POLITICAL

SCIENCE

COURSE INTENDED LEARNING

OUTCOMES

Traditional Zone:
Discourse on the fundamental concepts and
issues of Philippine Government and
Constitution as social sciences within the
local as well as global context.
Critically analyze the applicability of the
different political concepts through various
theories and how they can be applied in the
understanding of Philippine government.

COURSE INTENDED LEARNING

OUTCOMES

Transitional Zone:
Critically analyze selected readings and
political journals concerning relevant
empirical studies on Philippine government
and the Constitution.
Evaluate the political processes or current
political practice in the Philippines. (e.g.
Elections, Political Dynamics in a Democracy,
Political Dynasty, Political Participation etc.)

COURSE INTENDED LEARNING

OUTCOMES

Transformational Zone:
Engage/Participate in a debate and
discussion on the relevance of retaining or
amending 1987 Constitution in view of the
changes in the local, national and global
settings.
Be exposed to the dynamics of Philippine
government and Constitution through
attendance in fora, symposia, field trip etc.

GRADING SYSTEM
60%

Class Standing

Includes exercises, eleap

activities, group activity,
recitation, reflection/ reaction
papers)
40%

Long Examination
(Prelims/ Finals)

COURSE OUTLINE
PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT AND
CONSTITUTION

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION TO
POLITICAL SCIENCE

Key Terms: Politics, Power, Political Systems,

Ideologies
Nature of Political Science
Scope of the study of Political Science
Branches of Political Science
Objectives and Goals in the study of Political
Science
Role/Functions of Political Science in Society

UNIT 2: STATE AND

GOVERNMENT
Nature of the State
Elements of a State
Origin of the State
State and Government
Forms of Government
Governments in the Philippines
Functions and Roles of Government
Governance

UNIT 3: CONSTITUTION

Meaning and Nature of a Constitution

Types of Constitution
Characteristics of a Good Written
Constitution
Historical development of the Philippine
Constitution
Purposes and Importance of the 1987
Constitution

UNIT 4: NATIONAL TERRITORY

The

Composition of the Philippine

Territory. (Article 1)
The Archipelagic Principle of
Territoriality
The Spratlys Issue and the Sabah
Controversy
Other Issues

UNIT 5: PRINCIPLES AND STATE

POLICIES

Declaration of State Principles (Secs 1-6)

Philippines as a democratic and republican state
Renunciation of war as an instrument of national
policy
Supremacy of civilian authority
The prime duty of government
The maintenance of peace and order, protection
of life, liberty and property and promotion of
general welfare
Separation of church and state

UNIT 5: PRINCIPLES AND STATE

POLICIES

Declaration of State Policies (Sec. 7-28)

Independent foreign policy
Policy of freedom from nuclear weapons
Promotion of just and dynamic social order
Promotion of social justice in all phases of
national development
Recognition of the sanctity of family life
Recognition of the vital role of the youth in nation
building
Recognition of the role of women in nation
building

UNIT 5: PRINCIPLES AND STATE

POLICIES

Declaration of State Policies (Sec. 7-28)

Promotion and protection of the right to health of
the people
Protection and advancement of the right of the
people to a balanced and healthful ecology
Education, science and technology, arts, culture,
and sports as priorities
Affirmation of labor as a primary social economic
force.
Development of a self-reliant and independent
national economy

UNIT 5: PRINCIPLES AND STATE

POLICIES

Declaration of State Policies (Sec. 7-28)

Recognition of the indispensable role of the
private sector.
Promotion of a comprehensive rural development
and agrarian reform.
Recognition and promotion of the rights of
indigenous cultural communities
Encouragement of non-governmental,
community-based, or sectoral organizations
Recognition of the vital role of communication
and information in nation-building.

UNIT 5: PRINCIPLES AND STATE

POLICIES

Declaration of State Policies (Sec. 7-28)

Ensure the autonomy of local governments.
Guarantee of equal access to opportunities for
public service and prohibition of political
dynasties
Maintenance of honesty and integrity in the
public service
Adoption and implementation of a policy of full
public disclosure of all its transactions involving
public interest.

