Part of a series on
Science
Formal sciences Mathematics Mathematical logic Mathematical statistics Computer science
Physical sciences Physics Applied physics · Atomic physics Computational physics Condensed matter physics Experimental physics · Mechanics Nuclear physics Particle physics · Plasma physics Quantum mechanics (introduction) Solid mechanics · Theoretical physics Thermodynamics · Entropy General relativity · M-theory Special relativity Chemistry Acid-base reaction theories · Alchemy Analytical chemistry · Astrochemistry Biochemistry · Crystallography Environmental chemistry · Food science Geochemistry · Green chemistry Inorganic chemistry · Materials science Molecular physics · Nuclear chemistry Organic chemistry · Photochemistry Physical chemistry · Radiochemistry Solid-state chemistry · Stereochemistry Supramolecular chemistry Surface science · Theoretical chemistry Astronomy Astrophysics · Cosmology Galactic astronomy · Planetary geology Planetary science · Stellar astronomy Earth sciences Atmospheric sciences · Ecology Environmental science · Geodesy Geology · Geomorphology Geophysics · Glaciology · Hydrology Limnology · Mineralogy · Oceanography Paleoclimatology · Palynology Physical geography · Soil science Space science
Life sciences Biology Anatomy · Astrobiology · Biochemistry Biogeography · Biological engineering · Biophysics Behavioral neuroscience · Biotechnology Botany · Cell biology · Conservation biology · Cryobiology Developmental biology Ecology · Ethnobiology Evolutionary biology (introduction) Genetics (introduction) Gerontology · Immunology · Limnology Marine biology · Microbiology Molecular biology · Neuroscience Paleontology · Parasitology · Physiology Radiobiology · Soil biology Systematics · Theoretical biology Toxicology · Zoology
Social and Behavioural sciences Anthropology · Archaeology Criminology · Demography Economics · Education Human geography · History International relations · Law Linguistics · Political science Psychology · Sociology
Applied sciences Engineering Agricultural · Aerospace · Biomedical Chemical · Civil · Computer Electrical · Fire protection · Genetic Industrial · Mechanical · Military Mining · Nuclear · Operations research Robotics · Software Healthcare sciences Biological engineering · Dentistry Epidemiology · Health care · Medicine Nursing · Pharmacy · Social work Veterinary medicine
Interdisciplinarity Applied physics · Artificial intelligence Bioethics · Bioinformatics · Biomedical engineering · Biostatistics Cognitive science · Computational linguistics Cultural studies · Cybernetics Environmental science · Environmental social science Environmental studies · Ethnic studies Evolutionary psychology · Forestry  · Health Library science · Logic Mathematical biology · Mathematical physics Scientific modelling · Neural engineering Neuroscience · Science and technology studies Science studies · Semiotics · Sociobiology Systems theory · Transdisciplinarity Urban planning
Philosophy and history of science Scientific method History of science Philosophy of science Science policy Fringe science Pseudoscience
Science Portal Category
v t e

Social science is the field of study concerned with society and human behaviours. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These include: anthropology, archaeology, criminology, economics, history, linguistics, political science and international relations, sociology, geography, law, and psychology.^[1][2]

The term may however be used in the specific context of referring to the original science of society established in 19th century sociology (Latin: socius, "companion"; -ology, "the study of", and Greek λόγος, lógos, "word", "knowledge"). Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber are typically cited as the principal architects of modern social science by this definition.^[3] Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining the quantitative and qualitative techniques). The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.

Social science history[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (August 2011)

The history of the social sciences begins in the roots of ancient philosophy. In Ancient history, there was no difference between mathematics and the study of history, poetry or politics. This unity of science formed according to a deductive reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework.

The Age of Enlightenment saw a revolution within natural philosophy, changing the basic framework by which individuals understood what was "scientific". In some quarters, the accelerating trend of mathematical studies presumed a reality independent of the observer and worked by its own rules. Social sciences came forth from the moral philosophy of the time and was influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such as the Industrial revolution and the French revolution.^[4] The social sciences developed from the sciences (experimental and applied), or the systematic knowledge-bases or prescriptive practices, relating to the social improvement of a .^[5][6]

The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in various grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Rousseau and other pioneers. The growth of the social sciences is also reflected in other specialized encyclopedias. The modern period saw "social science" first used as a distinct conceptual field.^[7] Social science was influenced by positivism,^[4] focusing on knowledge based on actual positive sense experience and avoiding the negative; metaphysical speculation was avoided. Auguste Comte used the term "science social" to describe the field, taken from the ideas of Charles Fourier; Comte also referred to the field as social physics.^[4][8]

Following this period, there were five paths of development that sprang forth in the Social Sciences, influenced by Comte on other fields.^[4] One route that was taken was the rise of social research. Large statistical surveys were undertaken in various parts of the United States and Europe. Another route undertaken was initiated by Émile Durkheim, studying "social facts", and Vilfredo Pareto, opening metatheoretical ideas and individual theories. A third means developed, arising from the methodological dichotomy present, in which the social phenomena was identified with and understood; this was championed by figures such as Max Weber. The fourth route taken, based in economics, was developed and furthered economic knowledge as a hard science. The last path was the correlation of knowledge and social values; the antipositivism and verstehen sociology of Max Weber firmly demanded on this distinction. In this route, theory (description) and prescription were non-overlapping formal discussions of a subject.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Enlightenment philosophy was challenged in various quarters. After the use of classical theories since the end of the scientific revolution, various fields substituted mathematics studies for experimental studies and examining equations to build a theoretical structure. The development of social science subfields became very quantitative in methodology. The interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behaviour, social and environmental factors affecting it, made many of the natural sciences interested in some aspects of social science methodology.^[9] Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social research of medicine, sociobiology, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the history and sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative research and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently.

In the contemporary period, Karl Popper and Talcott Parsons influenced the furtherance of the social sciences.^[4] Researchers continue to search for a unified consensus on what methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the various midrange theories which, with considerable success, continue to provide usable frameworks for massive, growing data banks; for more, see consilience. At present though, the various realms of social science progress in a myriad of ways, increasing the overall knowledge of society. The social sciences will for the foreseeable future be composed of different zones in the research of, and sometime distinct in approach toward, the field.^[4]

The term "social science" may refer either to the specific sciences of society established by thinkers such as Comte, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, or more generally to all disciplines outside of "noble science" and arts. By the late 19th century, the academic social sciences were constituted of five fields: jurisprudence and amendment of the law, education, health, economy and trade, and art.^[5]

At the turn of the 21st century, the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism.^[10]

Branches of social science[link]

The Social Science disciplines are branches of knowledge which are taught and researched at the college or university level. Social Science disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned Social Science societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong. Social Science fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.

