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Political science

Political science is the scientific study of politics. 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.[1]

Modern political science can generally be divided into the three subdisciplines of comparative politics, international relations, and political theory.[2]

History edit

Origin edit

Political science is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political institutions, political thought and behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.[3]

As a social science, contemporary political science started to take shape in the latter half of the 19th century and began to separate itself from political philosophy and history.[4] Into the late 19th century, it was still uncommon that political science was considered a distinct field from history.[4] 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.

Generally, classical political philosophy is primarily defined by a concern for Hellenic and Enlightenment thought, political scientists are also marked by a great concern for "modernity" and the contemporary nation state, along with the study of classical thought, and as such share more terminology with sociologists (e.g., structure and agency).

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 designation "political scientist" is commonly used to denote someone with a doctorate or master's degree in the field.[5] 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 American Political Science Association and the American Political Science Review were founded in 1903 and 1906, respectively, in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena. APSA membership rose from 204 in 1904 to 1,462 in 1915.[4] APSA members played a key role in setting up political science departments that were distinct from history, philosophy, law, sociology, and economics.[4]

 
A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations (green) from unitary states (blue), a work of political science

The journal Political Science Quarterly was established in 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. In the inaugural issue of Political Science Quarterly, Munroe Smith defined political science as "the science of the state. Taken in this sense, it includes the organization and functions of the state, and the relation of states one to another."[6]

As part of a UNESCO initiative to promote political science in the late 1940s, the International Political Science Association was founded in 1949, as well as national associations in France in 1949, Britain in 1950, and West Germany in 1951.[4]

Behavioural revolution and new institutionalism edit

In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. A focus on studying political behavior, rather than institutions or interpretation of legal texts, characterized early behavioral political science, including work by Robert Dahl, Philip Converse, and in the collaboration between sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld and public opinion scholar Bernard Berelson.

The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed a takeoff in the use of deductive, game-theoretic formal modelling techniques aimed at generating a more analytical corpus of knowledge in the discipline. This period saw a surge of research that borrowed theory and methods from economics to study political institutions, such as the United States Congress, as well as political behavior, such as voting. William H. Riker and his colleagues and students at the University of Rochester were the main proponents of this shift.

Despite considerable research progress in the discipline based on all the kinds of scholarship discussed above, it has been observed that progress toward systematic theory has been modest and uneven.[7]

21st century edit

In 2000, the Perestroika Movement in political science was introduced as a reaction against what supporters of the movement called the mathematicization of political science. Those who identified with the movement argued for a plurality of methodologies and approaches in political science and for more relevance of the discipline to those outside of it.[8]

Some evolutionary psychology theories argue that humans have evolved a highly developed set of psychological mechanisms for dealing with politics. However, these mechanisms evolved for dealing with the small group politics that characterized the ancestral environment and not the much larger political structures in today's world. This is argued to explain many important features and systematic cognitive biases of current politics.[9]

Overview edit

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Political science is a social study concerning the allocation and transfer of power in decision making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behaviour, and public policies. It measures the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, peace, and public health. Some political scientists seek to advance positive theses (which attempt to describe how things are, as opposed to how they should be) by analysing politics; others advance normative theses, such as by making specific policy recommendations. The study of politics and policies can be closely connected—for example, in comparative analyses of which types of political institutions tend to produce certain types of policies.[10] Political science provides analysis and predictions about political and governmental issues.[11] Political scientists examine the processes, systems and political dynamics of countries and regions of the world, often to raise public awareness or to influence specific governments.[11]

Political scientists may provide the frameworks from which journalists, special interest groups, politicians, and the electorate analyze issues. According to Chaturvedy,

Political scientists may serve as advisers to specific politicians, or even run for office as politicians themselves. Political scientists can be found working in governments, in political parties, or as civil servants. They may be involved with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or political movements. In a variety of capacities, people educated and trained in political science can add value and expertise to corporations. Private enterprises such as think tanks, research institutes, polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists.[12]

Country-specific studies edit

Political scientists may study political phenomena within one specific country. For example, they may study just the politics of the United States[13] or just the politics of China.[14]

Political scientists look at a variety of data, including constitutions, elections, public opinion, and public policy, foreign policy, legislatures, and judiciaries. Political scientists will often focus on the politics of their own country; for example, a political scientist from Indonesia may become an expert in the politics of Indonesia.[15]

Anticipating crises edit

The theory of political transitions,[16] and the methods of analyzing and anticipating[17] crises,[18] form an important part of political science. Several general indicators of crises and methods were proposed for anticipating critical transitions.[19] Among them, one statistical indicator of crisis, a simultaneous increase of variance and correlations in large groups, was proposed for crisis anticipation and may be successfully used in various areas.[20] Its applicability for early diagnosis of political crises was demonstrated by the analysis of the prolonged stress period preceding the 2014 Ukrainian economic and political crisis. There was a simultaneous increase in the total correlation between the 19 major public fears in the Ukrainian society (by about 64%) and in their statistical dispersion (by 29%) during the pre-crisis years.[21] A feature shared by certain major revolutions is that they were not predicted. The theory of apparent inevitability of crises and revolutions was also developed.[22]

The study of major crises, both political crises and external crises that can affect politics, is not limited to attempts to predict regime transitions or major changes in political institutions. Political scientists also study how governments handle unexpected disasters, and how voters in democracies react to their governments' preparations for and responses to crises.[23]

Research methods edit

Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in psychology, social research, political philosophy, and many others, in addition to those that developed chiefly within the field of political science.

