Nazarbekoba Z.M.

A. Baitursynov Kostanai State University, Kazakhstan

Methods, functions and the structure of political science

The political science ranks high among other social sciences. Its high importance is defined by an important role of politics in the society life.

The political science got modern shape in the second half of the XIX century in connection with progress of sociological knowledge. The argumentativeness, system city and substantiality are inherent in scientific research. The political science developed as rather independent area of social science urged comprehensively to investigate politics, political life, the political sphere of society and the world community on the theoretical and empirical (applied) level.

At the beginning of the XX century process of allocation of political science in independent academic discipline generally came to the end.

Political science as a science and a subject matter gained official recognition and nationality in Kazakhstan only in the early nineties of the XX century. In the center of attention of researchers there are following problems: political life and its main characteristics; theory of the power and imperious relations; political systems and present regimes; political culture and political ideology; personality and politics; political modernization of society; geopolitics; international political relations, political aspects of global problems of the present.

The political science is a science about policy, about concrete historical political systems, about their structure and the mechanism of their functioning and development.

The various methods, applied by political science, allow deeply and comprehensively to learn its subject. Among the traditional –

· the historical method, i.e. the description of persons, events, political crises and foreign policy in a chronological order;

· descriptive, i.e. the description of government bodies, their functions, structures, a role, which they play in political life;

· the institutional method attaches special significance to the studying of formal state structures, such, as executive, legislative, judicial authorities, administrative agencies, etc.;

· the comparative method assumes comparison of the same political phenomena: political systems, parties, electoral systems, etc.;

· the sociological approach assumes clarification of dependence of politics from society, social conditionality of the political phenomena, including influence on political system of the economic relations, social structure, ideology and culture;

· the psychological method focuses on studying of subjective mechanisms of political behavior, individual qualities, traits of character, unconscious psychological processes and typical mechanisms of psychological motivations.

The second group of methods has tool character and treats the organization and procedure of informative process. It is

· analysis and synthesis

· induction and deduction

· combination of historical and logical analysis

· thought experiment

· modeling

· mathematical and cybernetic methods

The third group of studying of political life is made by empirical methods, i.e. obtaining primary information on political life. These include

· the use of statistics

· document analysis

· questionnaires

· laboratory experiments

· game theory

· monitoring by the researcher

Political science performs functions such as

· evaluation

· political socialization, formation of civic and political culture of the population

· rationalization of political life.

The political science represents the complex science including the following: branches of political knowledge

1. The political philosophy studies the valuable aspects of the imperious relations.

2. The political sociology studies influence of civil society on power distribution.

3. The state and right theory studies history and regularities of emergence of the state and the right.

4. The history of political doctrines studies formation of political science, the main concepts and theories.

5. The political psychology studies subjective motivations of political behavior.

6. The political geography studies influence of climatic, geographical and natural factors on political life.

7. The political history studies change of political institutes and norms in the course of society evolution.

8. The political anthropology studies influence of patrimonial qualities of the personality, fundamental needs of the person for food, clothes, spiritual development, for safety on political behavior.

9. The military political science studies military politics and armed forces as the state institute.