Political Science has a long past, but a short history. It began as a study of politics, i.e., of the affairs of the polls, in ancient Greece more than two thousand and five hundred years ago. But from about the middle of the nineteenth century, it has become a scientific study. It will be useful to briefly survey its evolution from the ancient times till today.
Ancient Greeks:
All knowledge begins with a question. The Science of politics began when ancient Greeks began to ask questions about the affairs of their polls or city-State. There were not only many city-States, but they were also constantly changing. Some of them were democratic in structure, others were oligarchic, and not a few had tyrants or oppressive rulers. These were the problems which political thinkers among the Greeks tried to solve; and they were solved in great varieties of ways.
A group of Greek thinkers, the sophists, said that politic was the art of the strong to control the weak, that the State was created to protect and realize the selfish interests of rulers. The sophists’ views perturbed Socrates and his pupil, Plato. They said that the State existed, not for the selfish interests of the strong, but for seeking moral good or virtue. In his world-famous book, Republic, Plato explained that the ideal State was based upon justice, by which he meant that each citizen would do his duty according to his nature and station in life.
While Plato’s method was speculative and idealistic, his pupil, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in his book, Politics, made politics a systematic and empirical study. He collected about 150 constitutions of the various Greek city-States and classified them into six different kinds, namely monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy and polity. He further explained how and why one form of government changed into another. According to him, political change was due to the differences between the rich and poor in the State. He believed that a State ruled by the middle class would be more stable, for it would maintain balance between the rich few and the poor many.
It may be asked: why other ancient peoples than the Greeks, such as the ancient Indians, Egyptians, Persians, Chinese, did not develop political thought as did the ancient Greeks? The reason lay in the lack of freedom of thought, despotic rulers and the domination of the priesthood and religion,
After ancient Greece, original political thought ceased for about two thousand years. Only Muslim peoples produced some political thinkers, like al-Farabi, Ibn Rushed, Ibn Chaldean and others. They patterned their thought mostly on the Greek model, especially on Aristotelian philosophy.