Political scientists approach the study of politics from a host of different ontological orientations and with a variety of different tools. Because political science is essentially a study of human behavior, in all aspects of politics, observations in controlled environments are often challenging to reproduce or duplicate, though experimental methods are increasingly common (see experimental political science).[24] Citing this difficulty, former American Political Science Association President Lawrence Lowell once said "We are limited by the impossibility of experiment. Politics is an observational, not an experimental science."[17] Because of this, political scientists have historically observed political elites, institutions, and individual or group behaviour in order to identify patterns, draw generalizations, and build theories of politics.

Like all social sciences, political science faces the difficulty of observing human actors that can only be partially observed and who have the capacity for making conscious choices, unlike other subjects, such as non-human organisms in biology, minerals in geoscience, chemical elements in chemistry, stars in astronomy, or particles in physics. Despite the complexities, contemporary political science has progressed by adopting a variety of methods and theoretical approaches to understanding politics, and methodological pluralism is a defining feature of contemporary political science.

Empirical political science methods include the use of field experiments,[25] surveys and survey experiments,[26] case studies,[27] process tracing,[28][29] historical and institutional analysis,[30] ethnography,[31] participant observation,[32] and interview research.[33]

Political scientists also use and develop theoretical tools like game theory and agent-based models to study a host of political systems and situations.[34]

Political theorists approach theories of political phenomena with a similar diversity of positions and tools, including feminist political theory, historical analysis associated with the Cambridge school, and Straussian approaches.

Political science may overlap with topics of study that are the traditional focuses of other social sciences—for example, when sociological norms or psychological biases are connected to political phenomena. In these cases, political science may either inherit their methods of study or develop a contrasting approach.[35] For example, Lisa Wedeen has argued that political science's approach to the idea of culture, originating with Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba and exemplified by authors like Samuel P. Huntington, could benefit from aligning more closely with the study of culture in anthropology.[35] In turn, methodologies that are developed within political science may influence how researchers in other fields, like public health, conceive of and approach political processes and policies.[36]

Education edit

Political science, possibly like the social sciences as a whole, can be described "as a discipline which lives on the fault line between the 'two cultures' in the academy, the sciences and the humanities."[37] Thus, in most American colleges, especially liberal arts colleges it would be located within the school or college of arts and sciences, if no separate college of arts and sciences exist or if the college or university prefers that it be in a separate constituent college or academic department, political science may be a separate department housed as part of a division or school of humanities or liberal arts[38] while at some universities, especially research universities and in particular those that have a strong cooperation between research, undergraduate, and graduate faculty with a stronger more applied emphasis in public administration, political science would be taught by the university's public policy school.

Most United States colleges and universities offer BA programs in political science. MA or MAT and PhD or EdD programs are common at larger universities. The term political science is more popular in post-1960s North America than elsewhere while universities predating the 1960s or those historically influenced by them would call the field of study government;[39] other institutions, especially those outside the United States, see political science as part of a broader discipline of political studies or politics in general. While political science implies the use of the scientific method, political studies implies a broader approach, although the naming of degree courses does not necessarily reflect their content. Separate, specialized, or in some cases professional degree programs in international relations, public policy, and public administration, are not uncommon at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, although most but not all undergraduate level education in these sub-fields of political science are generally found in academic concentration within a political science academic major. Master's-level programs in public administration are professional degrees covering public policy along with other applied subjects; they are often seen as more linked to politics than any other discipline, which may be reflected by being housed in that department.[40]

The main national honor society for college and university students of government and politics in the United States is Pi Sigma Alpha, while Pi Alpha Alpha is a national honor society specifically designated for public administration.

