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s Politics Politics as a Special Sphere Politics as a Function Politics as a Function: Promoting Social Harmony or Supreme Good? Politics as an Instrument: The Science of Power? Politics in the Social Division of Labor Two Traditions: Power Versus Integration The Diversified Lineages of Politics A Politics of Globalization Epistemological Building Blocks of Political Science Multi-Dimensionality The Plastic Matter of Political Science Self-Referential Aspects A Systems Perspective Linkages Between Levels of Analysis The Need for a Reflective Pluralism Political Science Relations with Other Social Sciences Evolution of Political Science The Influences of Other Disciplines Recent Developments and Perspectives in Political Science References Politics Politics as a Special Sphere The concept of politics carries different meanings. It can be considered to be an art (scholars are studying politics”); an activity (one can play politics” in one’s office, in one’s club, even in one’s family); a profession (some go into politics”); or a function (local politics,” national politics”). Most political scientists consider the first meanings as derived from the last one, even as metaphoric, while some others have a wider and more abstract conception that is broader than that of function. Politics also has been understood as both to polity, which refers to an organization (a state, a regime and its constitution) and to policy, which refers to a system of political decisions and specific subfields (like health, education, foreign relations) through organizations act to carry out their functions. In a comprehensive perspective, politics is thus considered to be linked to a function, a system, an action, and a behavior. All of them are, however, connected to a special dimension of the history of humankind. Even if some scholars object that some societies ignored politics (Clastres, 1975), most anthropologists consider politics as a constant of the human condition. In the first part of this entry, this constant will be grasped in its various definitions, and then it will be inserted into the general social order. The following sections examine definitions of this constant as a function and as an instrument. Politics as a Function Politics can be conceived as a contribution to the social adventure, as a function of the social order, or, quite differently, as a distinctive instrument, a special way of action. The first approach is more classic and deeply rooted in the various philosophical traditions that were elaborated around the world, while the second one is modern, related to the rise of positivist theory in the social sciences. In this section, we consider two ways in which politics can be seen as a function. Politics as a Function: Promoting Social Harmony or Supreme Good? Many philosophers have located politics in the art of coexistence. If human beings are selfish by nature, as they are often conceived, but must live and grow up together, to create peaceful coexistence is obviously one of the main functions of the polis. As such, politics should be considered as the permanent invention of the polis (city), as the construction of each social unit that aims to keep people together on a permanent basis. This point was already made by Plato, who considered politics as the art of organizing social harmony. We also find it in other traditions. Islam conceives of politics as a weakly differentiated function that aims to overcome tribal fragmentation through the principle of unity (tawhid). As such, tawhid will be achieved through the absolute Unity of God, and so politics cannot be entirely accomplished without religion: Politics cannot be conceived as a differentiated structure, but it is obviously a social function. The same principle can be found in Hindu writings. The Arthasastra (3rd century BC) and the Manusmriti (2nd century BC) were written during periods of decay and so-called evil, which implied starvation, violence, and chaos, while the Mahabarata covered a much longer period (from 1st millennium BCE to the 5th century BCE). Here, politics is presented as an absolute requisite for keeping peace and order, even if the tradition oscillates between divine invention in politics (Manusmriti) and its contractual origin (Mahabarata). In its turn, the Buddhist vision stresses the entropy of the world that leads to inequality, sexual division, property, and thus to conflicts and lack of safety. The orientation of this reform of Hinduism prompts human beings to choose a king as a guarantor of the social order. Similarly, Confucius pointed out that men need a ruler for preventing disorder, disturbance, and confusion. This first function, promoting social harmony, obviously shaped political philosophy to a large extent up to the present day. Social contract theory clearly emanated from this postulate, in the Islamic tradition (mithaq, bay’a) as well as during the European Enlightenment. The Arthasastra anticipated Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the state of nature, when it described the lack of politics as resulting in evil and vices, or when it mentioned the fable of the big fish that will eat the small one (Matsyanyaya). The functional dimension of politics, as the art of coexistence and maintaining harmony,” can, therefore, be considered as really transcultural and common to the humanity’s different histories. Here, we can probably locate the roots of a pluralist vision of politics, as this first definition paves the way for a plural conception of the city (polis) where people do not necessarily share the same interests, the same beliefs, or the same ethnic characteristics. Quite the opposite, in this perspective, diversity is the real raison d’être of politics. However, politics also claims a second function, which is more demanding and sophisticated. Some philosophers and thinkers are going further, beyond the invention of the city, pointing to another purpose: Politics is supposed to lead to the path of righteousness, to promote virtue, and to enable humans to achieve the Supreme Good. Thus, Aristotle conceived of politics as referring to welfare and virtue. The city must be constructed as the good city: Political science is elevated then to something much more demanding, namely, the science of the good politics” or the science of good government.” This vision can be found in Islam through the commitment to divine law (sharia); when taken to its extreme, this conception even becomes a way of challenging power holders and leads to a political inversion in which protest is a more important political activity even than governing. In the same way, the Arthasastra describes politics as promoting peace and prosperity, while Buddhism produces an ethic of human behavior. Confucianism also gives the central role to the virtue that humans naturally possesses, but that is achieved through the ruler and his norms. These two functions of politics convey the two faces of political theory, one of which is positivist, the other normative. If politics is only the science of the city, it is first of all a behavioralist science. If it is the science of the Supreme Good, its normative orientation is dominant. This tension has partly been overcome by an instrumentalist approach to politics, according to which the distinguishing nature of politics has to be found in the instruments used for running the city instead of its ultimate goals. Politics as an Instrument: The Science of Power? Power—in Max Weber’s sense as the ability to achieve your interests even against someone else’s will, that is, as coercion—is understood here as the first instrument through which politics operates. All major thinkers claim that the city cannot exist without power, no matter how it is structured. There is thus a long tradition of connecting power and politics, in which political science is assigned to study how power is formed, structured, and shared (Lasswell & Kaplan, 1950). However, the science of...