Scarborough Shoal is an example of an internal relations issue in
the Philippines as much as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center that spawned transnational
campaign of the United States against terrorism.

Through this field, an understanding of the motivations of global actors is made possible,
and this understanding provides a basis for political decisions of the parties involved. In the case
of the campaign against terrorism, a country that aims to win the favor of the United States
ought to rally behind this campaign and dissociate with blacklisted countries or political actors.

Political Behavior

This field covers the attitudes, knowledge, and actions of an individual in response to
political variables such as policies created by the government, behavior of politicians, and general
political environment. Works on the political action repertoire of individuals are categorized under
this field as it examines their psychology toward the system. These types of studies are important
for drafting election campaigns and gauging the electorates’ inclination to support a policy.

The political orientation of Filipinos toward elections is a subject of this inquiry. Political
commentaries have highlighted the fanfare that is the Philippine elections, from the savvy
campaign materials to unabashed promotion of every political activity and public service made by
the candidates. The presence of political dynasties is also enabled by the political culture of the
country. In the Philippines, where political affiliations are mostly due to not political parties but
on personalities, the costs and benefits of a political action are always administered from a
personality to his or her supporters/detractors. According to Alfred McCoy, an American political
scientist, the Philippines has strong families that have political influence in regions of the country,
allowing for the perpetuation of political dynasties.
 Public Policy

This field inquires on the types of governmental policies and the underlying motivations for
their enactment and implementation. Due to the nature of this field, it operates with other
subdisciplines to create a comprehensive analysis. The general perspective that policies are
created to better the living conditions within a territory is at times inaccurate, as political actors
behind policy-making are also motivated by personal interests.

This discipline is significant for evaluating the efficiency of enacted policies and the
possible revisions that it can accommodate. Controversial policies such as the RH Law and the
HIV/AIDS Law (Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998) provide a window for
analysis on the actors and factors at play in the Philippine political environment. Both laws were
received with strong opposition from religious sectors and pro-family groups, while it rallied
support from family-planning advocates.

Public Administration

This branch examines the various administrative schemes implemented by government

officials. It analyzes the strategies applied by administrative units in implementing the existing
policies and the feedback mechanism that they use to gain the opinion of the public. This field is
important in providing scientific evaluations of the efficiency of administrative units in fulfilling
their functions and the factors that affect them in their pursuit of accomplishing their
deliverables.

Given the scope and nature of the discipline of political science, it is oriented toward an
applied and interdisciplinary approach. Applied orientation pervades all of its subdisciplines as
they all address contemporary issues on politics, ethics, and governance. It is interdisciplinary as
it uses the frameworks of other social science disciplines, such as history, sociology,
anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and even demography, to provide contexts to a political
phenomenon. As such, its methods in gathering data is highly inclusive as it uses both the
quantitative and the qualitative approaches.

A conceptual model that may be used in analyzing the political dynamics within a society is
that of David Easton’s political system model (1957). Easton presents five primary variables in
this model: environment, input, political system, output, and feedback.

The environment consists of the historical, social, and economic conditions of the society
that affects the types of policies accepted and declined by the electorate. In this category, you
should consider questions such as the following:

• Does the country belong to the Global North or the Global South?

• Is the country culturally pluralistic or homogenous?

• Does the country have a colonial past?

 These are pertinent inquiries as these would yield a background on the type of responses
to the system a society will have.

The next variable is the input. This refers to the forms of political events or products that
are needed by society from its government. This is divided into two categories: demands and
support. Demands refer to the perceived needs of the population that could better their lives.
This may include better wages, equality in the workplace, and lowered taxes, to name a few. Again,
this is affected by the environment as the needs of the electorate vary per environmental
condition.

Support refers to mechanisms within the system that would allow for such demands to be
facilitated. For example, a demand for wage hike for public school teachers may have support
from related sectors such as the working class political parties and the public school teachers. A
demand should also have support from existing structures. Hence, even if there is general public
support for the clamor of the teachers for higher wages, if there is no facilitating institution to
accommodate the needed change, then it will have lesser chances of being heard by the
government.

The political system acts like a black box through which every form of demand is sifted
and decided upon. It could be either democratic or socialist, parliamentary or presidential, and
unitary or federal. Based on the nature of the political system, the demands are either acted
upon or neglected.

The decision of the government toward an input is called an output. This includes policies,
rules, laws, regulations, and projects. Using the example on wage hike for teachers, the
government could grant it by creating a law that would increase their wages or provide an
alternate solution such as deloading teachers of working requirements to enable them to indulge
in other occupations. Whichever the government decides on, opinions and responses would be
made by the affected sectors. This is referred to as feedback.

Feedback is important for the system to gauge the efficiency of its response to a public
need. It also provides the government a basis for improving its response to public demands.
Feedback on decisions made by the system can also affect the types of demands and support that
will be made later by the public.

David Easton's model of political system

 Political Science Concepts

Similar to anthropology and sociology, political science has discipline-based concepts that
aid in the analysis of society. This section presents the eight most essential terms used in the
field of political science.