UNIT 6: BILL OF RIGHTS

Concept

of bill of rights.
Classes of rights
Classification of constitutional
rights
State authority and individual
freedom
Bill of rights

UNIT 7: CITIZENSHIP AND

SUFFRAGE
Meaning of citizenship, citizen,
subjects and alien
Distinction of citizenship and
nationality
General Ways of Acquiring citizenship
Effects of citizenship
Suffrage as a Means to Demonstrate
Good Citizenship
Nature and Scope of Suffrage

UNIT 7: CITIZENSHIP AND

SUFFRAGE
Nature and Scope of Suffrage
Qualifications and Disqualifications of
Voters
Prohibitions of Certain Requirements
Absentee Voting
COMELEC
Issues and Concerns

UNIT 8: THREE BRANCHES OF

GOVERNMENT
Principles

of Separation of Powers
and Check and Balance
Legislative Branch
Executive Branch
Judicial Branch
Issues and Problems

UNIT 9: CONSTITUTIONAL
COMMISSIONS
Common Provisions
Commission on Audit,
Commission on Election and Civil
Service Commission

ASSIGNMENT NO. 1

Browse the net and go to the newspaper

websites like Philippine Daily Inquirer,
Manila Bulletin, Philippine Star, New York
Times. Look for the editorial cartoon. Copy
the caricature/drawing and print it. Cut and
paste it in your notebook. If you have
newspaper, do the same instruction. Back
issues are allowed. As much as possible to
duplication.
What is the political message of the
editorial? Write your answer below the
editorial cartoon.

The American publics reactions to the behavior of their leaders in the

debt/budget battle in Washington, July-Aug 2011, Pew Research poll:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2078/debt-ceiling-limits-budget-deficit-teaparty-republicans-obama-democrats-republicans-ridiculous

The word politics comes from

ancient Greece.
Its root is the word polis, which
began to be used about 2,800
years ago to denote a selfgoverning city (city-state)
POLIS city-state
POLITES citizen
POLITIKOS politician
POLITIKE politics as the art
of citizenship and government
POLITEIA constitution, rules
of politics
POLITEUMA political
community, all those residents
who have full political rights

 Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity

through which people make, preserve and
amend the general rules under which they
live. (Heywood)
Linked to cooperation and conflict
The heart of the politics is often portrayed as a
process of conflict-resolution, in which rival views
or competing interests are reconciled with one
another.

 David Easton defined politics as the

'authoritative allocation of values'.
encompasses the various processes through which
government responds to pressures from the larger society,
in particular by allocating benefits, rewards or penalties.
'Authoritative values' are therefore ones that are widely
accepted in society and considered binding by the mass of
citizens. Thus, politics is associated with 'policy', with
formal or authoritative decisions that establish a plan of
action for the community.
offers a highly restricted view of politics.

 Four categories
of the definition:
politics as the art
of government
politics as public
affairs
politics as
compromise
politics as power

AS AN ART
the exercise of control within society through the
making and enforcement of collective decisions.
politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of
the polis, in effect, 'what concerns the polis'.
(Heywood) - 'what concerns the state'.
people are said to be 'in politics' when they hold
public office, or to be 'entering politics' when they
seek to do so.

AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
it is only within a
political community
that human beings can
live 'the good life'.
Politics is, then, an
ethical activity
concerned with creating
a 'just society';
the 'master science'.

 AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
beyond the narrow realm of government to
what is thought of as 'public life' or 'public
affairs'.
the distinction between 'the political' and 'the
non-political' coincides with the division
between an essentially public sphere of life
and what can be thought of as a private
sphere.

DISTINCTION
PUBLIC THE STATE
The institutions of the state: the
apparatus of government, the
courts, the police, the army, the
society security system and so forth
are 'public' in the sense that they
are responsible for the collective
organisation of community life.
Moreover, they are funded at the
public's expense, out of taxation.
politics is restricted to the activities
of the state itself and the
responsibilities which are properly
exercised by public bodies.

