When we talk about political science, what are we talking about?

Abstract

What is political science, whose disclosure has expanded significantly in recent years, transcending even the purely professional concern? Although the diversity of its object of study and the multiplicity of paradigms can give, deceptively, the image of scientific weakness of the discipline, the author shows us that it is precisely from this diversity that its most fertile aspects are born.
Thus, it goes through the theoretical styles that make up the living scenario of the different visions of its object of study and four different methods of approaching the political analysis. Then, the possibility of approaching the same phenomenon from diverse positions is highlighted, without any of them invalidating the others. However, this apparent division can be mitigated by the comparative vision that intersects the disparate methodological tools. In this case the comparative description would not be valued as an end but as a means to integrate the results into an explanatory theory. Finally, in the face of the question regarding the role of political science in the Ibero-American societies of the 21st century, it will be concluded that political scientists should assume a double situation defined by the "for what" of their activity and the "through what means" . The offer of the discipline should then be opened and the development of the two directions facilitated.