Political Science is a field of social scientific inquiry concerned with theory, description, analysis and prediction of political behavior, political systems and politics broadly-construed.

Subdisciplines
There are five traditional subdisciplines within Political Science:

Comparative Politics
Federal Politics
International Relations
Political Theory
Public Policy
Several areas of emphasis exist within each subdiscipline:

Ideology
Game theory
Psephology (voting theory and electoral statistical analysis)
Geopolitics and political geography
Political economy
National political systems (eg, centralisation, regionalism, federalism, core-periphery studies, nation-state analysis, etc.)
International political systems (eg, supranationalism, intergovernmentalism, military alliances, hegemony studies)
Globalisation studies
Political development
Political anthropology
Postcolonialism studies
Institutional theory
International relations
Foreign policy analysis
Peace studies
Conflict analysis
Strategic studies
Diplomacy studies
International law and politics
Public administration and local government studies
Political party and coalition analysis
Political psychology
Political sociology and socialisation studies
Micropolitics and behavioural analysis
Political history
Interest group/pressure group/lobby politics (especially environmental politics/political ecology)
Bureaucractic studies
Administrative and judicial behaviour
Legislative processes and public law
Political science of religion
Political Science also studies power in international relations and the theory of great powers and also superpowers. Political Science is methodologically diverse. Approaches to the discipline include classical political philosophy, interpretivism, structuralism, and behavioralism, rationalism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: methods and primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies, and formal model building.

History
Main article: History of political science

Antecedents
Political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences. However, the discipline has a clear set of antecedents such as moral philosophy, political philosophy, political economy, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal state. In each historic period and in almost every geographic area, we can find someone studying politics and increasing political understanding.

In ancient India, the antecedents of politics can be traced back to the Rig-Veda, Samhitas, Brahmanas, and Buddhist Pali Canon. Chanakya (c. 350-275 BC) was a professor of political science at Takshashila University, and later the Prime Minister of Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Chanakya is regarded as one of the earliest political thinkers, and is also known as the Indian Machiavelli. He wrote the Arthashastra, which was one of the earliest treatises on political thought, economics and social order, and can be considered a precursor to Machiavelli's The Prince. It discusses monetary and fiscal policies, welfare, international relations, and war strategies in detail, among other topics on political science.

The antecedents of Western politics can also trace their roots back even earlier than Plato and Aristotle, particularly in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Euripides. Later, Plato analyzed political systems, abstracted their analysis from more literary- and history- oriented studies and applied an approach we would understand as closer to philosophy. Similarly, Aristotle built upon Plato's analysis to include historical empirical evidence in his analysis.

During the rule of Rome, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, there arose a more diffuse arena for political studies. The rise of monotheism and, particularly for the Western tradition, Christianity, brought to light a new space for politics and political action. Works such as Augustine of Hippo's The City of God synthesized current philosophies and political traditions with those of Christianity, redefining the borders between what was religious and what was political. During the Middle Ages, the study of politics was widespread in the churches and courts. Most of the political questions surrounding the relationship between church and state were clarified and contested in this period.

In the Middle East and later other Islamic areas, works such as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Epic of Kings by Ferdowsi provided evidence of political analysis, while the Islamic Aristotelians such as Avicenna and later Maimonides and Averroes, continued Aristotle's tradition of analysis and empiricism, writing commentaries on Aristotle's works.

During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations.

Studies
The advent of political science as a university discipline is evidenced by the naming of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the 1860s. In fact, the designation "Political Scientist" is typically reserved for those with a doctorate in the field. 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 political science's preeminent journal The American Political Science Review, was founded in 1903 in an effort to distinguish the study of politics from economics and other social phenomena.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. At the same time that political science moved toward greater depth of analysis and more sophistication, it also moved toward a closer working relationship with other disciplines, especially sociology, economics, history, anthropology, psychology, public administration and statistics.[citation needed] Increasingly, students of political behavior have used the scientific method to create an intellectual discipline based on the postulating of hypotheses followed by empirical verification and the inference of political trends, and of generalizations that explain individual and group political actions. Over the past generation, the discipline placed an increasing emphasis on relevance, or the use of new approaches and methodologies to solve political and social problems.

The national honor society for college and university students of government and politics in the United States is Pi Sigma Alpha.

Contemporary
Political scientists study the allocation and transfer of power in decision-making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behavior and public policies. They measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, and peace. Some political scientists seek to advance positive theses by analyzing politics. Others advance normative theses, by making specific policy recommendations.

The study of politics is complicated by the occasional involvement of political scientists in the political process, since their teachings occasionally provide the frameworks within which other commentators, such as journalists, special interest groups, politicians, and the electorate analyze issues and select options. Political scientists may serve as advisors 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. In the United States, political scientists known as "Americanists" look at a variety of data including elections, public opinion and public policy such as Social Security reform, foreign policy, U.S. congressional power, and the U.S. Supreme Court—to name only a few issues.

Alternative terms

Alternative terms for the academic study of politics are political studies, or even politics. While political science implies use of the scientific method, political studies implies a broader approach. This is not a hard and fast rule, though--see the example of New York University in particular. The term politics is used at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ursinus College, Cornell College, Occidental College, New York University, Monash University, Princeton University, and Washington and Lee University while the term government is used by Smith College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Cornell University, Georgetown University, University of Sydney, University of Ulster, University of Essex, Victoria University of Wellington (which has both a School of Government and a separate Political Science and International Relations Program) and the London School of Economics and Political Science to describe the field.

Further reading
American Political Science Review - The Evolution of Political Science. APSR Centennial Volume - Special Issue - November 2006.