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.
Richard Neustadt (1919–2003) was an American political scientist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1919.After completing an AB degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1939, Neustadt attended Harvard University and earned a master’s degree in 1941. He then worked for a short while in the Office of …
Neutrality is the act of remaining neutral and impartial and not taking sides in a given conflict. The two main types of neutrality are external and internal, and each refers to a different political sphere of action. Neutrality is most commonly understood in the context of international relations. …
New conservatism—sometimes called the “new right”—is an ideological perspective characterized by a collection of “fusion” or “neoconservative” ideas within the larger context of conservative movements and parties generally, and it represents a departure from the conservatism that developed from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Though the …
One of the most crucial shifts in American social and political history, the New Deal was the name of a series of economic and social reforms as well as a new orientation of the U.S. federal government toward more active regulation of the national economy. Initiated by President …
From the point of view of European politics, the term New Europe is generally used in relation to the post–Communistera countries of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. The New Europe theory emphasizes the support of this formerly communist Eastern bloc …
The renewed interest in institutions in political science over the last twenty years has been associated with a school known as new institutionalism. Institutions were marginalized in American political science during the 1960s and 1970s because of their association with a formal-legal style of scholarship (“old” institutionalism) that …
The new left refers to an international movement, composed principally of students and other young people, which arose in the developed capitalist countries during the 1960s. It was “new” in contrast to the old, Communist left, which new leftists believed to have become ossified by orthodoxy and ideological …
The term newly industrializing countries (NICs) was used to describe a number of developing countries that experienced significant levels of economic development during the 1970s and 1980s. The key indicators that were often used to characterize the NICs included high rates of economic growth, rapid industrialization, and the …
The new right refers to a set of political ideas or ideology that developed in the 1970s and that had considerable influence on political debate and public policy for over thirty years. In essence, the new right refers to the renewing and repackaging of classical liberalism as a …
Construction of news is the process by which information about events, people, and ideas is compiled into a format that allows it to be transmitted to an audience. The product of this process is the news, which the public consumes to varying degrees through media such as newspapers, …
International relations realists and idealists disagree about whether the international system can be transformed from a conflictive anarchic realm to a new world order of peaceful cooperation. The meaning of system transformation varies by theory. According to structural realists, the international system is anarchic and will remain so …
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American theologian and political theorist best known among political scientists for his contributions to the classical realist school of international relations and particularly to its Christian branch. Niebuhr was born on June 21, 1892, in Wright City, Missouri. The son of …
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was born in Prussia in 1844, the son of a Protestant pastor. He attended Schulpforta boarding school and completed his PhD in classical philology in Bonn and Leipzig, where he became friends with composer Richard Wagner. In 1869 Nietzsche became a professor in …
The Peace Prize is one of five prizes endowed by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, who believed that the potential for devastation created by his invention, dynamite, would put an end to war. The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901. Today it is worth about $1,650,000. Over …
Nonalignment refers to a policy of neutrality toward international security alliances. It is most commonly used to reference an organized movement of former colonies and developing nations formed during the cold war. A nonaligned country was by definition one that had no formal pact with either the United …
The term of noncombatant prisoner, while existing before, has expanded in meaning since September 11, 2001, and includes fighters not usually protected under international law. Noncombatant prisoners are typically not civilians but rather captured unlawful or illegal combatants or illegal enemy combatants—those who actively and willingly engage in …
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are private sector associations based in civil society pursuing policy advocacy goals and project management. Most frequently the term refers to associations with a transnational agenda or operations (for instance, Médecins Sans Frontières, a.k.a. Doctors without Borders), although some NGOs are oriented toward activities within …
Over the last two decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, the concept of nonstate actors has become an indispensable part of the terminology of political science. The diffusion of finance and technology that has been fuelled by globalization has enabled nonstate …
Nontariff barriers to trade (NTBs) are human-made barriers to trade other than simple tariffs. These restrictive practices are designed to evade free-trade rules imposed by regional or international agreement. They include obstructive customs practices, quotas, product standards that are often justified on health and safety grounds, requirement of …
Nonviolence is both a moral principle and a pragmatic means of achieving social and political transformation. Nonviolence and pacifism are often considered synonymous ideas, but in fact they are conceptually and politically distinct. The preeminent scholar of nonviolent action is Gene Sharp, who identified the strategic principles and …