Anthropology[link]

Anthropology is the holistic "science of man," - a science of the totality of human existence. The discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Human Biology. In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have often been institutionally divided into three broad domains. The natural sciences seek to derive general laws through reproducible and verifiable experiments. The humanities generally study local traditions, through their history, literature, music, and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras. The social sciences have generally attempted to develop scientific methods to understand social phenomena in a generalizable way, though usually with methods distinct from those of the natural sciences.

The anthropological social sciences often develop nuanced descriptions rather than the general laws derived in physics or chemistry, or they may explain individual cases through more general principles, as in many fields of psychology. Anthropology (like some fields of history) does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.^[11] Within the United States, Anthropology is divided into four sub-fields:Archaeology, Physical or Biological Anthropology, Anthropological Linguistics, and Cultural Anthropology. It is an area that is offered at most undergraduate institutions. The word anthropos (άνθρωπος) is from the Greek for "human being" or "person." Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences."

The goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of humans and human nature. This means that, though anthropologists generally specialize in only one sub-field, they always keep in mind the biological, linguistic, historic and cultural aspects of any problem. Since anthropology arose as a science in Western societies that were complex and industrial, a major trend within anthropology has been a methodological drive to study peoples in societies with more simple social organization, sometimes called "primitive" in anthropological literature, but without any connotation of "inferior."^[12] Today, anthropologists use terms such as "less complex" societies or refer to specific modes of subsistence or production, such as "pastoralist" or "forager" or "horticulturalist" to refer to humans living in non-industrial, non-Western cultures, such people or folk (ethnos) remaining of great interest within anthropology.

The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a people in detail, using biogenetic, archaeological, and linguistic data alongside direct observation of contemporary customs.^[13] In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. It is possible to view all human cultures as part of one large, evolving global culture. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological.^[14]

Economics[link]

Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth.^[15] The word "economics" is from the Greek οἶκος [oikos], "family, household, estate," and νόμος [nomos], "custom, law," and hence means "household management" or "management of the state." An economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has earned a university degree in the subject. The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses." Without scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem. Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants" and "the study of the financial aspects of human behavior."

Buyers bargain for good prices while sellers put forth their best front in Chichicastenango Market, Guatemala.

Economics has two broad branches: microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as a household or firm, and macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is an economy as a whole. Another division of the subject distinguishes positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve subjective value judgments. Since the early part of the 20th century, economics has focused largely on measurable quantities, employing both theoretical models and empirical analysis. Quantitative models, however, can be traced as far back as the physiocratic school. Economic reasoning has been increasingly applied in recent decades to other social situations such as politics, law, psychology, history, religion, marriage and family life, and other social interactions. This paradigm crucially assumes (1) that resources are scarce because they are not sufficient to satisfy all wants, and (2) that "economic value" is willingness to pay as revealed for instance by market (arms' length) transactions. Rival heterodox schools of thought, such as institutional economics, green economics, Marxist economics, and economic sociology, make other grounding assumptions. For example, Marxist economics assumes that economics primarily deals with the exchange of value, and that labor (human effort) is the source of all value.

The expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism.^[10][16]

Education[link]

A depiction of Europe's oldest university, the University of Bologna, Italy

Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). To educate means 'to draw out', from the Latin educare, or to facilitate the realization of an individual's potential and talents. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology.^[17]

The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it will influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily life provide far more instruction than does formal schooling (thus Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your education"). Family members may have a profound educational effect — often more profound than they realize — though family teaching may function very informally.

Human Geography[link]

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human geography and physical geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment and how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they occupy. The latter examines the natural environment and how the climate, vegetation & life, soil, water and landforms are produced and interact.^[18] As a result of the two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography. Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.^[19]

Geographers attempt to understand the earth in terms of physical and spatial relationships. The first geographers focused on the science of mapmaking and finding ways to precisely project the surface of the earth. In this sense, geography bridges some gaps between the natural sciences and social sciences. Historical geography is often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.

Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline, closely related to GISc, that seeks to understand humanity and its natural environment. The fields of Urban Planning, Regional Science, and Planetology are closely related to geography. Practitioners of geography use many technologies and methods to collect data such as GIS, remote sensing, aerial photography, statistics, and global positioning systems (GPS).

The field of geography is generally split into two distinct branches: physical and human. Physical geography examines phenomena related to climate, oceans, soils, and the measurement of earth. Human geography focuses on fields as diverse as Cultural geography, transportation, health, military operations, and cities. Other branches of geography include Social geography, regional geography, geomatics, and environmental geography.

History[link]

History is the continuous, systematic narrative and research into past human events as interpreted through historiographical paradigms or theories, such as the Turner Thesis about the American frontier.

History has a base in both the social sciences and the humanities. In the United States the National Endowment for the Humanities includes history in its definition of a Humanities (as it does for applied Linguistics).^[20] However, the National Research Council classifies History as a Social science.^[21] The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write history. The Social Science History Association, formed in 1976, brings together scholars from numerous disciplines interested in social history.^[22]

Law[link]

A trial at a criminal court, the Old Bailey in London

Law in common parlance, means a rule which (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of enforcement through institutions.^[23] The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects. Law is not always enforceable, especially in the international relations context. It has been defined as a "system of rules",^[24] as an "interpretive concept"^[25] to achieve justice, as an "authority"^[26] to mediate people's interests, and even as "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction".^[27] However one likes to think of law, it is a completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of thinking from almost every social sciences and humanity. Laws are politics, because politicians create them. Law is philosophy, because moral and ethical persuasions shape their ideas. Law tells many of history's stories, because statutes, case law and codifications build up over time. And law is economics, because any rule about contract, tort, property law, labour law, company law and many more can have long lasting effects on the distribution of wealth. The noun law derives from the late Old English lagu, meaning something laid down or fixed^[28] and the adjective legal comes from the Latin word lex.^[29]

Linguistics[link]

Ferdinand de Saussure, recognized as the father of modern linguistics

Linguistics investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is divided into areas that focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences), semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of the structure of words), phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system of a particular language); however, work in areas like evolutionary linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) cut across these divisions.