Writing edit

The most common piece of academic writing in generalist political sciences are research papers, which investigate an original research question[41][42]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ . Archived from the original on 30 December 2019. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  2. ^ Caramani, ed. (2020). Comparative politics (Fifth ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-882060-4. OCLC 1144813972.
  3. ^ . Archived from the original on 30 December 2019. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e Bevir, Mark (2022). "A History of Political Science". Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009043458. ISBN 978-1009043458.
  5. ^ Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. "How to Become a Political Scientist". from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
  6. ^ Smith, Munroe (1886). "Introduction: The Domain of Political Science". Political Science Quarterly. 1 (1): 2. doi:10.2307/2139299. JSTOR 2139299. from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  7. ^ Kim Quaile Hill, "In Search of General Theory", Journal of Politics 74 (October 2012), 917–31.
  8. ^ Perestroika!: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science. Yale University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0300130201. from the original on 20 August 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  9. ^ Michael Bang Petersen. "The evolutionary psychology of mass politics". In Roberts, S.C. (2011). Roberts, S. Craig (ed.). Applied Evolutionary Psychology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586073.001.0001. ISBN 978-0199586073.
  10. ^ Roller, Edeltraud (2005). The Performance of Democracies: Political Institutions and Public Policy. Oxford University Press.
  11. ^ a b Maddocks, Krysten Godfrey (26 June 2020). "What is Political Science All About?". www.snhu.edu. from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  12. ^ Chaturvedy, J.C. (2005). Political Governance: Political theory. Isha Books. p. 4. ISBN 978-8182053175. from the original on 4 September 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  13. ^ Benjamin Ginsberg; Theodore J. Lowi; Margaret Weir; et al. (December 2012). We the People: An Introduction to American Politics. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393921106.
  14. ^ Oi, Jean C. (1989). State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government. University of California Press. p. xvi.
  15. ^ (in Indonesian). Indonesian Political Science Association. 25 October 2013. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  16. ^ Acemoglu D., Robinson J.A. "A theory of political transitions." 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine American Economic Review. 2001 Sep 1:938–63.
  17. ^ a b Lowell, A. Lawrence. 1910. "The Physiology of Politics 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine." American Political Science Review 4: 1–15.
  18. ^ McClelland C.A. "The Anticipation of International Crises: Prospects for Theory and Research." 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, Special Issue on International Crisis: Progress and Prospects for Applied Forecasting and Management (March 1977), pp. 15–38
  19. ^ Scheffer M., Carpenter S.R., Lenton T.M., et al. "Anticipating critical transitions." 4 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine Science. 2012 Oct 19; 338(6105):344–48.
  20. ^ Gorban, A.N.; Smirnova, E.V.; Tyukina, T.A. (August 2010). "Correlations, risk and crisis: From physiology to finance". Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications. 389 (16): 3193–3217. arXiv:0905.0129. Bibcode:2010PhyA..389.3193G. doi:10.1016/j.physa.2010.03.035. S2CID 276956. from the original on 3 April 2022. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
  21. ^ Rybnikov, S.R.; Rybnikova, N.A.; Portnov, B.A. (March 2017). "Public fears in Ukrainian society: Are crises predictable?". Psychology & Developing Societies. 29 (1): 98–123. doi:10.1177/0971333616689398. S2CID 151344338. from the original on 3 April 2022. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
  22. ^ Kuran T. "Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution." 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine Public Choice, Vol. 61, No. 1 (April 1989), pp. 41–74
  23. ^ Andrew Healy; Neil Malhotra (2009). "Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy". American Political Science Review. 103 (3): 387–406. doi:10.1017/S0003055409990104. S2CID 32422707.
  24. ^ Druckman, James; Green, Donald; et al., eds. (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521174558.
  25. ^ Nahomi Ichino; Noah L. Nathan (May 2013). "Crossing the Line: Local Ethnic Geography and Voting in Ghana". American Political Science Review. 107 (2): 344–361. doi:10.1017/S0003055412000664. S2CID 9092626.
  26. ^ "The Progress and Pitfalls of Using Survey Experiments in Political Science". Oxford Research Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. February 2020.
  27. ^ Skocpol, Theda (1979). States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521294997.
  28. ^ Mahoney, James (2 March 2012). "The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences". Sociological Methods & Research. 41 (4): 570–597. doi:10.1177/0049124112437709. S2CID 122335417.
  29. ^ Zaks, Sherry (July 2017). "Relationships Among Rivals (RAR): A Framework for Analyzing Contending Hypotheses in Process Tracing". Political Analysis. 25 (3): 344–362. doi:10.1017/pan.2017.12. S2CID 125814475.
  30. ^ Thelen, Kathleen (1999). "Historical institutionalism in comparative politics". Annual Review of Political Science. 2: 369–404. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.369.
  31. ^ Brodkin, Evelyn Z. (January 2017). "The Ethnographic Turn in Political Science: Reflections on the State of the Art". PS: Political Science & Politics. 50 (1): 131–134. doi:10.1017/S1049096516002298. S2CID 152094822.
  32. ^ Cramer, Katherine J. (2016). The Politics of Resentment. University of Chicago Press.
  33. ^ Layna Mosley, ed. (2013). Interview Research in Political Science. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801478635.
  34. ^ Fiorina, Morris P. (February 1975). "Formal Models in Political Science". American Journal of Political Science. 19 (1): 133–159. doi:10.2307/2110698. JSTOR 2110698.
  35. ^ a b Wedeen, Lisa (December 2002). "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science". The American Political Science Review. 95 (4): 713–728. doi:10.1017/S0003055402000400. S2CID 145130880.
  36. ^ Nicole F. Bernier; Carole Clavier (1 March 2011). "Public health policy research: making the case for a political science approach". Health Promotion International. 26 (1): 109–116. doi:10.1093/heapro/daq079. PMID 21296911.
  37. ^ Stoner, J.R. (22 February 2008). . Paper presented at the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (APSA), San Jose Marriott, San Jose, California. Archived from the original on 30 November 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2011. …although one might allege the same for social science as a whole, political scientists receive funding from and play an active role in both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities [in the United States].
  38. ^ See, e.g., the department of Political Science 19 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine at Marist College, part of a Division of Humanities before that division became the School of Liberal Arts (c. 2000).
  39. ^ DiSalvo, Daniel (1 April 2013). "The Politics of Studying Politics: Political Science Since the 1960s". Society. 50 (2): 132–139. doi:10.1007/s12115-013-9631-7. ISSN 1936-4725. S2CID 255514132.
  40. ^ Vernardakis, George (1998). Graduate education in government. University Press of America. p. 77. ISBN 978-0761811718. from the original on 4 September 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2015. …existing practices at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.
  41. ^ Schmidt, Diane E. (14 January 2019), "Political Inquiry", Writing in Political Science, New York: Routledge, pp. 1–25, doi:10.4324/9781351252843-1, ISBN 978-1351252843, from the original on 3 April 2022, retrieved 25 September 2021
  42. ^ "Political Science". The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.