PRIVATE CIVIL SOCIETY

Consists of institutions like the
family and kinship groups, private
businesses, trade unions, clubs,
community groups
'private' in the sense that they
are set up and funded by
individual citizens to satisfy their
own interests, rather than those
of the larger society.
Those areas of life in which
individuals can and do manage
for themselves - economic, social,
domestic, personal, cultural,
artistic and so on - are therefore
clearly 'non-political'.

politics is restricted to the activities of the state itself and the responsibilities which are
properly exercised by public bodies.

DISTINCTION
According to this perspective, politics does not, and
should not, infringe upon 'personal' affairs and
institutions.
Feminist thinkers in particular have pointed out that this
implies that politics effectively stops at the front door; it
does not take place in the family, in domestic life or in
personal relationships.
Politicians, for example, tend to classify their own sexual
behaviour or financial affairs as 'personal' matters,
thereby denying that they have political significance in
the sense that they do not touch on their conduct of
public affairs.

AS A

COMPROMISE

Politics is seen as a
particular means of
resolving conflict, namely
by compromise,
conciliation and
negotiation, rather than
through a resort to force
and naked power.

AS A COMPROMISE
Politics (is) the activity by which differing
interests within a given unit of rule are
conciliated by giving them a share in power in
proportion to their importance to the welfare and
the survival of the whole community. (Crick)
The key to politics is therefore a wide dispersal of
power.
Accepting that conflict is inevitable.
Critics: Crick's conception of politics is heavily
biased towards the form of politics that takes
place in western pluralist democracies

POLITICS AS POWER

 Broadest and the most radical.

Sees politics at work in all social activities and in
every corner of human existence.
As Adrian Leftwich put it: 'Politics is at the heart
of all collective social activity, formal and
informal, public and private, in all human groups,
institutions and societies'.
In this sense, politics takes place at every level of
social interaction; it can be found within families
and amongst small groups of friends just as much
as within nations and on the global stage.

 At its broadest, politics concerns the

production, distribution and use of resources
in the course of social existence.
Politics, in essence, is power: the ability to
achieve a desired outcome, through whatever
means.
This notion is summed up in the title of Harold
Lasswell's book Politics: Who Gets What,
When, How?: Politics is therefore a struggle
over scarce resources, and power is the means
through which this struggle is conducted.

POLITICS AS CONFLICT as struggle for power.

Politics is driven by selfish interests of individuals,
groups, businesses, states.
More natural for the thinking of those who would like
to change the status quo in their favor.

At any given moment, in any political process or event, one can

discover elements of both cooperation and conflict which interact in
various ways
Political analysis seeks to make sense of the logics of these
interactions

APPROACHES

NATURE

FIELDS

POLITICAL
SCIENCE

Systematic study of the state and

government.
Study of the power structures, power
patterns, power distribution and power
relationships between individuals and groups.
Polis + scire
Jean Bodin coined the term political science.
Montesquieu distribution of the functions of
government

 Plato

Provided the first analysis of the political process

and the reason for the state.
Provided an intellectual rationale for the divine
rights of kings

Aristotle

Presented the first comprehensive analysis of the

nature of the state, of polity and of political
community.
The state was even more important than the family
because the state can be a vehicle for glory and the
good life.

OTHER DEFINITIONS OF POL SCI

Laswell (1935)
Study of the activities of the government
determining who gets what and how

De Leon (2002)
Association of human beings into a political
community, one, organized under a government
and law

FIELDS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political
Theory

Public Law

Public
Administration
and Policy

Political
Behavior

International
Relations

Political theory
involves the study of philosophical thought about
politics from ancient Greece to the present
the interpretation and development of concepts such
as freedom, democracy, human rights, justice, and
power
the development of models for government, such as
participatory democracy or constitutional systems
and the logic that political scientists use in their
inquiries.

Entire body of doctrines relating to the origin,

form, behavior and purposes of the state.

Includes the following:

Organizations of governments
Limitations upon government authority
Powers and duties of governmental offices
and officers
Obligations of one state to another

Public Administration
Focuses on the methods and techniques used in the
actual management of state affairs by the
executive, legislative and judicial branches

Public Policy
Involves the study of specific policy problems and
governmental responses to them.
Attempts to devise solutions for problems of public
concern poverty, health care, pollution, economy.

