

APSA members played a key role in setting up political science departments that were distinct from history, philosophy, law, sociology, and economics. APSA membership rose from 204 in 1904 to 1,462 in 1915. The American Political Science Association and the American Political Science Review were founded in 19, respectively, in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena. Integrating political studies of the past into a unified discipline is ongoing, and the history of political science has provided a rich field for the growth of both normative and positive political science, with each part of the discipline sharing some historical predecessors. The designation "political scientist" is commonly used to denote someone with a doctorate or master's degree in the field. The advent of political science as a university discipline was marked by the creation of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the late 19th century. The term "political science" was not always distinguished from political philosophy, and the modern discipline has a clear set of antecedents including also moral philosophy, political economy, political theology, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal state. Into the late 19th century, it was still uncommon that political science was considered a distinct field from history. Main article: History of political science Origin Īs a social political science, contemporary political science started to take shape in the latter half of the 19th century and began separate itself from political philosophy and history. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquires sought: primary sources, such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources, such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research, and model building. Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice theory, behaviouralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism. Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in psychology, social research, and political philosophy. Furthermore, political science is related to, and draws upon, the fields of economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, human geography, political anthropology, and psychology. Other notable subdisciplines are public policy and administration, domestic politics and government, political economy, and political methodology. Modern political science can generally be divided into the three subdisciplines of comparative politics, international relations, and political theory. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.

Political science is the scientific study of politics.
