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Political science 169
specialization of r61e. But social systems and the languages appropriate to
them vary greatly; and there are ambiguities even within a simple language. For
instance, in English the words ‘politics’ and ‘government’ have distinct usages
in ordinary speech, and probably it is necessary to use both words to convey to
a naive English-speaker the nature of the field studied by political scientists.
But it is quite likely that the position is a little different in other European
languages, each embodying a variant of a single European political tradition.
The differences clearly wil be greater if one goes outside Europe to other
political traditions, whether of great empires or of small tribal societies.
The science therefore starts not with a definition, but with a methodological
assumption, that all human societies have an aspect which can be recognized as
political in some sense. It seems intuitively certain that all societies possess
structures of kinship, language and technology: it is not so certain that all
societies have a political aspect. Hence it is possible to dream of a society without
politics. But a little reflection shows that that dream is itself the expression of a
political aspiration.
2. statecraft, and Politics without States
Abjuring definitions, we find nevertheless that there is a preliminary question
regarding scope which arises irrespective of definition. It can perhaps best be
explained as follows:
Statecraft. Until recently, political science as an academic subject was essen-
tially part of the Western tradition in education and in government. Its growth
can be traced through the study of Greek city-states (seen by the Greeks as con-
trasted with an alien world of empires and tribes); of the transition from Roman
Republic to Roman Empire; of the assertions of ‘universal’ empire and ‘uni-
versal‘ church in the Middle Ages; of the Resaissance cities which claimed the
inheritance of the ancient world; of the emergence of modern States and of the
modern State system in the period of the Reformation. The central topic of
Western political science has in this respect been ‘the State’: taking that much-
disputed word as referring to the institution which in each period claimed juri-
dical and political supremacy. This sort of political science can be described
most readily as Staatswissenschaft, for which an English equivalent might be
Statecraft. It is a historically limited study, in that it deals only with political
institutions which claim to be comprehensive and final within a given territory,
and to that extent it is ‘culture-bound’.
Nevertheless, it is a study of enormous scope. The European system of
States has developed into a world system of States, conceding parity of status to
Asian and African States, which now outnumber Western States; and the world
system comprises complex institutions as well as complex political relation-
ships. The study of States can, indeed it must, break loose from its Western
origins, and look at the world system without bias towards any single centre of
culture. There is enough here to engage all the energies of the profession, in
various different forms of study.
Politics without States. Nevertheless, this tradition of Statecraft is challenged
by the view that it is necessary to pursue the study of politics wherever politics