Human life on this planet is characterized and contextualized by its relationships with people, places and things. Political Science is a framework to understand, study, and uncover these underlying relationships. Our social world is an intricate web of meanings and practices, policies, laws and regulations and sociopolitical-cultural memories and histories that govern relationships, trade, resources, peace, etc.

The discipline is thus a study of human behavior in a context of policies, law, forces and institutions that aim to propose and govern human behavior. The discipline thus looks at systems of governance, individual human behavior and how human behavior (collective or individual) influences the systems and vice-versa.

It is extensively concerned with the methods and process of governance (resources, accountability, justice, etc.), the philosophy of decision-making, definition of citizenship and rights, and design and impact of policies and laws.

Modern Political Science explores antecedents of human social action-as interplay between rational behavior and self-expression. It is influenced by evolutionary psychology to trace roots of ethics and moral action. It is informed by cognitive science to understand choice and risk behavior. The discipline is an inter-disciplinary framework that now utilizes computation to simulate and model political behavior and situations. Philosophers and Scientists concerned with political action and political society have re-proposed the normative question of what is a “just society”.

Political Science as a field traverses boundaries of human behavior and human action across domains that conceptualize and explicate trade rules, ideas of peace, migration laws, voting rights, land rights, educational policies, climate change, human rights, privacy, etc

Western Ghats studio, students’ works displayed at the Western Ghats Exhibition, Sunset Viewpoint, Agumbe, Karnataka, Photo Courtesy – DEL Laboratory