What are the different approaches to the study of political science?

Political
science studies political processes, institutions, and behavior to attempt to understand the
political environment both in the present and historically. An approach to political science
should be capable of describing what exists, explaining why it exists, and predicting what might
exist in the future. Historically, however not all approaches have always done all three of
these things.

For instance, Plato's approach to political science is called a
Normative approach. Plato skipped the describing and explaining steps in order to spend his
energy dreaming of what he thought a perfect world would be like. Many other political
philosophers, including Rousseau and More, also used this approach.

As the
desire to describe and explain emerged, approaches which relied on analyzing the state, its
institutions, and its laws became popular. These approaches consider past and present to analyze
what has been in order to determine what could be. These approaches are considered
Traditional...