Further reading edit

  • (November 2006). APSR Centennial Volume of American Political Science Review. Apsanet. 4 February 2009.
  • Alter, Karen J., et al. "Gender and status in American political science: Who determines whether a scholar is noteworthy?." Perspectives on Politics 18.4 (2020): 1048–1067. online
  • Atchison, Amy L, ed. Political Science Is for Everybody : An Introduction to Political Science. University of Toronto Press, 2021.
  • Badie, Bertrand, et al. International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE, 2011.
  • Berlin, Mark Stephen, and Anum Pasha Syed. "The Middle East and North Africa in Political Science Scholarship: Analyzing Publication Patterns in Leading Journals, 1990–2019". International Studies Review 24.3 (2022): viac027.
  • Blatt, Jessica. Race and the Making of American Political Science University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
  • Breuning, Marijke, Joseph Bredehoft, and Eugene Walton. "Promise and performance: an evaluation of journals in International Relations." International Studies Perspectives 6.4 (2005): 447–461. online
  • Frickel, Scott. "Political scientists". Sociological Forum 33#1 (2018).
  • Garand, James C., and Micheal W. Giles. "Journals in the discipline: a report on a new survey of American political scientists". PS: Political Science & Politics 36.2 (2003): 293–308. available from the authors
  • Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder, eds. Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007)
  • Goodin, R.E.; Klingemann, Hans-Dieter. A New Handbook of Political Science. (Oxford University Press, 1996). ISBN 0198294719.
  • Goodin, Robert E, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Political Science. Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Hochschild, Jennifer L. "Race and Class in Political Science" Michigan Journal of Race and Law, 2005 11(1): 99–114.
  • Hunger, Sophia, and Fred Paxton. "What's in a buzzword? A systematic review of the state of populism research in political science". Political Science Research and Methods (2021): 1–17. online
  • Katznelson, Ira, et al. Political Science: The State of the Discipline. W.W. Norton, 2002.
  • Kellstedt, Paul M, and Guy D Whitten. The Fundamentals of Political Science Research Third ed., Cambridge University Press, 2018.
  • Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, ed. The State of Political Science in Western Europe (Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publisher 2007). ISBN 978-3866490451.
  • Kostova, Dobrinka, et al. "Determinants and Diversity of Internationalisation in Political Science: The Role of National Policy Incentives". European Political Science (2022): 1–14. online
  • Lowndes, Vivien, et al., editors. Theory and Methods in Political Science. Fourth ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
  • Noel, Hans (2010-10-14 | DOI Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don't) "Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don't" The Forum: Vol. 8: Iss. 3, Article 12.
  • Morlino, Leonardo, et al. Political Science: A Global Perspective. Sage, 2017.
  • Nisonger, Thomas E. "Journals of the Century in Political Science and International Relations". in Journals of the Century (Routledge, 2019) pp. 271–288.
  • Peez, Anton. "Contributions and blind spots of constructivist norms research in international relations, 1980–2018: A systematic evidence and gap analysis". International Studies Review 24.1 (2022): viab055. online
  • Raadschelders, Jos CN, and Kwang‐Hoon Lee. "Trends in the study of public administration: Empirical and qualitative observations from Public Administration Review, 2000–2009." Public Administration Review 71.1 (2011): 19–33. online
  • Roskin, M. et al. Political Science: An Introduction (14th ed. Pearson, 2020). excerpt
  • Schram, S.F.; Caterino, B., eds. Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method. (New York University Press, 2006).
  • Schubert,Glendon A. (1958) The Theory of "The Public Interest" in Judicial Decision-Making – JSTOR 2109163
  • —— (1958) The Study of Judicial Decision-Making as an Aspect of Political Behavior – JSTOR 1951981
  • —— (1959) Quantitative Analysis of Judicial Behavior
  • Shively, W. Phillips, and David Schultz. Power and choice: An introduction to political science (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
  • Simon, Douglas W., and Joseph Romance. The challenge of politics: an introduction to political science (CQ press, 2022).
  • Tausch, Arno, "For a globally visible political science in the 21st Century. Bibliometric analyses and strategic consequences" (2021). Available at SSRN: For a globally visible political science in the 21st Century. Bibliometric analyses and strategic consequences
  • Taylor, C. L., & Russett, B. M. Eds.. Karl W. Deutsch: Pioneer in the Theory of International Relations (Springer, 2020). excerpt
  • Tronconi, Filippo, and Isabelle Engeli. "The networked researcher, the editorial manager, and the traveller: the profiles of international political scientists and the determinants of internationalisation". European Political Science (2022): 1–14. [1]
  • Van Evera, Stephen. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Cornell University Press, 1997. excerpt
  • Weber, Erik, et al. "Thinking about laws in political science (and beyond)". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52.1 (2022): 199–222.
  • Zippelius, Reinhold (2003). Geschichte der Staatsideen (History of political Ideas), 10th ed. Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 3406494943.
  • Zippelius, Reinhold (2010). Allgemeine Staatslehre, Politikwissenschaft (Political Science), 16th ed. Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3406603426.

External links edit

Professional organizations edit

  • International Political Science Association
  • International Studies Association
  • Political Studies Association of the UK

Further reading edit

  • IPSAPortal: Top 300 websites for Political Science
  • Observatory of International Research (OOIR): Latest Papers and Trends in Political Science
  • PROL: Political Science Research Online (prepublished research)

Library guides edit

  • Library. . Research Guides. Michigan: University of Michigan. Archived from the original on 7 July 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  • Bodleian Libraries. . LibGuides. UK: University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  • Library. . LibGuides. New Jersey: Princeton University. Archived from the original on 23 July 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  • Libraries. . Research Guides. New York: Syracuse University. Archived from the original on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  • University Libraries. . Research Guides. Texas: Texas A&M University. Archived from the original on 21 October 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.