 Involves

the study of how people involve

themselves in political processes and respond to
political activity.
Emphasizes the study of voting behavior, which
can be affected by social pressures; the effects of
individual psychology, such as emotional
attachments to parties or leaders; and the
rational self-interests of voters.
The results of these studies are applied during
the planning of political campaigns, and
influence the design of advertisements and party
platforms.

 Studies

the international system,

which involves interactions
between nations, international
organizations, and multinational
corporations.

TRADITIONAL

MODERN

Philosophical

Behavioural

Institutional

Post
Behavioral

Historical

Legal

TRADITIONAL

widely prevalent till the outbreak of the

Second World War
mainly related to the traditional view of
politics which emphasized the study of the
state and government
primarily concerned with the study of the
organization and activities of the state and
principles and the ideas which underlie
political organizations and activities

TRADITIONAL

normative and idealistic.

what should be an ideal state? what ought to be
or should be rather than what is.

Characteristics
1. Largely normative and stresses on the values of
politics
2. Emphasis is on the study of different political
structures.
3. Made very little attempt to relate theory and
research
4. Since facts and values are closely interlinked,
studies in Political Science can never be scientific.

FORMS OF TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES PHILOSOPHICAL

oldest approach to the study of Political Science.

Leo Strauss was one of the main advocates of the
philosophical approach. He believes that the
philosophy is the quest for wisdom and political
philosophy is the attempt truly to know about the
nature of political things and the right or good
political order.
believes that the values cannot be separated from
the study of politics.
main concern is to judge what is good or bad in
any political society.

FORMS OF TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES HISTORICAL

political theory can be only understood when

the historical factors like the age, place and
the situation in which it is evolved are taken
into consideration
it emphasizes on the study of history of every
political reality to analyze any situation.
Political thinkers like Machiavelli, Sabine and
Dunning believe that politics and history are
intricately related and the study of politics
always should have a historical perspective.

FORMS OF TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES INSTITUTIONAL

deals with the formal aspects of

government and politics emphasizes the
study of the political institutions and
structures.
study of the formal structures like
legislature, executive, judiciary, political
parties, interest groups etc.
Aristotle, James Bryce, Bentley, Walter
Bagehot, Harold Laski, etc.

FORMS OF TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES LEGAL

regards the state as the fundamental

organization for the creation and
enforcement of laws.
concerned with the legal process, legal
bodies or institutions, justice and
independence of judiciary.
Cicero, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy
Bentham, John Austin, Dicey and Sir Henry
Maine.

MODERN APPROACH

tries to draw conclusion from empirical

data.
goes beyond the study of political
structures and its historical analysis
believes in inter-disciplinary study
emphasizes scientific methods of study and
attempt to draw scientific conclusions in
Political Science

BEHAVIOURALISM

Study of political behavior

Its focus is on the individual as voter, leader,
revolutionary, party member, etc., and the
influences of the of the group or the political
system on the individuals political behavior.
Characteristics (Easton)

Regularities
Verification
Techniques
Quantification
Values
Systematization
Pure science
Integration

BEHAVIOURALISM

Criticisms
dependence on techniques and methods ignoring
the subject matter.
The advocates of this approach were wrong when
they said that human beings behave in similar
ways in similar circumstances.
Most of the political phenomena are
unquantifiable. Therefore it is always difficult to
use scientific method in the study of Political
Science.
the researcher being a human being is not always
value neutral

POST BEHAVIOURALISM

Believes that mere use of sophisticated

techniques and research tools would not
solve the social and political problems of the
world.
Post behaviouralists opposed the idea of
behaviouralists to make Political Science a
value-free science like other natural sciences.
Through using different techniques and
methods post-behaviouralists try to
overcome the drawbacks of behaviouralism
and make the study of Political Science more
relevant to the society.

 History
Economics
Geography
Sociology

and Anthropology
Psychology
Philosophy
Statistics
Logic
Jurisprudence

It is important because politics is important.

During the 20th century, tens of millions of
people were murdered by regimes devoted to
particular political ideologies.
Peoples lives are affected in many ways by
what governments do or choose not to do,
and by the power structures that exist in
society.

Education for citizenship

Essential parts of liberal education
Knowledge and understanding of government