Political science is a field of study focused on understanding how power is built, used, and exchanged. It spans many social science fields including history and economics, and psychology, but stands alone in its focus on politics. There is a deep history of political science that goes back thousands of years to ancient China and India, but the ancient Greeks are credited with being the original political scientists. Today, there are fields and subfields that operate under political science's umbrella. These include: Comparative politics (the study of national politics, and comparisons between nations and their politics), Domestic policy (study of one's nation's policies and policy development), International relations (the study of political relationships between governments), Political theory (study of the philosophical underpinnings of politics)
Public law (the study of the constitution and its implications in governmental and societal operations), Public policy (the study of the development and implementation of all policies across society, at all levels of government), Public administration (study of political bureaucracy). Political science is essential to understanding not only contemporary power and governance but learning from the past and its political records in order to better inform (and create) future power dynamics and systems of government.