political, science, this, article, about, field, study, other, uses, political, science, disambiguation, poli, redirects, here, other, uses, poli, disambiguation, scientific, study, politics, social, science, dealing, with, systems, governance, power, analysis. This article is about the field of study For other uses see Political Science disambiguation Poli sci redirects here For other uses see Poli sci disambiguation Political science is the scientific study of politics 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 1 Modern political science can generally be divided into the three subdisciplines of comparative politics international relations and political theory 2 Contents 1 History 1 1 Origin 1 2 Behavioural revolution and new institutionalism 1 3 21st century 2 Overview 2 1 Country specific studies 2 2 Anticipating crises 3 Research methods 4 Education 5 Writing 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links 9 1 Professional organizations 9 2 Further reading 9 3 Library guidesHistory editMain article History of political science Origin edit Political science is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power and the analysis of political activities political institutions political thought and behavior and associated constitutions and laws 3 As a social science contemporary political science started to take shape in the latter half of the 19th century and began to separate itself from political philosophy and history 4 Into the late 19th century it was still uncommon that political science was considered a distinct field from history 4 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 Generally classical political philosophy is primarily defined by a concern for Hellenic and Enlightenment thought political scientists are also marked by a great concern for modernity and the contemporary nation state along with the study of classical thought and as such share more terminology with sociologists e g structure and agency 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 designation political scientist is commonly used to denote someone with a doctorate or master s degree in the field 5 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 American Political Science Association and the American Political Science Review were founded in 1903 and 1906 respectively in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena APSA membership rose from 204 in 1904 to 1 462 in 1915 4 APSA members played a key role in setting up political science departments that were distinct from history philosophy law sociology and economics 4 nbsp A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations green from unitary states blue a work of political scienceThe journal Political Science Quarterly was established in 1886 by the Academy of Political Science In the inaugural issue of Political Science Quarterly Munroe Smith defined political science as the science of the state Taken in this sense it includes the organization and functions of the state and the relation of states one to another 6 As part of a UNESCO initiative to promote political science in the late 1940s the International Political Science Association was founded in 1949 as well as national associations in France in 1949 Britain in 1950 and West Germany in 1951 4 Behavioural revolution and new institutionalism edit In the 1950s and the 1960s a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline A focus on studying political behavior rather than institutions or interpretation of legal texts characterized early behavioral political science including work by Robert Dahl Philip Converse and in the collaboration between sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld and public opinion scholar Bernard Berelson The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed a takeoff in the use of deductive game theoretic formal modelling techniques aimed at generating a more analytical corpus of knowledge in the discipline This period saw a surge of research that borrowed theory and methods from economics to study political institutions such as the United States Congress as well as political behavior such as voting William H Riker and his colleagues and students at the University of Rochester were the main proponents of this shift Despite considerable research progress in the discipline based on all the kinds of scholarship discussed above it has been observed that progress toward systematic theory has been modest and uneven 7 21st century edit In 2000 the Perestroika Movement in political science was introduced as a reaction against what supporters of the movement called the mathematicization of political science Those who identified with the movement argued for a plurality of methodologies and approaches in political science and for more relevance of the discipline to those outside of it 8 Some evolutionary psychology theories argue that humans have evolved a highly developed set of psychological mechanisms for dealing with politics However these mechanisms evolved for dealing with the small group politics that characterized the ancestral environment and not the much larger political structures in today s world This is argued to explain many important features and systematic cognitive biases of current politics 9 Overview edit nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Main sub disciplines of political science from top left to right 1 Domestic politics and government 2 Comparative politics 3 International relations 4 Political theory 5 Political economy 6 Political methodology 7 Public administration 8 Public policyPolitical science is a social study concerning the allocation and transfer of power in decision making the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations political behaviour and public policies It measures the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors including stability justice material wealth peace and public health Some political scientists seek to advance positive theses which attempt to describe how things are as opposed to how they should be by analysing politics others advance normative theses such as by making specific policy recommendations The study of politics and policies can be closely connected for example in comparative analyses of which types of political institutions tend to produce certain types of policies 10 Political science provides analysis and predictions about political and governmental issues 11 Political scientists examine the processes systems and political dynamics of countries and regions of the world often to raise public awareness or to influence specific governments 11 Political scientists may provide the frameworks from which journalists special interest groups politicians and the electorate analyze issues According to Chaturvedy Political scientists may serve as advisers to specific politicians or even run for office as politicians themselves Political scientists can be found working in governments in political parties or as civil servants They may be involved with non governmental organizations NGOs or political movements In a variety of capacities people educated and trained in political science can add value and expertise to corporations Private enterprises such as think tanks research institutes polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists 12 Country specific studies edit Political scientists may study political phenomena within one specific country For example they may study just the politics of the United States 13 or just the politics of China 14 Political scientists