Unit 1 of Political Science – I (syllabus: Module I — the five definitions of political science and the turn from institutions to power; the State — its definitions from Aristotle to Philimore and its four constituent elements; State distinguished from government; sovereignty — its juristic character, internal and external aspects, the development of the concept through Bodin, Grotius, Hobbes and Bentham, its six characteristics and the federal objection, and the five kinds (titular and real, legal, political, popular, de jure and de facto); Austin’s monistic theory, its six propositions and the criticisms of Maine, Laski and the pluralists; and the origin of the State, with the evolutionary theory and its five factors). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.
What this unit covers
- What is political science the study of, and why were the older definitions found wanting?
- What is a State, and what are the four elements without which there is none?
- How does the State differ from government, from society and from an association?
- What is sovereignty, who developed the idea, and what are its characteristics?
- What kinds of sovereignty are distinguished, and how do they fit together?
- What does Austin's theory of sovereignty hold, how is it criticised, and what do the pluralists say?
- How do Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau differ on the state of nature and the terms of the social contract?
- How did the State actually come into being, on the evolutionary theory?
Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.