ABSTRACT
Political science, like any science, uses analytic techniques to posit and explore regularities in the world around us. Political science offers theories that enable to analyze political phenomena. There are several schools of research in political science, and alternative assumptions—about which questions to ask, concepts to use, hypotheses to test—and diverse views about the theories most likely to lead to powerful explanations characterize the discipline. Political science appears to contain a fundamental paradox. Political scientists share a language of analysis—which emphasizes concepts, variables, indicators, hypotheses, and theories—and a vision of the discipline that focuses on the explanation of political phenomena. In a field like political science where there are multiple and competing theories, there are multiple and competing analyses. This is true because each theory contains concepts, variables, and hypotheses that necessarily depict politics in a particular way. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