look at a variety of data including constitutions elections public opinion and public policy foreign policy legislatures and judiciaries Political scientists will often focus on the politics of their own country for example a political scientist from Indonesia may become an expert in the politics of Indonesia 15 Anticipating crises edit The theory of political transitions 16 and the methods of analyzing and anticipating 17 crises 18 form an important part of political science Several general indicators of crises and methods were proposed for anticipating critical transitions 19 Among them one statistical indicator of crisis a simultaneous increase of variance and correlations in large groups was proposed for crisis anticipation and may be successfully used in various areas 20 Its applicability for early diagnosis of political crises was demonstrated by the analysis of the prolonged stress period preceding the 2014 Ukrainian economic and political crisis There was a simultaneous increase in the total correlation between the 19 major public fears in the Ukrainian society by about 64 and in their statistical dispersion by 29 during the pre crisis years 21 A feature shared by certain major revolutions is that they were not predicted The theory of apparent inevitability of crises and revolutions was also developed 22 The study of major crises both political crises and external crises that can affect politics is not limited to attempts to predict regime transitions or major changes in political institutions Political scientists also study how governments handle unexpected disasters and how voters in democracies react to their governments preparations for and responses to crises 23 Research methods editMain article Political methodology Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in psychology social research political philosophy and many others in addition to those that developed chiefly within the field of political science Political scientists approach the study of politics from a host of different ontological orientations and with a variety of different tools Because political science is essentially a study of human behavior in all aspects of politics observations in controlled environments are often challenging to reproduce or duplicate though experimental methods are increasingly common see experimental political science 24 Citing this difficulty former American Political Science Association President Lawrence Lowell once said We are limited by the impossibility of experiment Politics is an observational not an experimental science 17 Because of this political scientists have historically observed political elites institutions and individual or group behaviour in order to identify patterns draw generalizations and build theories of politics Like all social sciences political science faces the difficulty of observing human actors that can only be partially observed and who have the capacity for making conscious choices unlike other subjects such as non human organisms in biology minerals in geoscience chemical elements in chemistry stars in astronomy or particles in physics Despite the complexities contemporary political science has progressed by adopting a variety of methods and theoretical approaches to understanding politics and methodological pluralism is a defining feature of contemporary political science Empirical political science methods include the use of field experiments 25 surveys and survey experiments 26 case studies 27 process tracing 28 29 historical and institutional analysis 30 ethnography 31 participant observation 32 and interview research 33 Political scientists also use and develop theoretical tools like game theory and agent based models to study a host of political systems and situations 34 Political theorists approach theories of political phenomena with a similar diversity of positions and tools including feminist political theory historical analysis associated with the Cambridge school and Straussian approaches Political science may overlap with topics of study that are the traditional focuses of other social sciences for example when sociological norms or psychological biases are connected to political phenomena In these cases political science may either inherit their methods of study or develop a contrasting approach 35 For example Lisa Wedeen has argued that political science s approach to the idea of culture originating with Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba and exemplified by authors like Samuel P Huntington could benefit from aligning more closely with the study of culture in anthropology 35 In turn methodologies that are developed within political science may influence how researchers in other fields like public health conceive of and approach political processes and policies 36 Education editFurther information Public policy school and College of Arts and Sciences Political science possibly like the social sciences as a whole can be described as a discipline which lives on the fault line between the two cultures in the academy the sciences and the humanities 37 Thus in most American colleges especially liberal arts colleges it would be located within the school or college of arts and sciences if no separate college of arts and sciences exist or if the college or university prefers that it be in a separate constituent college or academic department political science may be a separate department housed as part of a division or school of humanities or liberal arts 38 while at some universities especially research universities and in particular those that have a strong cooperation between research undergraduate and graduate faculty with a stronger more applied emphasis in public administration political science would be taught by the university s public policy school Most United States colleges and universities offer BA programs in political science MA or MAT and PhD or EdD programs are common at larger universities The term political science is more popular in post 1960s North America than elsewhere while universities predating the 1960s or those historically influenced by them would call the field of study government 39 other institutions especially those outside the United States see political science as part of a broader discipline of political studies or politics in general While political science implies the use of the scientific method political studies implies a broader approach although the naming of degree courses does not necessarily reflect their content Separate specialized or in some cases professional degree programs in international relations public policy and public administration are not uncommon at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels although most but not all undergraduate level education in these sub fields of political science are generally found in academic concentration within a political science academic major Master s level programs in public administration are professional degrees covering public policy along with other applied subjects they are often seen as more linked to politics than any other discipline which may be reflected by being housed in that department 40 The main national honor society for college and university students of government and politics in the United States is Pi Sigma Alpha while Pi Alpha Alpha is a national honor society specifically designated for public administration Writing editThe most common piece of academic writing in generalist political sciences are research papers which investigate an original research question 