Category: Political Science Essay Examples
See our collection of political science essay examples. These example essays are to help you understanding how to write a political science essay. Political science is not merely an academic discipline, and political scientists do not just study the anatomy of politics. Political science is renewed with every political administration and with every major political event and with every political leader. Influential political leaders construct their own -isms (Fidelism/Castroism, Maoism, Gandhism, Reaganism, and so on) so that the political philosophies and ideologies that undergird the discipline have to be reinvented constantly. Also, see our list of political science essay topics to find the one that interests you.
The topic of human nature encompasses a very large body of philosophical and psychological literature. For the most part, observers discussing human nature refer to those endogenous aspects of genetic, biological, and psychological functioning that rest inside the individual and appear immutable. For example, a person’s physical appearance …
Human rights are often defined as those rights that belong to persons simply by virtue of their being human. This definition neatly captures the ethical intuition of human moral equality that is at the core of human rights. The idea of human rights has been a central theme …
The human security discourse dates back to the Human Development Report 1994, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), subtitled New Dimensions of Human Security. The catchphrase definition has become “freedom from fear and freedom from want.” In 2003, the Commission on Human Security (initiated by the …
David Hume (1711–1776) was born on April 26, 1711, in Edinburgh, Scotland. After studying at the University of Edinburgh and briefly considering a career in law, he embarked on a lifelong career as a moral philosopher, historian, and essayist. He is widely considered the leading intellectual figure in …
Political humor is the term used to describe the use of humor in the domain of politics. Though occasionally used to describe the use of humor by political figures themselves, the term is most often reserved for humorous images, texts, and expressions that mock public officials, people in …
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) was an American political scientist best known for his thesis that, in the post–cold war world, conflicts would stem from the competing cultural identities of “civilizations” rather than the ideological (and state-based) conflicts of the cold war period. Huntington earned a bachelor’s degree from …
American political theorist Charles S. Hyneman (1900–1985) was born on a farm in Gibson County, Indiana, in 1900. He received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University in 1923 and his master’s degree in 1925. After spending a short time doing graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, he …
Taqi al-Din Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) was a prominent Muslim scholar and jurist of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He is noted for his contribution to debates about the combination of secular logic and Islamic faith, his attachment to a conservative and totalizing notion of Islam, and his …
Idealism usually refers to views holding that reality is constituted by mind, spirit, or some other nonmaterial entities. It is opposed to materialism, holding that reality, including consciousness, is reducible to matter. Political idealism covers political views based on a nonmaterialist ontology, but the term is also used …
Identity for most people derives from personal history, family relationships and friendships, neighborhood, region, and country. Generally, the sense of self is validated by membership in a group or affiliation with something intangible such as a culture or religion. In this sense, politics of identity refers to political …
Ideologies are systems of ideas that shape people’s thoughts and actions with regard to many things, including nationality, race, the role and function of government, property and class divisions, the relations between men and women, human responsibility for the natural environment, and more. These systems of ideas have …
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) was a one-time Catholic priest, Austrian philosopher, and anarchist social critic of various forms of professional authority. His foremost critique of modern culture was that bureaucratic institutions tend to act counter to their original, rational purpose, thereby undermining people’s confidence in themselves and their ability …
Immigration affects not only the ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic makeup of immigrant-receiving countries but also conceptions of national identity and relations between the multitudes of groups that constitute pluralistic societies. In particular, it affects relations between ethnic groups, or as Max Weber (1996) describes, “those human groups …
Immigration policy refers to the laws adopted and implemented by nation-states to regulate the entry and permanent settlement of foreigners. Immigration policies encompass ways to control borders, integrate immigrants into society, and meet the labor needs of national economies. There is, however, significant variation in the theoretical and …
Immobolisme (immobilism) refers to a period of political instability and inaction in France from the late 1800s through the mid-1950s. During the Third and Fourth Republics the French government was characterized by a weak executive and a strong legislature. Within the National Assembly, the number of political parties …
Impeachment, often confused with actual removal from office, is the required first step in removing an elected official from office. Impeachment is not the same as removal. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached by the House of Representatives, but the trial conducted in the Senate …
In a strict sense, imperialism is the process of creating an empire. An empire is a complex political unit comprising diverse social units, each with distinct cultural identities, hierarchically organized under the domination of one of its parts. An empire is thus distinct from a national state, which …
Society has a constant need to aggregate preferences. On a personal level, when making decisions, an individual has to make a rational choice based on several criteria. Taking a presidential election as an example, when deciding which candidate to vote for, the constituent has to take into consideration …
Impoundment was a historic power used by presidents of the United States to not spend funds appropriated by Congress. Successive chief executives used the authority to avoid expenditures that they disagreed with or believed were unnecessary. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson initiated impoundment when he delayed spending $50,000 that …
Incrementalism is a theory of decision based on the premise that actors face broad organizational and cognitive limitations in real-life situations and must deal with a complex, uncertain world, the interpretation of which is often a matter of disagreement among them. While democratic interaction is, according to Charles …