The overwhelming majority of modern research in linguistics takes a predominantly synchronic perspective (focusing on language at a particular point in time), and a great deal of it—partly owing to the influence of Noam Chomsky—aims at formulating theories of the cognitive processing of language. However, language does not exist in a vacuum, or only in the brain, and approaches like contact linguistics, creole studies, discourse analysis, social interactional linguistics, and sociolinguistics explore language in its social context. Sociolinguistics often makes use of traditional quantitative analysis and statistics in investigating the frequency of features, while some disciplines, like contact linguistics, focus on qualitative analysis. While certain areas of linguistics can thus be understood as clearly falling within the social sciences, other areas, like acoustic phonetics and neurolinguistics, draw on the natural sciences. Linguistics draws only secondarily on the humanities, which played a rather greater role in linguistic inquiry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ferdinand Saussure is considered the father of modern linguistics.

Political science[link]

Aristotle asserted that man is a political animal in his Politics

Political science is an academic and research discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. Fields and subfields of political science include positive political economy, political theory and philosophy, civics and comparative politics, theory of direct democracy, apolitical governance, participatory direct democracy, national systems, cross-national political analysis, political development, international relations, foreign policy, international law, politics, public administration, administrative behavior, public law, judicial behavior, and public policy. Political science also studies power in international relations and the theory of Great powers and Superpowers.

Political science is methodologically diverse, although recent years have witnessed an upsurge in the use of the scientific method [2]. That is the proliferation of formal-deductive model building and quantitative hypothesis testing. Approaches to the discipline include rational choice, classical political philosophy, interpretivism, structuralism, and behavioralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents, interviews, and official records, as well as secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles are used in building and testing theories. Empirical methods include survey research, statistical analysis/econometrics, case studies, experiments, and model building. Herbert Baxter Adams is credited with coining the phrase "political science" while teaching history at Johns Hopkins University.

Public administration[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

One of the main branches of political science, public administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society and social justice is the ultimate goal of the field. Though public administration has historically referred to as government management, it increasingly encompasses non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that also operate with a similar, primary dedication to the betterment of humanity. It´s the government protocol to solve a public problem. According to Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, policies constitute the discourses, text, regulations and laws. Also the making of public policies include the enforcement of such and the tools given to the institutions to do so.[3]

Differentiating public administration from business administration, a closely related field, has become a popular method for defining the discipline by contrasting the two. First, the goals of public administration are more closely related to those often cited as goals of the American founders and democratic people in general.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]} That is, public employees work to improve equality, justice, security, efficiency, effectiveness, and, at times, the profit.^{[citation needed]} These values help to both differentiate the field from business administration, primarily concerned with profit, and define the discipline. Second, public administration is a relatively new, multidisciplinary field. Woodrow Wilson's The Study of Administration is frequently cited as the seminal work. Wilson advocated a more professional operation of public officials' daily activities. Further, the future president identified the necessity in the United States of a separation between party politics and good bureaucracy, which has also been a lasting theme.

The multidisciplinary nature of public administration is related to a third defining feature: administrative duties. Public administrators work in public agencies, at all levels of government, and perform a wide range of tasks. Public administrators collect and analyze data (statistics), monitor fiscal operations (budgets, accounts, and cash flow), organize large events and meetings, draft legislation, develop policy, and frequently execute legally mandated, government activities. Regarding this final facet, public administrators find themselves serving as parole officers, secretaries, note takers, paperwork processors, record keepers, notaries of the public, cashiers, and managers. Indeed, the discipline couples well with many vocational fields such as information technology, finance, law, and engineering. When it comes to the delivery and evaluation of public services, a public administrator is undoubtedly involved.

Psychology[link]

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was the founder of experimental psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness.

Psychology differs from anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology in seeking to capture explanatory generalizations about the mental function and overt behaviour of individuals, while the other disciplines focus on creating descriptive generalizations about the functioning of social groups or situation-specific human behavior. In practice, however, there is quite a lot of cross-fertilization that takes place among the various fields. Psychology differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is primarily concerned with the interaction of mental processes and behavior, and of the overall processes of a system, and not simply the biological or neural processes themselves, though the subfield of neuropsychology combines the study of the actual neural processes with the study of the mental effects they have subjectively produced. Many people associate Psychology with Clinical Psychology which focuses on assessment and treatment of problems in living and psychopathology. In reality, Psychology has myriad specialties including: Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Mathematical psychology, Neuropsychology, and Quantitative Analysis of Behaviour to name only a few. The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek ψυχή, psyche ("soul", "mind") and logy, study).

Psychology is a very broad science that is rarely tackled as a whole, major block. Although some subfields encompass a natural science base and a social science application, others can be clearly distinguished as having little to do with the social sciences or having a lot to do with the social sciences. For example, biological psychology is considered a natural science with a social scientific application (as is clinical medicine), social and occupational psychology are, generally speaking, purely social sciences, whereas neuropsychology is a natural science that lacks application out of the scientific tradition entirely. In British universities, emphasis on what tenet of psychology a student has studied and/or concentrated is communicated through the degree conferred: B.Psy. indicates a balance between natural and social sciences, B.Sc. indicates a strong (or entire) scientific concentration, whereas a B.A. underlines a majority of social science credits. This is not always necessarily the case however, and in many UK institutions students studying the B.Psy, B.Sc, and B.A. follow the same curriculum as outlined by The British Psychological Society and have the same options of specialism open to them regardless of whether they choose a balance, a heavy science basis, or heavy social science basis to their degree. If they applied to read the B.A. for example, but specialised in heavily science based modules, then they will still generally be awarded the B.A.

Sociology[link]

Émile Durkheim is considered one of the founding fathers of sociology.

Sociology is the systematic study of society and human social action. The meaning of the word comes from the suffix "-ology" which means "study of," derived from Greek, and the stem "soci-" which is from the Latin word socius, meaning "companion", or society in general.

Sociology was originally established by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in 1838.^[30] Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the descriptive understanding of the social realm. He proposed that social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in The Course in Positive Philosophy [1830–1842] and A General View of Positivism (1844). Though Comte is generally regarded as the "Father of Sociology", the discipline was formally established by another French thinker, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who developed positivism as a foundation to practical social research. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method. In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy.^[31]

Karl Marx rejected Comtean positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a science of society based on historical materialism, becoming recognised as a founding figure of sociology posthumously as the term gained broader meaning. At the turn of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, developed sociological antipositivism. The field may be broadly recognised as an amalgam of three modes of social thought in particular: Durkheimian positivism and structural functionalism; Marxist historical materialism and conflict theory; Weberian antipositivism and verstehen analysis. American sociology broadly arose on a separate trajectory, with little Marxist influence, an emphasis on rigorous experimental methodology, and a closer association with pragmatism and social psychology. In the 1920s, the Chicago school developed symbolic interactionism. Meanwhile in the 1930s, the Frankfurt School pioneered the idea of critical theory, an interdisciplinary form of Marxist sociology drawing upon thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. Critical theory would take on something of a life of its own after World War II, influencing literary criticism and the Birmingham School establishment of cultural studies.