41 42 See also edit nbsp Politics portalComparative politics History of political science International relations Outline of political science structured list of political topics arranged by subject area Index of politics articles alphabetical list of political subjects Political history of the world Political lists lists of political topics Political philosophy Political identityReferences edit Definition from Lexico powered by Oxford University Press Retrieved 23 February 2020 Archived from the original on 30 December 2019 Retrieved 23 February 2020 Caramani ed 2020 Comparative politics Fifth ed Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 882060 4 OCLC 1144813972 Definition from Lexico powered by Oxford University Press Retrieved 23 February 2020 Archived from the original on 30 December 2019 Retrieved 23 February 2020 a b c d e Bevir Mark 2022 A History of Political Science Cambridge University Press doi 10 1017 9781009043458 ISBN 978 1009043458 Bureau of Labor Statistics U S Department of Labor How to Become a Political Scientist Archived from the original on 27 June 2018 Retrieved 13 September 2016 Smith Munroe 1886 Introduction The Domain of Political Science Political Science Quarterly 1 1 2 doi 10 2307 2139299 JSTOR 2139299 Archived from the original on 18 January 2022 Retrieved 18 January 2022 Kim Quaile Hill In Search of General Theory Journal of Politics 74 October 2012 917 31 Perestroika The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science Yale University Press 2005 ISBN 978 0300130201 Archived from the original on 20 August 2020 Retrieved 24 May 2016 Michael Bang Petersen The evolutionary psychology of mass politics In Roberts S C 2011 Roberts S Craig ed Applied Evolutionary Psychology Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 acprof oso 9780199586073 001 0001 ISBN 978 0199586073 Roller Edeltraud 2005 The Performance of Democracies Political Institutions and Public Policy Oxford University Press a b Maddocks Krysten Godfrey 26 June 2020 What is Political Science All About www snhu edu Archived from the original on 25 September 2021 Retrieved 25 September 2021 Chaturvedy J C 2005 Political Governance Political theory Isha Books p 4 ISBN 978 8182053175 Archived from the original on 4 September 2015 Retrieved 28 October 2014 Benjamin Ginsberg Theodore J Lowi Margaret Weir et al December 2012 We the People An Introduction to American Politics W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0393921106 Oi Jean C 1989 State and Peasant in Contemporary China The Political Economy of Village Government University of California Press p xvi Sekelumit Prof Dr Miriam Budiardjo in Indonesian Indonesian Political Science Association 25 October 2013 Archived from the original on 29 September 2020 Retrieved 1 October 2020 Acemoglu D Robinson J A A theory of political transitions Archived 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine American Economic Review 2001 Sep 1 938 63 a b Lowell A Lawrence 1910 The Physiology of Politics Archived 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine American Political Science Review 4 1 15 McClelland C A The Anticipation of International Crises Prospects for Theory and Research Archived 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine International Studies Quarterly Vol 21 No 1 Special Issue on International Crisis Progress and Prospects for Applied Forecasting and Management March 1977 pp 15 38 Scheffer M Carpenter S R Lenton T M et al Anticipating critical transitions Archived 4 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine Science 2012 Oct 19 338 6105 344 48 Gorban A N Smirnova E V Tyukina T A August 2010 Correlations risk and crisis From physiology to finance Physica A Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications 389 16 3193 3217 arXiv 0905 0129 Bibcode 2010PhyA 389 3193G doi 10 1016 j physa 2010 03 035 S2CID 276956 Archived from the original on 3 April 2022 Retrieved 23 May 2017 Rybnikov S R Rybnikova N A Portnov B A March 2017 Public fears in Ukrainian society Are crises predictable Psychology amp Developing Societies 29 1 98 123 doi 10 1177 0971333616689398 S2CID 151344338 Archived from the original on 3 April 2022 Retrieved 23 May 2017 Kuran T Sparks and prairie fires A theory of unanticipated political revolution Archived 9 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine Public Choice Vol 61 No 1 April 1989 pp 41 74 Andrew Healy Neil Malhotra 2009 Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy American Political Science Review 103 3 387 406 doi 10 1017 S0003055409990104 S2CID 32422707 Druckman James Green Donald et al eds 2011 Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521174558 Nahomi Ichino Noah L Nathan May 2013 Crossing the Line Local Ethnic Geography and Voting in Ghana American Political Science Review 107 2 344 361 doi 10 1017 S0003055412000664 S2CID 9092626 The Progress and Pitfalls of Using Survey Experiments in Political Science Oxford Research Encyclopedia Oxford Oxford University Press February 2020 Skocpol Theda 1979 States and Social Revolutions Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521294997 Mahoney James 2 March 2012 The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences Sociological Methods amp Research 41 4 570 597 doi 10 1177 0049124112437709 S2CID 122335417 Zaks Sherry July 2017 Relationships Among Rivals RAR A Framework for Analyzing Contending Hypotheses in Process Tracing Political Analysis 25 3 344 362 doi 10 1017 pan 2017 12 S2CID 125814475 Thelen Kathleen 1999 Historical institutionalism in comparative politics Annual Review of Political Science 2 369 404 doi 10 1146 annurev polisci 2 1 369 Brodkin Evelyn Z January 2017 The Ethnographic Turn in Political Science Reflections on the State of the Art PS Political Science amp Politics 50 1 131 134 doi 10 1017 S1049096516002298 S2CID 152094822 Cramer Katherine J 2016 The Politics of Resentment University of Chicago Press Layna Mosley ed 2013 Interview Research in Political Science Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0801478635 Fiorina Morris P February 1975 Formal Models in Political Science American Journal of Political Science 19 1 133 159 doi 10 2307 2110698 JSTOR 2110698 a b Wedeen Lisa December 2002 Conceptualizing Culture Possibilities for Political Science The American Political Science Review 95 4 713 728 doi 10 1017 S0003055402000400 S2CID 145130880 Nicole F Bernier Carole Clavier 1 March 2011 Public health policy research making the case for a political science approach Health Promotion International 26 1 109 116 doi 10 1093 heapro daq079 PMID 21296911 Stoner J R 22 February 2008 Political Science and Political Education Paper presented at the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference APSA San Jose Marriott San Jose California Archived from the original on 30 November 2009 Retrieved 19 October 2011 although one might allege the same for social science as a whole political scientists receive funding from and play an active role in both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States See e g the department of Political Science Archived 19 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine at Marist College part of a Division of Humanities before that division became the School of Liberal Arts c 2000 DiSalvo Daniel 1 April 2013 The Politics of Studying Politics Political Science Since the 1960s Society 50 2 132 139 doi 10 1007 s12115 013 9631 7 ISSN 1936 4725 S2CID 255514132 Vernardakis George 1998 Graduate education in government University Press of