Politics

This is the central concept in the discipline, as much as society is to sociology and culture is to
anthropology. Table 5.1 presents three definitions of politics by different theorists.

Definitions of Politics

Theorist Definition of Politics

Alfred Boyer Politics is the interaction between the civil
society and the government in the activity of
governance.
Max Weber Politics is the exercise of power within a
state.
David Easton Politics is the authoritative allocation of
scarce values.
Source: Curtis. The Great Political Theories, 1976.

Boyer highlighted the concept of governance or the execution of laws within a territory as
mediated by civil society (sectors of society) and the government. The government acts as the
arbiter of rules and laws within a territory. However, its power is tempered by the opinion of
stakeholders in a society.

Easton’s definition promotes the idea that there are scarce or limited values in society.
This includes power, prestige, and other values that are held by a select few in society. As such,
competition for these values is fierce, requiring an authoritative distribution of them. For
example, the power to govern is limited and the desire to acquire it is high. To avoid political
disorder, this value is distributed to a select few.

Weber introduced two essential concepts in political science: power and state.

Power, as defined by Robert Dahl, is “the ability of person A to make person B do what
person B would not otherwise do” (American Political Science Association, 2013). This implies the
capacity to direct and influence the decision of others. Hence, Weber’s definition corresponds to
the interplay of power relations within a political system.

A state is a political entity that consists of four elements: territory, government, people,
and sovereignty. These elements are highlighted in De Leon’s (2005) definition of a state as:
 a community of persons more or less 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.

A state is a political concept, which makes it intangible unlike its elements. Two of the defining
characteristics of a state are the following: (1) it is independent from external control and (2) it
may consist of many nations.

Government

The set of personnel who manages the affairs of the state in its act of allocating scarce
values is called the government. Its existence is dictated by the political system that it revolves
on. For democratic systems, the aim of the government is to advance the welfare of the general
public.

Aristotle provided a system of classification of governments based on number of rulers and

its efficiency in governance (Curtis, 1981).

Aristotle’s Classification of Government

Number of Ruler(s) Normal Form Perverted Form
One Monarchy Tyranny
Few Aristocracy Oligarchy
Many Polity Democracy

A government that is governed by one ruler who has efficient administration of political
and economic values is a monarchy. A perverted form of it is tyranny or the rule of a dictator.
Aristotle argued that a tyrant ruler serves only his or her own interests. This leader is prone to
using force to stay in power as he or she merely usurped it. Monarchs are better leaders as they
are not prone to employ force to subjugate members of their society as they do not feel the
pressure to maintain their position, which they inherited.

Aristotle argued that the rule of the few intellectuals known as aristocracy is the best
form of government. He said that aristocracy is less prone to corruption given that it is run by a
group of people who have no vested self-interest due to their high moral values and noneconomic
preoccupation. Contrary to this, the rule of the few rich individuals is seen by Aristotle as
problematic, as the rulers are more predisposed to further their economic interests.

The rule of aristocrats is the ideal but not a possibility, as this group of people are not
inclined toward the practice of governance due to their preoccupation with the intellectual and
the philosophical. Hence, according to Aristotle, the best alternative for an effective government
is the rule of the middle class known as polity. This type of government is the most efficient, as
it is less prone to corruption. This is due to the rulers who come from the middle class, are
satisfied economically, and are well-educated.
 Although well-accepted by current world leaders, democracy was considered by Aristotle
as an ineffective type of government. He said that democracy had a potential for chaos and
corruption, given that it is ruled by the masses that are generally economically challenged and
lacking proper education.

Sovereignty

This is the capacity of a political system to make independent decisions within its territory.
Sovereignty can be classified in terms of its scope. Internal sovereignty refers to the capacity
of a political system to implement its rules and policies within its territory. External sovereignty
refers to the recognition of that system’s existence and authority by other actors and systems.
The capacity of the government to quell rebellion by separatist groups is a marker of its internal
sovereignty. When a government’s internal sovereignty is perceived by other global actors as weak
or even nonexistent, its external sovereignty may be challenged.

Territory

This is the geographic space in which the sovereignty of a state is exercised. A territory includes
“the terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial seas, the seabed, the subsoil,
the insular shelves, and other submarine areas” (De Leon, 2005). Taking in point the Philippine
context, Article 1 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution declares the following:

The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein,
and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial,
fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other
submarine areas. The waters around between, the connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their
breadth and dimensions, from part of the internal waters of the Philippines.

This definition can be further understood using this map.

People

This fourth element of a state is the most crucial of all, 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 synonymous 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. For example, pluralistic societies such as the United States, Singapore, and the
European Union have multicultural populations under one administration. In the same way, a nation
can be framed within different forms of government. For example, the Arab nation, which is
distributed around the world, is subjected to varying forms of government. Hence, the Arab
nation in the Global South experiences a different form of governance from those who are in the
Global North.

When a state is composed of people who share the same culture and history, it gains the
compounded identity of being a nation-state. Not all states can be considered as such due to the
lack of shared identity among its people.
Prepared by: Mr. Nichol B. Villaflores