Government

As one of the liberal arts, government, also called political science, teaches students how to think and communicate about politics. A government student can dissect and evaluate actual or proposed courses of political action by analyzing the evidence for and against them, setting them in historical and comparative perspective, and relating them to ends that are prized or feared. Government minors learn the philosophical and practical underpinnings of democracy, study the causes and consequences of authoritarian and revolutionary political regimes, and are steeped in how constitutional orders, political party and electoral systems, government bureaucracies, judiciaries, militaries, and other institutions of governance affect political outcomes. Most of all and more directly than in other liberal arts disciplines, government students grapple with issues of life and death, for these, finally, are what politics deal with. In any modern society, and between all such societies, there are many conflicting interests that are more or less irreconcilably opposed. Pursuing their interests, persons and groups try to block each other, and this blocking invites retaliation. The blocking and retaliation readily take violent forms. In the end, politics are about finding ways to manage and restrain this struggle. Those who become expert on political issues, who advise political actors, or who themselves take leading roles in the political effort to maintain civility and peace engage in the highest of human callings.