International Relations (IR), emerged as a scholarly discipline in the early twentieth century. IR is centered around a questioning of the origin and prevention of war, which directs its study of world politics, phenomenon, processes and global interactions. It is a rather broad academic subject. The study of politics, more commonly referred to as Political Science, focuses on the features of the world, government, institutions, and specific populations that can be studied by methods deemed to be scientific. These two disciplines are often thought of as overlapping and are considered to pertain to the same branch of knowledge. So what makes the discipline of IR different from the study of politics? As the definitions of these two academic subject matters indicate, Political Science and International Relations differ in their scope of interest, but also in their analysis methodology. Each discipline’s field of study is specific and well defined. Elements of political sciences may help structure and understand international relations, but IR is broader and surpasses the study of politics in its breadth of analysis. Moreover, each discipline uses different means to develop models, understand phenomenon, processes. It is common knowledge that IR is the discipline of theories. These theories shape the way students in this field understand the world. They are also the founding blocs to develop models and answer the questions that scholars raise. On another hand, Political Science is, as its very name states, an experimental science. The methodology that scholars and researchers in this discipline follow closely is therefore scientific. John H. Schaar and Sheldon S. Wolin describe the study of politics as “behavioral, quantitative, empirically oriented, experimental where possible, rigorous and precise”.
In our attempt to demonstrate that International Relations and Political Science differ, we will start by examining the fields of study, the scale and the scope of interest of each discipline distinctively.
The field of study political sciences covers is rather focused on a microscale. It comprises of the analysis of the structure and the specific components of a governmental system, and its practices. This in turn leads to understanding the functioning of the system at hand, and the effects that it may have on a designated population. Political Science is indeed also dedicated to studying groups of citizens, and the citizen as an individual. It investigates their behavior, attitudes, actions, and the political decisions they would make in their respective societies, in the political system they evolve in. This study is regarded as behavioral politics and constitutes a large part of Political Science’s scope of interest as it can give answers to why a system might work well or not. Behavioral politics can take the form of analyzing a political culture in a state or a specific phenomenon such as abstentionism. For instance, studies such as Alain Lancelot’s showed that social integration played a key role in determining the propensity of a citizen to participate to national political life. His study is considered by French political scientists as enlightening and particularly useful to understanding universal suffrage and its functioning in France. It could be argued that due to this restricted scope of study – on a preliminarily nominated population – political sciences can only thoroughly analyze one nation-state’s political system at a time. In order to induce well thought-through conclusions, a political scientist would need a homogenous, representative population sample. The only way one could do that would be by studying one governmental organization at a time. As a matter of fact, during our research, when looking for research material on political sciences, a vast majority of the elements found were attentive to one specific country. Pitman Potter argues in his article that political scientists focus on the study of the “municipal field, the field of state or provincial or colonial government, national government” and do not pay special attention to “world government, in so far as it exists” although the material to study would be particularly rich. Political scientists indeed look more into the microscale, that way, they can induce conclusions and models from closely observing and analyzing the political actors themselves, the citizens. There are a number of reasons that he develops which explain why political scientists do not interest themselves particularly to the global ensemble as a whole. One of them is that political sciences examines specific features and components of government. A lack of such structure globally therefore means that the study of political sciences in the international field would be quasi nonexistent. However, his article dates from 1923 and can be considered outdated. We could argue that today, with the elaboration of an international system, such a structure could be analyzed by political scientists. Taking the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945, political scientists would therefore study the components of the UN to understand its functioning. Yet, a lack of individuals’ direct involvement in the orchestra of nations would make the study of its politics complicated and restrictive. Pitman Potter also argues that Political Science on the international field would focus on a state-centric system, and non-state organizations not being legitimately defined as components of the international organization, would hardly be examined. Following this logic, if political sciences in the international field were to be prominent, they would be mostly resumed to the study of nations’ domestic and foreign policies individually and their effect on the functioning of the system at hand.
This is where the main difference lies between the field of study of International Relations and Political Sciences.
First of all, IR studies all actors and their influence in the international system without leaving any out under pretenses that they are not legitimately part of the international organization. IR dedicates attention to non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental organizations, nation-states, transnational corporations and non-state actors such as non-state armed groups. IR therefore doesn’t necessarily just focus on states as individual entities. The discipline looks at multiple dimensions of global politics: the regional, international, subnational and the and the worldwide scale, and their interactions in order to understand worldwide processes and the international system. The study of international relations is therefore macroscopic. Contrarily to Political Science, International Relations do not look bottom-up at one national system, and even less at individual actors in said system, but rather top-down on how this system as a whole matters, how their elements interact in the international organization. One could argue that the discipline of IR therefore comprises of Political Sciences’ general scope of interest but it is fair to admit that it surpasses it, giving a broader overview and approach of world politics. International Relations is also more interested in global processes and concepts, relationships between its actors, rather than the theoretical, scientific functioning of a system. Most International Relations textbooks that a student will put his hand on will primarily focus on certain notions and concepts such as those of power, justice, sovereignty, war, globalization. One of the most important aspect that distinguishes International Relations from Political Sciences is that the discipline is essentially structured around one fundamental question: why do wars happen, and how can they be prevented? Theorists in IR work their best to answer this question through development of models, theories that can give a potential answer to the question. On this particular topic, we can refer to realists. Hans Morgenthau examines power, national interest and the anarchical nature of the international system to attempt to explain the causality of conflicts. Thucydides, in The Peloponnesian War, examines human nature and the struggle for power to answer this question. Although it is fair to argue that IR does not only focus on war, but also independently on worldwide tensions or processes such as globalization, it doesn’t change the fact that the scope of interest of the discipline is different from that of Political Science’s.
We can therefore clearly state that Political Science and International Relations differ on their scope of interest which is why they require different thought processes and analysis methodologies.
Whereas Political Science relies primarily on scientific demonstrations, International Relations relies mostly on theory. As stated before, Political Science bases itself on features of government that exist, and uses mathematical, and statistical analytical methods in order to study it rigorously and then develop models and form conclusions. These conclusions that Political Science write are purely inductive. Pitman Potter argued that studies in this discipline, such as political science in the international field in 1923, could not exist if there weren’t any objects, precise components to study. International Relations on the other hand uses theories, such as liberal, realist or critical theories to see a certain aspect of an issue, of a process or of the world. These theories are like “lenses” that highlight specific points, and make us interpret global issues in a certain way. To understand war, the classical realist theory will focus on human nature and anarchy whereas the liberalist’s view will focus on governmental intervention disturbing the natural state of peace and order for instance. This shows that there is no specific answer in IR, but rather a variety of possible, biased answers. This once again makes the discipline of IR different from Political Science as the latter’s conclusions can be thought of as perfectly objective, considering they follow scientific demonstrations based on facts.
In conclusion, the two distinct disciplines of Political Science and International Relations differ both in their scope of interest and their scale of study as the former is particularly interested in the microanalysis of citizens and nations as one entity, and the latter focuses on a macroscale, the global ensemble and the nature of global processes and war. IR is also unique as a discipline, as its analysis methodology is one of a kind, using established theories to deduce conclusion, whereas Political Science induces scientifically demonstrated models and conclusions. IR provide a global strategic vision of the world whereas Political Science a rather tactical vision on society’s organization. IR provides a comprehensive, geostrategic context that shores-up a specific study of politics, inherently focused. Conversely, Political Science provides a concrete foundation that IR bases itself on, for its theory developments. In that sense, could it be fair to suggest that they converge, that they are necessary to each other’s persistence just like theoretical and experimental physics converge so as to explain and foresee evolutions in the world?