historical method

The subject of analysis in this article is the meaning of the “historical method”, on which domestic political studies are based today. The author comes to the conclusion that this meaning is close to that which is followed by representatives of other modern humanitarian sciences when they use the general scientific “historical method” to study the order and dynamics of changes in natural and social systems in the past. This meaning, however, is variable.

The article is about analysis of problems connected to applying “historical” and “retrospective” methods used in political science research. Levels of such problems are indicated. On the first level, these problems appear in the wake of political scientists’ attempts to use intuition while using those methods. The second level problems imply using definitions of “historical” and “retrospective” methods which are the most comprehensible for young scholars and relate to ambiguity and inaccuracy of the terms.