Sociology evolved as an academic response to the challenges of modernity, such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization, and a perceived process of enveloping rationalization.^[32] Because sociology is such a broad discipline, it can be difficult to define, even for professional sociologists. The field generally concerns the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, communities and institutions, and includes the examination of the organization and development of human social life. The sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In the terms of sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, social scientists seek an understanding of the Social Construction of Reality. Most sociologists work in one or more subfields. One useful way to describe the discipline is as a cluster of sub-fields that examine different dimensions of society. For example, social stratification studies inequality and class structure; demography studies changes in a population size or type; criminology examines criminal behavior and deviance; and political sociology studies the interaction between society and state.

Since its inception, sociological epistemologies, methods, and frames of enquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged.^[33] Sociologists use a diversity of research methods, drawing upon either empirical techniques or critical theory. Common modern methods include case studies, historical research, interviewing, participant observation, social network analysis, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building, among other approaches. Since the late 1970s, many sociologists have tried to make the discipline useful for non-academic purposes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, developers, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy, through subdisciplinary areas such as evaluation research, methodological assessment, and public sociology. New sociological sub-fields continue to appear - such as community studies, computational sociology, environmental sociology, network analysis, actor-network theory and a growing list, many of which are cross-disciplinary in nature.

Further fields[link]

Additional Social Science disciplines and fields of study include:

Methodology and theory[link]

Social research[link]

The origin of the survey can be traced back at least early as the Domesday Book in 1086,^[34][35] whilst some scholars pinpoint the origin of demography to 1663 with the publication of John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality.^[36] Social research began most intentionally, however, with the positivist philosophy of science in the 19th century.

In contemporary usage, "social research" is a relatively autonomous term, encompassing the work of practitioners from various disciplines which share in its aims and methods. Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyse a vast breadth of social phenomena; from census survey data derived from millions of individuals, to the in-depth analysis of a single agent's social experiences; from monitoring what is happening on contemporary streets, to the investigation of ancient historical documents. The methods originally rooted in classical sociology and statistical mathematics have formed the basis for research in other disciplines, such as political science, media studies, and market research.

Social research methods may be divided into two broad schools:

• Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable evidence, and often rely on statistical analysis of many cases (or across intentionally designed treatments in an experiment) to create valid and reliable general claims.

• Qualitative designs emphasize understanding of social phenomena through direct observation, communication with participants, or analysis of texts, and may stress contextual and subjective accuracy over generality

Social scientists will commonly combine quantitative and qualitative approaches as part of a multi-strategy design. Questionnaires, field-based data collection, archival database information and laboratory-based data collections are some of the measurement techniques used. It is noted the importance of measurement and analysis, focusing on the (difficult to achieve) goal of objective research or statistical hypothesis testing. A mathematical model uses mathematical language to describe a system. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed 'mathematical modelling' (also modeling). Eykhoff (1974) defined a mathematical model as 'a representation of the essential aspects of an existing system (or a system to be constructed) which presents knowledge of that system in usable form'.^[37] Mathematical models can take many forms, including but not limited to dynamical systems, statistical models, differential equations, or game theoretic models.

These and other types of models can overlap, with a given model involving a variety of abstract structures. The system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole. The concept of an integrated whole can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the set and elements not a part of the relational regime. Dynamical system modeled as a mathematical formalization has fixed "rule" which describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. Small changes in the state of the system correspond to small changes in the numbers. The evolution rule of the dynamical system is a fixed rule that describes what future states follow from the current state. The rule is deterministic: for a given time interval only one future state follows from the current state.

Theory[link]

Other social scientists emphasize the subjective nature of research. These writers share social theory perspectives that include various types of the following:

Other fringe social scientists delve in alternative nature of research. These writers share social theory perspectives that include various types of the following:

Education and degrees[link]

Most universities offer degrees in social science fields.^[38] The Bachelor of Social Science is a degree targeted at the social sciences in particular. It is often more flexible and in-depth than other degrees which include social science subjects.^[39]

In the United States, a university may offer a student who studies a social sciences field a Bachelor of Arts degree, particularly if the field is within one of the traditional liberal arts such as history, or a BSc: Bachelor of Science degree such as those given by the London School of Economics, as the social sciences constitute one of the two main branches of science (the other being the natural sciences). In addition, some institutions have degrees for a particular social science, such as the Bachelor of Economics degree, though such specialized degrees are relatively rare in the United States.

See also[link]

	Book: Social science
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

	Sociology portal
	Science portal

General

Society · Culture · Structure and agency · Humanities (human science)

Methods

Historical method · Empiricism · Representation theory · Scientific method · Statistical hypothesis testing · Regression · Correlation

Areas

Political sciences · Natural sciences · Behavioral sciences · Geographic information science

History 

History of science · History of technology

Lists

Fields of science · Academic disciplines

People

Emile Durkheim · Max Weber · Karl Marx · Herbert Spencer · Sir John Lubbock · Alfred Schutz

Other

Behavior · Ethology and Ethnology · Game theory · Gulbenkian commission · Labelling · "Periodic table of human sciences" (Tinbergen's four questions) · Social action · Philosophy of social sciences

Fields

Further reading[link]

Wikibooks

• Wikibooks: Introduction to sociology

General sources

Academic resources

Opponents and critics

References[link]

20th and 21st century sources

19th century sources

Footnotes

• Thomas A. Birkland, An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and Models of Public Policy Making, London 2011

External links[link]

Find more about Social science on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Centre for Social Work Research
• Family Therapy and Systemic Research Centre
• International Conference on Social Sciences
• International Social Science Council
• Introduction to Hutchinson et al., There's No Such Thing as a Social Science
• Intute: Social Sciences (UK)
• Social Science Research Society
• Social Science Virtual Library
• Social Science Virtual Library: Canaktanweb (Turkish)
• Social Sciences And Humanities
• UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory
• The Dialectic of Social Science by Paul A. Baran

