Major Criticisms of Political Science as a Discipline

What are three major criticisms of political science as a discipline?  Do you agree with these criticisms and/or solutions, and why or why not? Be specific in terms of (a) who has launched the criticism, (b) what their criticism is, (c) what are their proposed solutions to the problems being criticized (if any).

Political science is a discipline that has experienced a number of critics based on its structure and content. One of the major criticisms is that the discipline lacks clarity and boundaries on its placement with other social sciences and the association of its scientific theories to sub-fields that are technically applied. This is highly reflected by Gabriel Almond who claims that the discipline is made from a collection of information from other disciplines such as economics, and it lacks the principle on which it is based (Monroe et al., 1990).

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The other criticism is that the discipline lacks actual foundation and origins. According to Sly (2018), the history of founded disciplines is normally meant to identify thinkers that started to pose the original questions of the discipline and eventual identification of who started to employ scientific methods in offering the initial response. The fact that there is no agreement on these among political scientists today is by itself clear evidence on political science discipline emergence and on its real formation as a social science. According to John Gunnell, it is still hard to track down the history of political science and hence, still hard to identify its origin.

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The other criticism is that the political science discipline still reflects the disparities and inequalities of power and influence established in society, which eventually impacts the study objective (Monroe et al., 1990). This criticism is launched by Benjamin Barber who believes that the political science core is not the issue but the disparity it creates to the society. I highly agree with those criticisms. Political science lacks a clear history, with most political scientists giving different theories of its origin.

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Moreover, despite being regarded as a science, there is no evidence of any tests done to certify this. There are also disparities in the discipline with few minorities, especially black women among other things. Some of the proposed solutions include considering political theory as the core of political science. This will help in solving the issue regarding the principle of the discipline. Another solution will involve consolidating tangible figures regarding political science to determine its origin. The other proposed solution is determining ways to enhance inclusion in the discipline as a way of eliminating disparities (Monroe et al., 1990).

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