To date, there has been minimal research regarding the role of politics or “party policy ideas” in the study of policy determination and formation because most researchers have been depending on the positivism approach. For this reason, this paper employed the Social constructivism and comparative historical analysis. This article also aimed to analyze the role of the party policy ideas by dwelling upon the study of science and technology (S&T) policy in the United States and Germany. To be concrete, this study explored how the party policy ideas has an effect on the formation of party S&T policy, and how ruling party policy ideas influences government S&T policy determination.
The result of this study suggested that party policy ideas played a certain role in the course of the formation of party’s S&T goals and strategies. Ruling party policy ideas, moreover, affected S&T policy determination of each country, and also accidental political, economic, and social factors in history made an impact on the success, weakening, and failure of the party policy ideas. As a result, the study recommends that political factors be included in studying the government S&T policy.