Topic: Political Theory and Statesmanship in the Study of Political Science
Now that you have completed the Worldview and Political Ideology Exercises and Biblical Worldview Exercise 1 as well as the required readings and presentations, answer and discuss the following questions with your classmates:
Why are there so many competing perspectives and interpretations in the study of political science?
Is statesmanship possible in today’s political climate?
Now that you have been introduced to a Biblical perspective on the study of political science, what questions do you have about that perspective?
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Sample Answers
Competing Perspectives and Interpretations Political Science
Political science is a social science which involves scientific studies of different perspectives with differing knowledge and sources of information. A scientific study involves gathering and accumulation of knowledge with reference to certain theory and studies. Therefore, political science involves the study of different phenomena of which may have the same meaning but different perspectives. There have been numerous research in political science which have originated separate views from scholars with each proving the discovery of such knowledge with reference to past information or research carried out. Therefore due to this it likely to lead to the rise of competing perspectives and interpretations among different political scientists (Ackerman & Arbour, 2016). Also, this being a scientific study it very likely that the results may be the same but the inference and conclusions may differ as per different schools of thoughts in the study of political science. Consequently, these arising schools of thoughts have greatly led to competing perspectives and interpretations in the study of political science.
Statesmanship in Today’s Political Climate
Statesmanship is the ability of people to handle and take care of public affairs. Unlike in earlier times, statesmanship is taking a thrust a drastic change in the current political environment. Due to the changing forms of governments and institutions such as democratic, constitutional and bureaucratic statesmanship is becoming incongruent with the modern times politics. However, statesmanship has been held in the modern political world through judicial reforms and administrative institutions. Despite of this development in statesmanship, there are a few challenges such as fully transitioning into new forms of governance which are rapidly changing. As a result of this, statesmanship needs to be adopted very fast and must be congruent with the changing political atmosphere in the current world. Consequently, everyone has to adopt the current changes to ensure they are able to endure the fruits of current time’s statesmanship that exist. Also, it is possible to regain the ancient forms of statesmanship since each government is trying to establish the best way to achieve statesmanship and this may lead to reintroduction of older political perspectives in governance (Ovvereem & Bakker, 2019).
Questions on the Biblical Perspective in Political Science
The Biblical perspective mainly focuses on conservatism, patriotism and limited government. It is evident that this may not really work so there is need to establish how the biblical perspective can stand on its own to influence politics. In most cases it is always against this. But, how do we establish the Biblical perspective in the current world political climate? Also, there need to bring out how different forms or interpretations of the Biblical perspectives are used in current political environment.
References
Ackerman, E., & Arbour, B. K. (2016). “I Have Ten Peer Reviewed Articles. Now What?” How Political Science Research Methods Textbooks Teach Students About Scholarly Context. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(5), 612-619.
Overeem, P., & Bakker, F. E. (2019). Statesmanship beyond the modern state. Perspectives on Political Science, 48(1), 46-55.