John Tyler
10th President of the United States
In office 4 April 1841 – 4 March 1845
Vice President	None
Preceded by	William Henry Harrison
Succeeded by	James K. Polk
10th Vice President of the United States
In office 4 March 1841 – 4 April 1841
President	William Henry Harrison
Preceded by	Richard Johnson
Succeeded by	George Dallas
President pro tempore of the Senate
In office 4 March 1835 – 6 December 1835
President	Andrew Jackson
Preceded by	George Poindexter
Succeeded by	William King
United States Senator from Virginia
In office 4 March 1827 – 29 February 1836
Preceded by	John Randolph
Succeeded by	William Rives
23rd Governor of Virginia
In office 10 December 1825 – 4 March 1827
Preceded by	James Pleasants
Succeeded by	William Giles
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 23rd district
In office 17 December 1816 – 5 March 1821
Preceded by	John Clopton
Succeeded by	Andrew Stevenson
Personal details
Born	(1790-03-29)March 29, 1790 Charles City County, Virginia, U.S.
Died	January 18, 1862(1862-01-18) (aged 71) Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
Political party	Independent (1841–1862)
Other political affiliations	Democratic-Republican (Before 1825) Democratic (1825–1834) Whig (1834–1841)
Spouse(s)	Letitia Christian (1813–1842) Julia Gardiner (1844–1862)
Children	Mary Robert John, Jr. Letitia Elizabeth Anne Contesse Alice Tazewell David Gardiner John Alexander Julia Gardiner Lachlan Lyon Gardiner Robert Fitzwalter Pearl
Alma mater	College of William and Mary
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Deism Episcopal
Signature
Military service
Service/branch	Volunteer Military Company
Years of service	1813

John Tyler (29 March 1790 – 18 January 1862) was the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845), after being the tenth Vice President of the United States (1841). A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President in 1840. He was the first to succeed to the office of President on the death of the incumbent. Tyler's opposition to nationalism and emphatic support of states' rights endeared him to his fellow Virginians but alienated him from most of the political allies that brought him to power in Washington. His presidency was crippled by opposition from both parties. Near the end of his life, he supported the secession movement in the southern states, and was elected to the Congress of the Confederate States of America.

Tyler was born to an aristocratic Virginia family of English descent and he came to national prominence at a time of political upheaval. In the 1820s, the nation's only political party, the Democratic-Republicans, split into factions, most of which did not share Tyler's strict constructionist ideals. Though initially a Democrat, his opposition to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren led him to alliance with the Whig Party; he was elected Vice President In 1840 on the Whig ticket. Upon the death of President William Henry Harrison on 4 April 1841, only a month after his inauguration, a short Constitutional crisis arose over the succession process. Tyler immediately moved into the White House, took the oath of office, and assumed full presidential powers, a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually be codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

As President, Tyler opposed the Whig platform and vetoed several of their proposals. As a result, most of his cabinet resigned, and the Whigs, dubbing him His Accidency, expelled him from the party. While he faced a stalemate on domestic policy, he still had several foreign policy achievements, including the Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain and the Treaty of Wanghia with China. Tyler dedicated his last two years in office to the annexation of Texas. He sought re-election to a full term, but he had alienated Whigs and the Democrats wouldn't have him back. His efforts to form a new party came to nothing. However, in the last days of his term, Congress passed the resolution authorizing annexation, which was carried out by Tyler's successor as President, James K. Polk.

Tyler essentially retired from electoral politics until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. He sided with the Confederate government, and won election to the Confederate House of Representatives shortly before his death. Although some have praised Tyler's political resolve, his presidency is generally held in low esteem by historians; today he is considered an obscure president, with little presence in the American cultural memory.^[1]

Early life and law career[link]

John Tyler was born on 29 March 1790, in the early years of the newly established nation. He was the first President to be born after the adoption of the Constitution. From birth he was politically tied to his future running mate William Henry Harrison: both were born in Charles City County, Virginia, and descended from aristocratic and politically entrenched families. The Tyler family proudly traced its lineage to colonial Williamsburg in the 17th century. John Tyler, Sr., popularly known as Judge Tyler, was a friend and college roommate of Thomas Jefferson and served in the Virginia House of Delegates alongside William's father Benjamin Harrison V. Judge Tyler served four years as Virginia Speaker of the House before becoming a state court judge. He would later serve as governor and as a judge on the U.S. District Court at Richmond. His wife, Mary Marot (Armistead), was the daughter of a prominent plantation owner, Robert Booth Armistead. She died of a stroke when her son John was seven years old.^[2]

The young Tyler was raised with his two brothers and five sisters on Greenway Plantation, a 1,200-acre (5 km²) estate with a six-room mansion his father had built.^[a] Various crops including wheat, corn, and tobacco were grown at Greenway by the Tylers' forty slaves.^[3] Tyler was an unhealthy child, very thin and prone to chronic diarrhea. Such afflictions would continue to burden him throughout his life.^[4] At the age of twelve, he entered the preparatory branch of the elite College of William and Mary, continuing the Tyler family's tradition of attending the college. Tyler graduated from the school's collegiate branch in 1807, at age seventeen. Among the books that informed his economic views was Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. His political views were deeply shaped by Bishop James Madison, the college's president, who served as a second father and mentor to him.^[5]

After graduation Tyler went on to study law with his father, who was a state judge at the time. Tyler was admitted to the bar at the age of 19, in violation of bar regulations: the judge who administered the bar exam neglected to inquire about his age. By this time his father had become Governor of Virginia (1808–1811), and the young Tyler started a practice in Richmond.^[6]

Early political career[link]

Start in Virginia politics[link]

At the age of 21, Tyler was elected by his fellow Charles City County residents to the Virginia House of Delegates, the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly. He served five successive one-year terms (and would return later in his career), seated on the Courts and Justice committee. The young politician's defining attributes were on display by the end of his first term: a strong support of states' rights and opposition to a national bank. He joined fellow legislator Benjamin W. Leigh in pushing for the censure of U.S. Senators William Branch Giles and Richard Brent from Virginia, who had voted for the recharter of the First Bank of the United States against the legislature's instructions.^[7]

Tyler married his first wife, Letitia Christian Tyler, in 1813 while serving in the Virginia House of Delegates.

