Political sciences: a discipline of the social sciences or the humanities?
Political sciences: a discipline of the social sciences or the humanities?

Summary/Abstract: By virtue of an administrative decision, the division of Polish academia into fields and disciplines was verified in 2011. It is owing to this process that political science, among others, was reassigned in Poland. Before September 30, 2011, political science was classified as one of the humanities, but later on it was included in the new field of the social sciences, created as a result of the division of the humanities. This decision started an ongoing discussion, also in the circles of political scientists, on the issue of how advisable this change is, and it has become an important task to confirm the thesis that this decision was substantially justified. It is assumed that political science as a discipline has more in common with other disciplines assigned to the social sciences than the humanities. Additionally, by way of developing a new register of academic fields and disciplines, the administrative divisions in Polish academia were to a large extent aligned with the classification of fields and disciplines adopted by the OECD, UNESCO and EUROSTAT, which will facilitate the internationalization of academic collaboration. The above organizations and institutions, and – consequently – some of their member states, have already divided the humanities, which used to be alternatively named social sciences, into two separate fields: the social sciences and the humanities. In order to justify the above-mentioned thesis, it was necessary to determine how academic specialization, discipline and field of science are perceived today; to indicate the essential divisions in academia; to attempt to de ne the specific nature of the humanities versus social sciences; and to present the relations of political science to the latter category. The assessment of how intensive these relations are, made it possible to confirm that the above-mentioned thesis is justified.

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