America p 77 ISBN 978 0761811718 Archived from the original on 4 September 2015 Retrieved 17 June 2015 existing practices at Harvard University the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan Schmidt Diane E 14 January 2019 Political Inquiry Writing in Political Science New York Routledge pp 1 25 doi 10 4324 9781351252843 1 ISBN 978 1351252843 archived from the original on 3 April 2022 retrieved 25 September 2021 Political Science The Writing Center University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Archived from the original on 25 September 2021 Retrieved 25 September 2021 Further reading editThe Evolution of Political Science November 2006 APSR Centennial Volume of American Political Science Review Apsanet 4 February 2009 Alter Karen J et al Gender and status in American political science Who determines whether a scholar is noteworthy Perspectives on Politics 18 4 2020 1048 1067 online Atchison Amy L ed Political Science Is for Everybody An Introduction to Political Science University of Toronto Press 2021 Badie Bertrand et al International Encyclopedia of Political Science SAGE 2011 Berlin Mark Stephen and Anum Pasha Syed The Middle East and North Africa in Political Science Scholarship Analyzing Publication Patterns in Leading Journals 1990 2019 International Studies Review 24 3 2022 viac027 Blatt Jessica Race and the Making of American Political Science University of Pennsylvania Press 2018 Breuning Marijke Joseph Bredehoft and Eugene Walton Promise and performance an evaluation of journals in International Relations International Studies Perspectives 6 4 2005 447 461 online Frickel Scott Political scientists Sociological Forum 33 1 2018 Garand James C and Micheal W Giles Journals in the discipline a report on a new survey of American political scientists PS Political Science amp Politics 36 2 2003 293 308 available from the authors Gerardo L Munck and Richard Snyder eds Passion Craft and Method in Comparative Politics Johns Hopkins University Press 2007 Goodin R E Klingemann Hans Dieter A New Handbook of Political Science Oxford University Press 1996 ISBN 0198294719 Goodin Robert E ed The Oxford Handbook of Political Science Oxford University Press 2011 Hochschild Jennifer L Race and Class in Political Science Michigan Journal of Race and Law 2005 11 1 99 114 Hunger Sophia and Fred Paxton What s in a buzzword A systematic review of the state of populism research in political science Political Science Research and Methods 2021 1 17 online Katznelson Ira et al Political Science The State of the Discipline W W Norton 2002 Kellstedt Paul M and Guy D Whitten The Fundamentals of Political Science Research Third ed Cambridge University Press 2018 Klingemann Hans Dieter ed The State of Political Science in Western Europe Opladen Barbara Budrich Publisher 2007 ISBN 978 3866490451 Kostova Dobrinka et al Determinants and Diversity of Internationalisation in Political Science The Role of National Policy Incentives European Political Science 2022 1 14 online Lowndes Vivien et al editors Theory and Methods in Political Science Fourth ed Palgrave Macmillan 2018 Noel Hans 2010 10 14 DOI Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don t Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don t The Forum Vol 8 Iss 3 Article 12 Morlino Leonardo et al Political Science A Global Perspective Sage 2017 Nisonger Thomas E Journals of the Century in Political Science and International Relations in Journals of the Century Routledge 2019 pp 271 288 Peez Anton Contributions and blind spots of constructivist norms research in international relations 1980 2018 A systematic evidence and gap analysis International Studies Review 24 1 2022 viab055 online Raadschelders Jos CN and Kwang Hoon Lee Trends in the study of public administration Empirical and qualitative observations from Public Administration Review 2000 2009 Public Administration Review 71 1 2011 19 33 online Roskin M et al Political Science An Introduction 14th ed Pearson 2020 excerpt Schram S F Caterino B eds Making Political Science Matter Debating Knowledge Research and Method New York University Press 2006 Schubert Glendon A 1958 The Theory of The Public Interest in Judicial Decision Making JSTOR 2109163 1958 The Study of Judicial Decision Making as an Aspect of Political Behavior JSTOR 1951981 1959 Quantitative Analysis of Judicial Behavior Shively W Phillips and David Schultz Power and choice An introduction to political science Rowman amp Littlefield 2022 Simon Douglas W and Joseph Romance The challenge of politics an introduction to political science CQ press 2022 Tausch Arno For a globally visible political science in the 21st Century Bibliometric analyses and strategic consequences 2021 Available at SSRN For a globally visible political science in the 21st Century Bibliometric analyses and strategic consequences Taylor C L amp Russett B M Eds Karl W Deutsch Pioneer in the Theory of International Relations Springer 2020 excerpt Tronconi Filippo and Isabelle Engeli The networked researcher the editorial manager and the traveller the profiles of international political scientists and the determinants of internationalisation European Political Science 2022 1 14 1 Van Evera Stephen Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science Cornell University Press 1997 excerpt Weber Erik et al Thinking about laws in political science and beyond Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52 1 2022 199 222 Zippelius Reinhold 2003 Geschichte der Staatsideen History of political Ideas 10th ed Munich C H Beck ISBN 3406494943 Zippelius Reinhold 2010 Allgemeine Staatslehre Politikwissenschaft Political Science 16th ed Munich C H Beck ISBN 978 3406603426 External links edit nbsp Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Political Science nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Political science nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Political science nbsp Scholia has a topic profile for Political science Professional organizations edit European Consortium for Political Research Institute for Comparative Research in Human and Social Sciences ICR in Japan International Association for Political Science Students International Political Science Association International Studies Association Midwest Political Science Association Political Studies Association of the UK Southern Political Science AssociationFurther reading edit IPSAPortal Top 300 websites for Political Science Observatory of International Research OOIR Latest Papers and Trends in Political Science PROL Political Science Research Online prepublished research Library guides edit Library Political Science Research Guides Michigan University of Michigan Archived from the original on 7 July 2014 Retrieved 15 February 2014 Bodleian Libraries Political Science LibGuides UK University of Oxford Archived from the original on 18 February 2014 Retrieved 15 February 2014 Library Politics Research Guide LibGuides New Jersey Princeton University Archived from the original on 23 July 2014 Retrieved 15 February 2014 Libraries Political Science Research Guides New York Syracuse University Archived from the original on 8 July 2014 Retrieved 15 February 2014 University Libraries Political Science Research Guides Texas Texas A amp M University Archived from the original on 21 October 2014 Retrieved 15 February 2014 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Political science amp oldid 1179015768, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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