In addition to infighting over the national bank, the United States was facing ongoing hostilities with Britain in the War of 1812. Tyler's education had impressed on him a strong sense of anti-British nationalism, and at the onset of the war he urged military action on the assembly floor. After the British capture of Hampton, Virginia in the summer of 1813, Tyler eagerly organized a small militia company of county residents to defend Richmond, but no attack came their way and he dissolved the company two months later.^[8] That same year his father died, and Tyler inherited thirteen slaves along with his father's estate.^[9] In 1816 he resigned to serve on the Governor's Council of State, a group of eight advisers elected by the legislature.^[7]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Tyler's three terms in the United States House of Representatives would be his foray into national politics. The death of U.S. Representative John Clopton in the fall of 1816 left a vacancy in the 23rd district which Tyler was well positioned to fill. He faced his friend and political ally Andrew Stevenson, then Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, in the congressional election. The race was amicable despite the high political stakes. Tyler's political connections and campaigning skills won him the election by a slim margin. He was sworn in as a Democratic-Republican^[b] to the Fourteenth Congress on December 17, 1816, to complete Clopton's term. He was re-elected to a full term the following spring.^[10]

While the Democratic-Republicans had a historical platform of states' rights, they had begun to adopt nationalist tendencies. In the wake of the War of 1812, Congress was pushing to fund the states' reconstruction and infrastructure projects. Tyler held fast to his strict constructionist beliefs, rejecting such proposals on both constitutional and personal grounds. Virginia was not "in so poor a condition as to require a charitable donation from Congress," he contended.^[10] He was chosen to participate in an audit of the Second Bank of the United States in 1818 as part of a five-person committee, and was appalled by perceived corruption within the bank. He argued for the annulment of the bank charter, although Congress rejected any such proposal. His first clash with then-General Andrew Jackson followed Jackson's 1818 invasion of Florida during the First Seminole War. While praising Jackson's character, Tyler condemned the general's zealous behavior and his execution of two British subjects. Tyler was re-elected without opposition in early 1819.^[11]

The defining issue of the Sixteenth Congress (1819–21) was the admission of Missouri to the Union, and whether slavery would be permitted in the new state.^[12] Tyler was a slaveholder for his entire life, at one point keeping forty slaves at Greenway. While he regarded slavery as an evil, and never attempted to justify it, he never agreed with national emancipation, and never freed any of his slaves even at the dawn of the Civil War. The living conditions of his slaves are not well documented, but historians agree that he cared for their well-being and abstained from physical violence against them.^[13]

Tyler was a leader in opposing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which would for the first time establish national boundaries for the establishment of slavery. In his view, the compromise served only to diminish and divide the states, while unnecessarily expanding federal authority. Acknowledging the ills of slavery, he argued that allowing it in Missouri would attract existing slave-owners from Southern states, dissipating the population of slaves and reducing each state's reliance on the practice. Thus, in his view, emancipation would occur organically at the state level without federal intervention. He voted against the Missouri Compromise—which passed regardless—and all bills which would restrict slavery in new territories.^[12]

Tyler declined to seek renomination to Congress in late 1820, citing illness. He privately acknowledged his dissatisfaction with the office, as his opposing votes were largely symbolic and did little to change the political culture in Washington; he also observed that funding his children's education would be difficult on a Congressman's low salary. He resigned on March 4, 1821, endorsing his former opponent Stevenson for the seat, and returned to private law.^[14]

Return to state politics[link]

He was soon drafted for a second stint in the Virginia House of Delegates, which lasted from December 1823 to December 1825. Upon taking office he found the chamber thrust into debate over the impending presidential election of 1824. The congressional nominating caucus, an early system for choosing presidential candidates, was still in effect despite its growing unpopularity. Tyler attempted to bring the lower house to endorse the caucus system and choose William H. Crawford as the Democratic-Republican candidate. Despite the legislature's support of Crawford, opposition to the caucus system killed his proposal. Tyler's most lasting effort in this second legislative tenure was salvaging the College of William and Mary, which suffered from waning attendance and risked closure. Rather than move it from rural Williamsburg to the populous capital of Richmond, as some suggested, Tyler proposed that a series of administrative and financial reforms be enacted. His reforms were successfully adopted: by 1840 the school would see its highest-ever attendance.^[15]

An engraving of Tyler in his mid-thirties (c. 1826) as Governor of Virginia.

Tyler's political fortunes were growing, with his name taken up for consideration in the 1824 U.S. Senate election.^[16] He was nominated in December 1825 for Governor of Virginia, a position which was then appointed by the legislature. He was elected 131–81 over John Floyd, whose candidacy had little traction. The office of governor was determinately powerless under the original Virginia Constitution (1776–1830), lacking even veto authority. Tyler enjoyed a prominent oratorical platform but could do little to influence the legislature. His most visible act as governor was delivering the funeral address for President Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia native who died on July 4, 1826.^[c] Tyler was deeply devoted to Jefferson, and his ornate eulogy was well received.^[17]

Tyler's governorship was otherwise uneventful. He promoted states' rights and adamantly opposed any concentration of federal power. In order to thwart federal infrastructure proposals, he suggested Virginia actively expand its own road system. A proposal was made to expand the state's poorly funded public school system, but no significant action was taken.^[18] Tyler was re-elected unanimously to a second term in December 1826.^[19]

U.S. Senate[link]

In January 1827 the Virginia General Assembly was considering the impending re-election of U.S. Senator John Randolph. Randolph was a contentious figure: although he shared the staunch states' rights views held by most of the Virginia legislature, he had a reputation for fiery rhetoric and erratic behavior on the Senate floor, which put his allies in an awkward position. Furthermore, he had made enemies by fiercely opposing John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. The nationalist wing of the Democratic–Republican Party, who supported Adams and Clay, were a sizable minority in the Virginia legislature. They hoped to unseat Randolph by capturing the vote of states'-rights supporters who were uncomfortable with the senator's reputation. They approached Tyler, and promised their endorsement if he ran against Randolph. Tyler repeatedly declined the offer, endorsing Randolph as the best candidate, but the political pressure continued to mount. Eventually he conceded that he would accept the seat if chosen, and the legislature elected him in a vote of 115—110.^[d] He resigned his governorship on 4 March 1827, as his Senate term began.^[20]

Tenuous alliance[link]

By that time of Tyler's election to the Senate, the 1828 presidential election was in progress. Adams, the incumbent President, was challenged by Andrew Jackson. The Democratic-Republicans had splintered into Adams' National Republicans and the Jacksonian Democrats. Tyler was repulsed by both candidates, each embodying the nationalist views he had always rejected. Still, he was increasingly drawn to Jackson, hoping that he would be less insistent on internal improvements than Adams. In considering Jackson he wrote, "Turning to him I may at least indulge in hope; looking on Adams I must despair."^[21]

