What is a political scientist?

We explain what a political scientist is, what are the fields of study in which he specializes and some famous political scientists.

1. What is a political scientist?

It’s called political scientist to a professional political science , ie, who studied political science : a discipline dedicated to the design and implementation of various systems of organizing societies.

Therefore, political scientists are considered specialists in politics , and the term can often be extended to those who, having trained in other fields of knowledge, demonstrate great scholarship in the field. In other words, a political scientist  demonstrates a broad knowledge of the dynamics of power in human society , and can analyze it from various critical perspectives.

Politology as an organized field of knowledge uses various areas of knowledge , such as sociology , economics , history and other specialized tools such as statistics, discourse analysis, etc.

This multidisciplinary approach would have to give a political scientist enough tools to explain and therefore understand the political issues facing a given society.

In the same way, a political scientist can work professionally in areas such as public administration , inter-institutional relations or public relations, or work as a teacher, communicator and researcher.

Its performance in the public sector is key, since it contributes to the political leadership of the nation and / or in the administration of its resources (human and material); while in the private sector you can perfectly dedicate your complex thinking and needs detection capabilities to strategy design and goal planning . These are highly versatile professionals in their immediate field of work.

2. Famous political scientists

A list of renowned political scientists in the history of this discipline must begin even before its formal acceptance in the academy of social sciences : in ancient philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle or Plutarch, who developed political philosophy; but also, later, in the work of other modern thinkers such as Nicolás Maquiavelo (author of the famous treatise  The Prince ), the Baron de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau or Carlos Marx.

Other names also prominent, although much more contemporary, are those of Max Weber, Harold Lasswell, Norberto Bobbio, Hannah Arendt and Robert Alan Dahl. Many of them are responsible for forging contemporary political thinking and also, indirectly, for the current political configuration of many nations.