Summary
Political science is the systematic study of power, governance and public affairs. It examines how decisions are made, how authority is acquired and constrained, and how values such as justice, liberty and equality are defined and pursued. At its core lie analyses of institutions—from legislatures, executives and judiciaries to parties, interest groups and international organisations—and the behaviour of individuals and collectives within and around those structures. Drawing on qualitative case studies, statistical analysis and formal modelling, the discipline spans the comparative study of constitutions and electoral systems, the dynamics of political participation and representation, the design and impact of public policies, and the causes and resolutions of conflict. With roots in history, law, economics and sociology, political science offers both explanatory frameworks and normative insights. Its methods range from archival research and interviews to survey experiments and network analysis. In a world of rapid social change, global interdependence and contested norms, political science provides the conceptual tools to understand challenges such as democratic decline, policy innovation and transnational threats, and to inform debates on reform, accountability and the legitimacy of power.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent studies have highlighted the risks posed by misperceptions of opponents’ commitments to democratic norms. Large‐scale surveys show that partisans systematically underestimate the extent to which rival voters support free and fair elections, and that these skewed beliefs correlate with greater openness to undemocratic measures and political violence at home. Elsewhere, high‐frequency, anonymised mobile‐phone data have been employed to measure civilian displacement after violent incidents. Analyses in conflict‐affected settings demonstrate that attacks involving high civilian casualties or extremist actors trigger rapid and enduring population movements towards safer urban centres, offering a novel tool for humanitarian planning. In a different domain, researchers have produced a global atlas of “unburnable” oil resources by overlaying locations of known conventional oil deposits with maps of biodiversity hotspots, protected areas and Indigenous lands. By identifying gigabarrels that must remain undeveloped to meet a 1.5 °C carbon budget, this work provides spatially explicit guidance for supply‐side climate policy that aligns emissions goals with conservation and human rights.
Topic trend for the past 5 years
The graph below shows the article count in Nature Index journals for political science.
* The ‘Current Index’ represents data for a 12-month rolling window, the current window is 1 May 2025 - 30 April 2026.
Technical terms
Democratic norms: Widely shared principles—such as impartial elections and rule of law—that underpin the legitimacy and functioning of democratic systems.
Internal displacement: The forced movement of individuals or groups within their own country, often due to conflict, violence or human rights violations.
Supply‐side climate policy: Legal or regulatory measures that restrict the extraction or production of fossil fuels to limit greenhouse‐gas emissions.
Semi‐presidentialism: A constitutional system combining a directly elected president and a legislature‐responsible prime minister, with variations in the division of powers.
Civil society organisation: A non‐state, membership‐based group—such as unions, community associations or NGOs—that mobilises citizens for political or social aims.
Housing financialisation: The transformation of residential real estate into a speculative asset class, driven by large‐scale investor activity and market mechanisms.
Notable articles in political science
- The atlas of unburnable oil for supply-side climate policies. Nature Communications (2024).
- Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5 °C world. Nature (2021).
- Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict. Science (2013).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Research
Position of Political Science in Nature Index by Count
Leading institutions
| Institution | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| The University of Chicago (UChicago) | 14 | 5.91 |
| Stanford University | 11 | 5.81 |
| Princeton University | 10 | 5.54 |
| Harvard University | 15 | 5.36 |
| Columbia University in the City of New York (CU) | 9 | 5.33 |
| University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) | 10 | 5.27 |
| Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) | 7 | 4.96 |
| New York University (NYU) | 10 | 3.88 |
| University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) | 8 | 3.75 |
| King's College London (KCL) | 5 | 3.58 |
Collaboration
Top 5 leading collaborators in Political Science
Collaborating institutions
Note: Hover over the bars to view details about each institution's Share.
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