The first session of the Twentieth Congress began in early December 1827.^[e] Tyler served alongside his close friend Littleton Waller Tazewell, a fellow Virginian who shared his strict constructionist views and uneasy support of Jackson. Throughout his Senate service, Tyler vigorously opposed all bills which provided for national infrastructure projects. He and his Southern colleagues were appalled by the protectionist Tariff of 1828, known to its detractors as the "Tariff of Abominations". Tyler suggested that the Tariff's only positive outcome would be a national political backlash, restoring a respect for states' rights.^[22]

Despite supporting Jackson in the 1828 election, Tyler soon found points of disagreement with the President. He was frustrated by Jackson's newly emerging spoils system, describing it as an "electioneering weapon". He voted against many of the Pesident's nominations when they appeared to be based on patronage or did not follow Constitutional procedure. Such an act was considered "an act of insurgency" against his party.^[23] He was particularly offended by Jackson's use of the recess appointment power to name three treaty commissioners to meet with Turkey; he authored a bill chastising the President for this use of executive power.^[24]

Still, Tyler attempted to remain on good terms with Jackson, only opposing him on principle rather than partisanship. He defended Jackson for vetoing the Maysville Road funding project, which Jackson considered unconstitutional.^[25] He voted to confirm several of the President's appointments (including Jackson's future running mate Martin Van Buren) despite strong opposition from the National Republicans.^[26] The leading issue in the 1832 presidential election was the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, which both Tyler and Jackson opposed. Congress voted to recharter the bank in July 1832, and Jackson vetoed the bill for a mixture of constitutional and practical reasons. Tyler voted to sustain the veto and endorsed Jackson for re-election.^[27]

Break with Democrats[link]

Tyler's uneasy relationship with his party came to a head during the 22nd Congress, as the Nullification Crisis of 1832–33 began. The state of South Carolina, threatening secession, passed the Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, declaring the "Tariff of Abominations" null and void within its borders. This raised the constitutional question of whether states had the right to nullify federal laws. President Jackson, who denied such a right, prepared to sign a Force Bill allowing the federal government to use military action to enforce the tariff in South Carolina. Tyler, who sympathized with South Carolina's reasons for nullification, rejected Jackson's use of military force against a state and gave a speech in February 1833 outlining his views. He supported Henry Clay's attempts to craft the Compromise Tariff of 1833. This bill would gradually reduce the tariff over ten years, alleviating tensions between the states and the federal government.^[28]

In voting against the Force Bill, Tyler knew he would permanently alienate the pro-Jackson faction of the Virginia legislature, even those who had tolerated his irregularity up to this point. This would jeopardize his re-election in February 1833, in which he faced the pro-administration Democrat James McDowell. With Clay's endorsement, Tyler was re-elected to a full term by a twelve-vote plurality; several legislators who had supported him only weeks beforehand were moved to vote against him as a result of the Force Bill vote.^[29]

Jackson further offended Tyler by moving to dissolve the Bank by executive fiat. In September 1833, Jackson issued an executive order directing Treasury Secretary Roger B. Taney to transferring federal funds from the Bank to state-run banks immediately. Tyler saw this as "a flagrant assumption of power", a breach of contract, and a threat to the economy. After months of agonizing, he decided to ally with Clay and the anti-Jackson factions of Congress on the bank issue, while still maintaining the Bank's unconstitutionality. Sitting on the Senate Finance Committee, he voted for two censure resolutions against the President in March 1834.^[30] By this time, Tyler was formally in line with Clay's newly formed Whig Party, which held control of the Senate. On 3 March 1835, with only hours remaining in the congressional session, the Whigs voted him President pro tempore of the Senate as a symbolic gesture of approval.^[31]

Shortly thereafter, the Democrats took control of the Virginia House of Delegates, and Tyler's seat in the Senate was threatened. That December, the legislature offered him a judgeship in exchange for resigning his seat, but he declined. Tyler understood what was to come: he would soon be forced by the legislature to cast a vote that went against his constitutional beliefs. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri had repeatedly introduced a bill expunging the censure of Jackson from the record. With the support of Virginia's Democrats, Tyler could be instructed to vote for the bill. If he disregarded the instructions, he would be violating his own principles: "the first act of my political life was a censure on Messrs. Giles and Brent for opposition to instructions," he noted. Over the next few months he sought the counsel of his friends, who gave him conflicting advice. By mid-February he felt that his Senate career was likely at an end. He issued a letter of resignation to the Vice-President on 29 February 1836, saying in part:^[32]

I shall carry with me into retirement the principles which I brought with me into public life, and by the surrender of the high station to which I was called by the voice of the people of Virginia, I shall set an example to my children which shall teach them to regard as nothing place and office, when either is to be attained or held at the sacrifice of honor.

Presidential election, 1836[link]

While Tyler wished to attend to his private life and family, he was soon swept up in the presidential election of 1836. He had been suggested as a Vice Presidential candidate since early 1835, and the same day the Virginia Democrats issued the expunging instruction, the Virginia Whigs nominated him as their candidate. The new Whig Party was not organized enough to hold a national convention and name a single ticket against Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren. Instead, Whigs in various regions each put forth their own preferred ticket, reflecting the party's tenuous coalition: the Massachusetts Whigs nominated Daniel Webster and Francis Granger, the Anti-Masons of the Northern and border states backed William Henry Harrison and Granger, and the states' rights advocates of the middle and lower South nominated Hugh Lawson White and John Tyler. Tyler, despite his strong following in the Virginia and Ohio conventions, only received 47 electoral votes in the November 1836 election, trailing both Granger and the Democratic candidate, Richard Mentor Johnson. Harrison was the leading Whig candidate for president, but he lost to van Buren.^[33]

Later state politics[link]

Tyler had been drawn into Virginia politics even as a U.S. Senator. From October 1829 to January 1830, he served as a member of the state constitutional convention, a role which he was reluctant to accept. The original Virginia Constitution gave outsize influence to the state's more conservative eastern counties, as it allocated an equal number of legislators to each county (regardless of population) and only granted suffrage to property owners. The convention gave the more populous and liberal counties of western Virginia an opportunity to expand their influence. Tyler, a slave-owner from eastern Virginia, supported the existing system. He largely remained on the sidelines during the debate, however, not wishing to alienate any of the state's political factions. He was focused on his Senate career, which required a broad base of support, and gave speeches during the convention promoting compromise and unity.^[34]

After the 1836 election, Tyler thought his political career was at an end, and planned to return to private law practic. In the fall of 1837 a friend sold him a sizable property in Williamsburg. He had barely settled in, however, when he was again elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. He took office in 1838 and his peers unanimously elected him Speaker. Tyler was a national political figure by this point, and his third delegate service touched on such national issues as disposal of public lands.^[35]

