What do political scientists use?

Political scientists use a variety of social science methods. Broadly, there are three categories: qualitative, quantitative, and philosophical methods. The first two are primarily analytical and they focus on observing, describing, or predicting a political process. Some examples of qualitative and quantitative methods include surveys, factor analysis, statistical inference, and mathematical moDELLing. In philosophical methods, the political scientists tries to construct an explanation of a political process from theory instead of primarily data.