In the previous chapters we defined Political Science, explained its nature and described its growth as well as its various sub-divisions, like other social sciences Political Science is a research-oriented science. Its primary purpose is to pose and solve new political problems, and to ask and answer new political questions. In this respect, it is first of all necessary to find out whether or not a problem is relevant to political inquiry.
The criteria for selecting the problems and collecting die data which are relevant to the enquiry are known as approaches. Once the approach is determined, the problem or data has to be dealt with or treated in a particular way, which is called a method. Lastly, every problem or question requires certain tools to tackle the problem or solve the question or collect data.
It is known as the technique. Approaches, methods and techniques are the ways with which the political scientists work. If the approach is wrong or inappropriate, the methods and techniques will not solve a political problem in a proper manner. There is considerable risk of fruitless work when an approach is adopted more or less blindly and unthinkingly, perhaps because of an unawareness of alternatives”
Moreover, the nature of politics, past and present, local, national and intemational-the subject-matter of Political Science, being so full of conflict controversy and argumentation, has often confronted the political scientists with the questions of its “scope and method”, that is to say, with such questions as: what is political? (Which we have already discussed above) and how to study it? It is, therefore, necessary for the students of Political Science to understand the differences between the approaches, methods and techniques of study of their science, especially because they are sometimes not clearly distinguished. We shall, for this reason, discuss each of them separately.
Supper