In February 1839, the legislature again considered a U.S. Senate election, this time the seat of incumbent William Cabell Rives, a Conservative Democrat who had succeeded Tyler. Rives had drifted away from his party, signalling a possible alliance with the Whigs. As Tyler had already fully rejected his party, he expected the Whigs would consider him as a candidate instead. Still, the Whigs found Rives a more politically expedient choice, as they hoped to draw a useful coalition with the Conservative Democrats for the 1840 presidential election. This strategy was espoused by Whig leader Henry Clay, who otherwise admired Tyler.^[f] Tyler was turned down for the nomination, while in-party squabbles delayed Rives' re-election until January 1841.^[36]

Presidential election, 1840[link]

At the Whig convention of 1840, Tyler supported Henry Clay for Presidential candidacy. After Clay had been passed over in favor of William Henry Harrison, Tyler was named Harrison's running mate. Although this was ostensibly to balance the ticket by placing the Virginian, Tyler, with Harrison, who now resided in Ohio, Harrison originally came from a plantation along the same stretch of road in Charles City County, Virginia as Tyler.

The union of the Whigs in this year was a coalition of diverse elements joined to defeat their common opponent, the Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren. This combination included both southern states' rights men such as Tyler, who had long opposed a national bank and unrestricted federal power, and economic nationalists such as Clay, whose "American system" called for a national bank, protective tariff, and federally financed internal improvements. To win the election, these differences were downplayed, in favor of portraying Harrison as hardy western frontiersman and Van Buren as an effete easterner. The Whig slogan was "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" - among the most famous in American politics.

But these differences reappeared later, dividing Tyler and the Whig Party after he succeeded Harrison as President.

Harrison and Tyler won the election by an electoral vote of 234–60 and a popular vote of 53 percent to 47 percent, and the Whigs gained control of both houses of Congress.

Vice-presidency, 1841[link]

1888 illustration of Vice President Tyler receiving the news of President Harrison's death from Chief Clerk of the State Department Fletcher Webster.

Harrison and Tyler were sworn in on 4 March 1841. Tyler delivered only a five-minute bromide about states' rights before the new President stepped in to give his two-hour address. Expecting few responsibilities, the Vice President stayed in Washington, D.C. only long enough to preside over the Senate confirmation of Harrison's cabinet. He then quietly repaired to his home in Williamsburg.^[37] Historian Robert Seager II later wrote, "Had William Henry Harrison lived, John Tyler would undoubtedly have been as obscure as any Vice-President in American history."^[38]

Harrison, meanwhile, struggled to keep up with the demands of Henry Clay and others who sought offices and influence in his administration. He did not seek Tyler's advice regarding cabinet appointments, and Tyler reportedly offered none, only hoping that it "be cast of the proper material" and avoid factionalism and patronage. Harrison's old age and fading health were no secret during the campaign, and the question of the presidential succession was on every politician's mind. The first few weeks of the presidency took a clear toll on Harrison's health, and after being caught in a rainstorm in late March he came down with pneumonia and pleurisy.^[39]

Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent word to Tyler of Harrison's illness on 1 April; two days later, Richmond attorney James Lyons wrote with the news that the President had taken a turn for the worse, remarking that "I shall not be surprised to hear by tomorrow's mail that Gen'l Harrison is no more."^[40] Tyler determined not to travel to Washington, not wanting to appear unseemly in anticipating the President's death. However, at dawn on 5 April, two couriers (Webster's son Fletcher, Chief Clerk of the State Department, and a Senate officer, Mr. Beall) arrived at Tyler's home bearing the message that Harrison had died the day before.^[41]

Presidency, 1841–1845[link]

"His Accidency"[link]

Tyler as president, c.1841.

Harrison's unprecedented death in office caused considerable disarray regarding his successor. The Constitution of the United States stated only that:

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President.^[42]

This led to the question of whether the actual office of President "devolved" upon Vice President Tyler, or merely its powers and duties. By the time Tyler arrived in Washington at 4:00 a.m. on 6 April 1841, he had firmly resolved that he was now, in name and fact, the President of the United States, and acted on this determination by taking the oath of office in his hotel room. He considered the oath redundant to his oath as Vice President, but wished to quell any doubt over his accession.^[43] Immediately after his inauguration, Tyler called Harrison's cabinet into a meeting, having decided to retain its members. Webster informed him of Harrison's practice of making policy by a majority vote. The cabinet fully expected the new President to continue this practice. Tyler was astounded and immediately corrected them:

I beg your pardon, gentlemen; I am very glad to have in my Cabinet such able statesmen as you have proved yourselves to be. And I shall be pleased to avail myself of your counsel and advice. But I can never consent to being dictated to as to what I shall or shall not do. I, as President, shall be responsible for my administration. I hope to have your hearty co-operation in carrying out its measures. So long as you see fit to do this, I shall be glad to have you with me. When you think otherwise, your resignations will be accepted.^[44]

He delivered a de facto inaugural address on 9 April reasserting his fundamental tenets of Jeffersonian democracy and limited federal power. Tyler's claim was not immediately accepted by opposition members in Congress such as John Quincy Adams, who argued for Tyler to assume a role as a caretaker under the title of "Acting President", or remain Vice President in name.^[45] Among those who questioned Tyler's authority was Whig leader Henry Clay, who had intended to be "the real power behind a fumbling throne" and exercise considerable influence over Harrison, and who now transferred that ambition onto his close friend, Tyler. He saw Tyler as the "Vice-President" and his presidency as a mere "regency".^[46]

On 1 June, impressed by his authoritative actions, both houses of Congress passed resolutions declaring Tyler the 10th President of the United States. Tyler had thus become the first U.S. Vice President to assume the office of President upon the death of the incumbent, establishing a precedent that would be followed seven times in the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet it was not until 1967 that Tyler's action of assuming both the full powers and the title of the presidency was legally codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.^[47]

Although his accession was given approval by both the Cabinet and, later, the Senate and House, Tyler's detractors (who, ironically, would eventually include many of the Cabinet members and members of Congress who had legitimized his presidency) never fully accepted him as President. He was referred to by many nicknames, including "His Accidency," a reference to his having become President, not through election, but by the accidental circumstances regarding his nomination and Harrison's death. However, Tyler never wavered from his conviction that he was the rightful President; when his political opponents sent correspondence to the White House addressed to the "Vice President" or "Acting President," Tyler had it returned unopened.^[48]

Economic policy and party conflicts[link]