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.
Political parties are the main interlocutors between citizens and government in all modern democracies, making them a central concern for political scientists. In the first half of the twentieth century, the study of the relationship between society and political parties was minimal, given the prevailing view of parties …
Party discipline is an essential feature of modern democracy and government, and refers to the efforts parties exercise in monitoring their members—keeping them as a cohesive group rather than as disparate individuals. Party discipline reinforces party loyalty among members who may otherwise be capable of independent action and …
Party finance refers to all funds spent in order to influence the outcome of party competition, be funds expended on individual election campaigns for any public office, or on the maintenance of party organizations, nationally and in the field. This includes all funds raised from individual citizens, interested …
Party identification is the psychological allegiance by a voter to a political party. While a debate continues to rage over how stable party identification is, most political scientists continue to conceptualize it as a long-term commitment, opposed to shorter-term factors such as candidate and retrospective evaluations. Retrospective evaluations …
Party law, in one sense, refers to governmental regulations concerning the organization, operation, and activities of a nation’s political parties. A contrasting definition sees party law as internal rules formulated by individual political parties to govern themselves. As nations have increasingly regulated political parties, scholars have increasingly focused …
Early cadre or elite political parties included members of legislative chambers who met to choose leaders, participate in the organization and management of the chamber, and perhaps to coordinate or procure resources for their electoral campaigns. With the expansion of the right to vote, the attendant need for …
Political parties are inevitable in representative democracies, and both their organization and activities influence the functioning of democracy. Organizations are not formally required for parties to present candidates at elections for public offices, their main assignment, but in practice, all parties have some kind of organization. However, the …
A party system is defined as the collectivity of political parties, which participate in governing a democratic state. Thus, when studying comparative party systems, the system as a whole and its effects on society are analyzed rather than the individual parties that comprise the party system. Differences in …
From pater (the “father” in Latin), paternalism refers to a state’s authoritative tutelage or guidance. In a broader sense, any welfare state might be considered paternalist, as it provides services to its citizens to meet some of their basic needs. However, the term is mostly reserved for political …
Path dependency is a concept of social analysis that tries to capture why history and context matter in politics. A path dependent analysis shows how early incidents and factors play an important role in shaping later, even seemingly unrelated events. These incidents and factors help condition political actors, …
Patriarchy is the government of fathers. In ancient Greece and Rome, the patriarch—or male head of household—was considered to have the “natural” author ity to make family decisions. His family included all dependents: wives, children, relatives, servants, and slaves. Although philosophers and officials debated the unlimited or limited …
Patronage is a commonly legal but ethically questionable practice of using state resources to provide jobs and services for political clientele by those in control—the so-called patrons— in return for support. Patronage shares a common factor termed clientelist linkage with other criticized exchanges, such as pork barrel politics …
Patron-client networks are formed between individuals of unequal social status for mutual gain. Patron-client ties involve two-person, face-to-face relationships in which individuals of higher social status or political power (the patron) use their resources or power to give material benefits or provide security to individuals of lower social …
Pax Americana (Latin for “American peace”) describes the absence of world-scale war as the United States emerged as the major economic, military, and political power in the world following World War II (1939–1945). The term is a play on Pax Romana, or Roman peace, used to describe a …
Peace is a transversal concept with a long history of theorization. It is perceived as a plurality and regarded as a state, a process, a value, or an aim associated to the absence of violence and the satisfaction of human needs. History As early as in the Roman …
On March 1, 1961, United States president John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women; helping promote a better understanding of …
Pentecostalism describes a diverse group of Protestant Christians, distinguished theologically by a particular emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit. Allan Anderson, in his Introduction to Pentecostalism, defines Pentecostal as “all churches and movements that emphasize the workings of the gifts of the spir it, both on …
Perestroika was the slogan that came to symbolize Mikhail Gorbachev’s effort to reform the Soviet Union. The fifty-three-year old Gorbachev was appointed general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985 because the leadership in the ruling committee (Politburo) wanted a young, energetic leader …
Performance management is the use of resources to create the environment and the potential to achieve organizational objectives in an efficient manner. Resources may include personnel, finance, and technology for achieving the organization’s goals through strategic planning. The need for good governance, accompanied by outsourcing and privatization, has …
Argentina’s Peronist movement was founded in the mid-1940s by Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. Organizationally, Peronism has usually involved a personalistic leader (Perón from 1945– 1974, Carlos Menem from 1988–1999, and Néstor Kirchner from 2003–2007), a group of powerful labor unionists, and a political party (the Partido Peronista before …
