Politics is one of the most popular departments on campus. Aside from the great classes, terrific faculty and smart students, politics attracts people because it is deeply connected to the real world issues that face individuals, communities and nations. Some people come to politics because they are curious or concerned about a problem or issue that involves power, people and their governments: war, poverty, bigotry, degradation of the environment. Some are fascinated by how governments work, how people reason about collective problems or how historical forces shape political outcomes. Others find that they have a taste for political action themselves—an urge to be at the center of world events, to persuade, to bargain, to carry the day for their side.
The impulses toward political action and solving social problems have done much to shape politics as a discipline. These impulses are often reflected quite directly in the study of political parties, pressure groups, bureaucracy, public opinion, urban affairs, foreign policy, international organization, civil liberties, and the politics of race.
Students of politics search for systematic and reliable knowledge of what is politically possible—of what can be done and under what circumstances. This leads them to construct tentative explanations and models of political events, refining and generalizing such explanations, and testing them against experience. Potentially, all human history may be relevant to the search for political understanding.
