Abstract

Biopolitics, originally interpreted as the subfield of political science focusing on biological (evolutionary) factors involved in political behavior, has faced conceptual and organizational differences during the forty-year period of its development. It has recently been redefined as the totality of all applications of biology to social and political concepts, problems and practical issues and concerns. In these new terms, biopolitics represents a promising interdisciplinary area of research, whose potential with respect to political philosophy and political science is exemplified by its application to the following issues: (i) Collective violence (war, terrorism, etc.); (ii) Ethnocentrism; (iii) Hierarchies and networks: and (iv) Neurochemical factors of social behavior. The prerequisite for the successof biopolitics is its collaboration with the humanities and social sciences in investigating the multi-level “Homo politicus”.