Political science is what is known as a ‘social science' and aims in both a theoretical and research orientated manner to describe and analyse political systems and political behaviour both within and across different countries. When one compares different countries' political systems, one says that we are comparing different ‘polities'. If we are analysing the behaviour of politicians; voters; pressure groups, or political parties within a country – we say that we are analysing the behaviour of ‘actors' within that polity.
Contrary to the Hollywood film ‘Ants' – they cant talk, don't campaign against their dictatorship and have certainly not yet mastered the art of political science. Every anthill does however demonstrate that things do get done if everyone works together. The queen monitors population; the soldier ants protect the hill from those outside this ‘ant polity' and the worker ants keep their micro ‘little' economy going.
Every ant wakes up in the morning and has a job to do to make sure every ant has somewhere to live and enough to eat. It is important that the ant society is nice and organised. The ant polity is the political organisation of all the ants in that ant hill – just like a polity in the real world is the political organisation of the people in that particular country. This includes the political party system; the method for sharing power; the method of voting and so on.
The ants choose a political system that is not democratic – ants do not vote for their queen nor do they have political parties or are they offered a vote on any issue.
In our polity, if we are unhappy with the number of working hours within a week, our elected member of parliament will debate this issue in parliament and MPs will vote – if you're not happy with your government's decision you can demonstrate this at the next election by not voting for the same government. This is known as a democracy – ‘rule for the people, by the people.' In the ant's polity, the workers are told how long they should work or how many leaves they can eat. This is what is known as a dictatorship. If the queen wants all her ants to be happy and treated fairly, with rules that are for the best of every ant in the ant polity, we call this a ‘benevolent' dictatorship.Unfortunately, in the real world, when you add people to the dictatorship formula, it tends not to be very benevolent – which is why the pursuit of democracy for many is so very important.
Now assume for a second that a new breed of ant was created who had brains very similar to our own (lets also assume that these ants look very strange). Would a democracy work in an anthill? If we did install democracy in the anthill we need to ask some further questions:
| What voting system should we implement? | |
| Do we want a broadly representative coalition government or a decisive single-party government? | |
| Should we have 2 chambers in the parliament (e.g. the House of Commons & the House of Lords) - or one? | |
| Should we use referenda? Where voters are asked to vote on a particular issues rather than have elected representatives make these decisions on their behalf. | |
| How do we protect ‘ant rights' [human rights] in this new democracy? | |
| Should we concentrate power at the centre of the anthill – or should we adopt distinct smaller areas of the ant hill that make their own decisions independently? | |
| If we decide to split power between different areas within the anthill, should we write these rules in a document- a ‘constitution' that is extremely difficult to change (FEDERALISM) or shall we let the centre decide when power should be distributed and always give it the option to return these powers to the centre (DEVOLUTION). | |
| Should decisions and law making only take place within the ant hill, or should we introduce ‘supranational' or ‘intergovernmental' ‘ant' institutions (like the EU or an international convention on human rights) that ensure that trade can occur between ant hills; and that certain rights are ensured everywhere regardless of who is elected within each individual ant hill? How much power should this institution have? What voting system should we adopt here? |
The analogy ends here, but the point is now clear: Political science aims to answer these very questions in the human world to ensure stability for everyone. Implementing one voting system successfully in one polity doesn't necessarily mean that this will work in all polities – it is important for us to sit down and think about which solution is best for each environment and how all of these components of political organization work together.
At the time of writing, representatives from across the Iraqi community are discussing what system will ensure stability and prosperity in their ‘ant hill' and are asking similar questions to those above. Their choices will affect the lives of millions of people in Iraq, and it's therefore important that the correct choices are made. The theory formed by political scientists and the evidence from similar polities collected by these commentators will serve to lend a very helpful hand.
Stuck with a definition? This really is a fantastic resource for everything you could ever need to know. It is especially useful if you require information quickly and briefly and its scope goes way beyond the realms of politics.
For those in Higher Education institutions, this is a useful resource that you will probably be able to access for free, but may need to contact your library. Local libraries should also have access to this online resource of pretty much every academic journal on the planet.
For links to other Theoretical Resources; probably the most concise selection can be found on the University of Aberystwyth website at:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/%7Einpwww/links/index.html
News and Journals:
The following also list a number of online journals and newspapers that comment widely on political issues of the day (they are in no particular order of usefulness).
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news (BBC news)
• http://news.google.co.uk/ (Google news)
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...(Telegraph)
• http://news.ft.com/home/uk (The Financial times)
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (The Guardian)
• http://www.theherald.co.uk/ (The Herald)
• http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ (The Times)
• http://www.latimes.com/ Los Angeles Times
• http://www.nytimes.com/ New York Times
• http://online.wsj.com/public/us
• http://www.japantimes.co.jp Japan Times
• http://www.economist.com/ The Economist
• tp://today.reuters.com/news/default.aspx (Reuters)
• http://www.feer.com/ The Far Eastern Economic Review
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