50 Fun Facts About Political Science

In what year was the American Political Science Association founded?

Its journal, the American Political Science Review, followed in 1906; membership grew from 204 in 1904 to 1,462 by 1915.

Which 1950s–60s movement pushed political science toward the scientific study of behavior?

Robert Dahl and Philip Converse were among its leading figures; it favored surveys and empirical testing over legal texts.

The Perestroika Movement of 2000 protested what trend in political science?

Supporters argued for methodological pluralism and for making the discipline more relevant to outsiders.

Which University of Rochester scholar led the push for game-theoretic modelling in the 1970s?

His students borrowed theory and methods from economics to study Congress and voting.

Philip Converse and Bernard Berelson are associated with which approach?

Berelson worked with sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld on public opinion; the approach stressed behavior over institutions and legal texts.

Which APSA president said politics is "an observational, not an experimental science"?

He cited the impossibility of experiment; field and survey experiments have since become much more common.

What is the main US honor society for students of government and politics?

Pi Alpha Alpha is the separate honor society for public administration.

The International Political Science Association (1949) grew out of an initiative by which body?

National associations followed in France (1949), Britain (1950) and West Germany (1951).

Which Greek philosopher declared that "man is by nature a political animal"?

His Politics treats the polis as the highest and most natural community; its title is the root of the word politics.

In Plato's Republic, what is the name of the utopian city ruled by philosopher-kings?

The dialogue, set during the Peloponnesian War, opens with Socrates and Glaucon being waylaid at the port of Piraeus.

Who argued in the Republic that justice is simply what benefits the stronger?

Socrates counters by noting the strong can be mistaken about what actually benefits them.

The Prince was written around 1513 but not printed until which year?

Publication came five years after Machiavelli's death, with permission from the Medici pope Clement VII.

Machiavelli wrote that if a prince cannot be both, it is safer to be what?

The Prince was dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and draws repeatedly on the career of Cesare Borgia.

Which Renaissance figure does Machiavelli repeatedly cite approvingly in The Prince?

Borgia's murderous career unfolded during Machiavelli's own diplomatic service for Florence.

Hobbes's Leviathan was published in what year?

Written during the English Civil War, it argues that only an absolute sovereign can prevent the "war of all against all".

Hobbes described life in the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and" what?

The book takes its name from the chaotic sea serpent of the Hebrew Bible.

Who etched the famous frontispiece of Leviathan showing a giant composed of tiny people?

The Parisian artist worked out the design in lengthy discussion with Hobbes himself.

Locke's First Treatise of Government is a line-by-line refutation of which author?

Filmer's Patriarcha defended divinely ordained, hereditary absolute monarchy; the Two Treatises appeared anonymously in 1689.

Locke's Two Treatises was published anonymously shortly after which event?

It was likely drafted earlier, around 1680–81, during the Exclusion Crisis.

Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) was written in which language?

The Genevan philosopher argued that only the general will of the people has the right to legislate.

According to Rousseau, only what has the right to legislate?

The book was burned in Geneva; Voltaire mocked Rousseau but still called the burning odious.

Montesquieu's The Spirit of Law was published in which year?

The Catholic Church put it on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1751, three years after publication.

Which Russian ruler drew on Montesquieu when writing her Nakaz (Instruction)?

Montesquieu also shaped the US Founding Fathers and Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Which ancient historian credited Lycurgus of Sparta with the first mixed government?

In Book 6 of his Histories he described Rome's checks and balances among Senate, Consuls and Assemblies.

Locke divided state power into legislative, executive and which third kind?

His scheme in the Two Treatises was a forerunner of Montesquieu's better-known tripartite system.

In which essay did Max Weber define the state by its monopoly on legitimate force?

The idea has earlier roots in Jean Bodin's Six Books of the Republic (1576) and Hobbes's Leviathan.

Which political scientist coined "polyarchy" for rule by many?

He argued true democracy is an ideal no country has reached; polyarchy is the closest real systems come.

Who popularized the term "soft power"?

He introduced it in his 1990 book Bound to Lead and expanded it in Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004).

Who wrote The End of History and the Last Man (1992)?

It expanded his 1989 essay "The End of History?" in The National Interest and leaned on Hegel and Marx.

The Clash of Civilizations thesis was first developed in a 1993 article in which journal?

Huntington wrote it partly as a reply to his former student Fukuyama and expanded it into a 1996 book.

Samuel Huntington argued future wars would be fought between what?

He first proposed the idea in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute.

Duverger's law links first-past-the-post voting with what outcome?

Voters avoid small parties for fear of splitting the vote; PR and two-round systems tend to produce more parties.

Who first derived the median voter theorem, in 1948?

Arrow reached it independently; Downs later adapted Hotelling's spatial model to predict candidates converging on the center.

Arrow's impossibility theorem generalizes a paradox first shown by which thinker?

Condorcet's voting paradox showed majority rule can cycle; Arrow extended the result to non-majoritarian rules too.

The word gerrymander combines salamander with the name of which governor?

He signed the 1812 Massachusetts redistricting bill; the word first appeared in the Boston Gazette that March.

In gerrymandering, what is "packing"?

Its partner tactic, cracking, dilutes opposing voters across many districts.

Which Roman senator is the first known practitioner of the filibuster?

He talked until nightfall to block Caesar's measures, exploiting the rule that Senate business end by dusk.

What motion, requiring a supermajority, ends a filibuster?

Overcoming a filibuster with a simple majority instead is known as the nuclear option.

Which state senate holds the record for the longest filibuster, 43 hours in 1977?

Senator Bill Meier spoke to delay a bill on publishing workplace injury claims; only 14 state legislatures allow filibusters.

Which two countries are the main examples of party-list PR using a single nationwide count?

Most other list systems allocate seats district by district, keeping a geographic link with voters.

First-past-the-post has been used to elect part of which body since the Middle Ages?

The rule spread across the British Empire, though Australia and New Zealand later abandoned it.

Under first-past-the-post, a winner needs what share of the vote?

The candidate with the most first-preference votes wins even without more than half of the votes cast.

Realism in international relations views the global system as lacking what?

In that anarchic setting, realists see war as inherent and states as rational actors pursuing power and security.

Whose book Politics Among Nations is considered seminal to modern realism?

Modern realism took off in the US during and after World War II, partly through European war migrants like Morgenthau.

Which 5th-century BCE historian do realists cite as an early proponent of their view?

Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau and Clausewitz are also claimed as forerunners.

Which 1795 Kant essay foreshadowed the theory that liberal republics avoid war with one another?

Thomas Paine argued similar principles; the theory was not studied rigorously until the 1960s.

What does the "dyadic" form of democratic peace theory claim?

The monadic version says democracies are more peaceful overall; the systemic version looks at the whole international system.

Unlike political philosophy, political science is described as primarily what?

It favors empirical evidence over ethical judgements, studying what is rather than what ought to be.

Whose 1576 Six Books of the Republic anticipated the state's monopoly on force?

Weber later made the idea the defining feature of statehood in sociology.

In which year were The Prince and the Discourses placed on the papal Index under Paul IV?

About fifteen editions of The Prince were already circulating; the ban nearly stopped publication in Catholic areas except France.