Political Science Construct

Overview

The Political Science Construct is the conceptualization of how political science is presented on Wikiversity. The Wikiversity School of Political Science builds student knowledge upon four pillars: Political Theory, Government & Politics, Comparative Politics and International Relations. Each of these concepts provides a unique perspective on the study of political science and serves as the core for more advanced and nuanced studies such as the Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy or African E.U. Policy. The -100 level of instruction provides an introduction to these four pillars with an emphasis on the major concepts within the pillar. More detailed instruction in the pillars occurs at the higher course levels. The School does offer a 200 level of instruction which focuses on research, a key takeaway from undergraduate instruction for those students interested in graduate studies. Of note, while graduate studies is not currently offered by the School of Political Science, this course of study will be added to future iterations of the School.

Political Theory

This is the fundamental pillar of Political Science as it provides the "why?" that describes the "what?", "where?" and "how?" in our course of study. This pillar explores the various political philosophers that have given rise to the field of political science and the intellectual contributions that the philosophers have made that make the subject matter distinct from other schools of study. According to Aristotle "[...] man is a political animal [...]" and thus humanity has developed, distinctive political modalities in the four corners of the planet which allow the study of political theory to be geographically diffuse. In other words, as a student broadens their understanding of the political theories of one side of the planet in addition to the other, their perspective broadens and may change but ultimately provides them with a much more nuanced understanding of global political dimensions.

Government & Politics

The Government & Politics pillar answers the "what?" question. This a descriptive pillar that seeks to deepen student knowledge about what states, nations and other organizations due to govern and how they politic among themselves. This is an extremely important pillar as it builds our knowledge base of what works and what doesn't work in terms of government and political structures. This pillar explores things like democracy, socialism, and autocracy as well the political parties within a particular political structure such as the political parties of Germany. Individuals that deepen their knowledge in this pillar will be experts in describing political structures for particular countries and organizations such as for Japan or the United Nations. This pillar is partially supported by the theories that may have affected the development of the governmental and political structure in a particular geographic area and serves as a partial support for the study of comparative politics and international relations.