READINGS IN POLITICAL

SCIENCE
WEEK: 1 WHAT IS POLITICS
• Politics is exciting because people disagree. They disagree about how
they should live. Who should get what? How should power and other
resources be distributed? Should society be based on cooperation or
conflict? And so on.
• They also disagree about how such matters should be resolved. How
should collective decisions be made? Who should have a say? How
much influence should each person have? And so forth.
• For Aristotle, this made politics the 'master science': that is, nothing
less than the activity through which human beings attempt to improve
their lives and create the Good Society. Politics is, above all, a social
activity.
• Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people
make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live.
• Politics is linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. On the
one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing
needs and opposing interests guarantees disagreement about the rules
under which people live.
• On the other hand, people recognize that, in order to influence these
rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others -
hence Hannah Arendt defines political power as 'acting in concert'.
• This is why the heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of
conflict resolution, in which rival views or competing interests are
reconciled with one another.
• Any attempt to clarify the meaning of 'politics' must nevertheless
address two major problems.
• The first is the mass of associations that the word has when used in
everyday language; in other words, politics is a 'loaded' term.
• Whereas most people think of, say, economics, geography, history and
biology simply as academic subjects, few people come to politics
without preconceptions.
• Many, for instance, automatically assume that students and teachers of
politics must in some way be biased, finding it difficult to believe that
the subject can be approached in an impartial and dispassionate
manner.
• To make matters worse, politics is usually thought of as a 'dirty' word:
it conjures up images of trouble, disruption and even violence on the
one hand, and deceit, manipulation and lies on the other.
• The second and more intractable difficulty is that even respected
authorities cannot agree what the subject is about.
• Politics is defined in such different ways: as the exercise of power, the
exercise of authority, the making of collective decisions, the allocation
of scarce resources, the practice of deception and manipulation, and so
on.
• From this perspective, politics may be treated as an 'essentially
contested' concept, in the sense that the term has a number of
acceptable or legitimate meanings.
• On the other hand, these different views may simply consist of
contrasting conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept.
• Whether we are dealing with rival concepts or alternative conceptions,
the debate about 'what is politics?' is worth pursuing because it
exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological disagreements
in the academic study of the subject.
The different views of politics examined here are as follows:
• politics as the art of government
• politics as public affairs
• politics as compromise and consensus
• politics as power and the distribution of resources.
‘Man is by nature a political animal.'
ARISTOTLE
• Conflict: Competition between opposing forces, reflecting a diversity
of opinions, preferences, needs or interests.
• Cooperation: Working together; achieving goals through collective
action.
• Authority: Authority can most simply be defined as ‘legitimate
power’. Whereas power is the ability to influence the behaviour of
others, authority is the right to do so. Authority is therefore is based on
acknowledged duty to obey rather than any form of coercion or
manipulation.
• In this sense, authority is power covered in legitimacy or rightfulness.
Weber distinguished between three kinds of authority, based on the
different grounds upon which obedience can be established:
• Traditional authority: Authority is rooted in history.
• Charismatic Authority: Stems from personality.
• Legal-rational authority: is grounded in a set of impersonal rules.
Politics as the Art of Government
• Politics is not a science ... but an art', Chancellor Bismarck is reputed
to have told the German Reichstag.
• The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of government, the exercise
of control within society through the making and enforcement of
collective decisions.
• This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the
original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece
• The word 'politics' is derived from polis, meaning literally city-state.
Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent
city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government.
• The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often
portrayed as the cradle of democratic government.
• In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the
polis - in effect, 'what concerns the polis'. The modern form of this
definition is therefore 'what concerns the state’.
• In many ways, the notion that politics amounts to 'what concerns the
state' is the traditional view of the discipline, reflected in the tendency
for academic study to focus upon the personnel and machinery of
government.
• To study politics is in essence to study government, or, more broadly,
to study the exercise of authority.
• This view is advanced in the writings of the influential US political
scientist David Easton (1979, 1981), who defined politics as the
'authoritative allocation of values'.
• By this he meant that politics encompasses the various processes
through which government responds to pressures from the larger
society, in particular by allocating benefits, rewards or penalties.
• 'Authoritative values' are therefore ones that are widely accepted in
society, and are considered binding by the mass of citizens.
• In this view, politics is associated with 'policy': that is, with formal or
authoritative decisions that establish a plan of action for the
community.
• However, what is striking about this definition is that it offers a highly
restricted view of politics. Politics is what takes place within a polity, a
system of social organization centred upon the machinery of government.
• Politics is therefore practised in cabinet rooms, legislative chambers,
government departments and the like, and it is engaged in by a limited
and specific group of people, notably politicians, civil servants and
lobbyists.
• This means that most people, most institutions and most social activities
can be regarded as being 'outside' politics. Businesses, schools and other
educational institutions, community groups, families and so on are in this
sense 'nonpolitical', because they are not engaged in 'running the country'.
• By the same token, to portray politics as an essentially state-bound
activity is to ignore the increasingly important international or global
influences upon modern life, such as the impact of transnational
technology and multinational corporations.
• In this sense, this definition of politics is a hangover from the days
when the nation-state could still be regarded as an independent actor
in world affairs. Moreover, there is a growing recognition that the task
of managing complex societies is no longer simply carried out by
government but involves a wide range of public and private sector
bodies.
• This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. This is evident
in the tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics.
• In other words, the realm of 'the political' is restricted to those state
actors who are consciously motivated by ideological beliefs, and who
seek to advance them through membership of a formal organization
such as a political party.
• This is the sense in which politicians are described as 'political',
whereas civil servants are seen as 'nonpolitical', as long as, of course,
they act in a neutral and professional fashion.
• Similarly, judges are taken to be 'nonpolitical' figures while they
interpret the law impartially and in accordance with the available
evidence, but they may be accused of being 'political' if their
judgement is influenced by personal preferences or some other form of
bias.
Politics as Public Affairs
• A second and broader conception of politics moves it beyond the
narrow realm of government to what is thought of as 'public life' or
'public affairs'.
• In other words, the distinction between 'the political' and 'the
nonpolitical' coincides with the division between an essentially public
sphere of life and what can be thought of as a private sphere.
• However, where should the line between 'public' life and 'private' life
be drawn? The traditional distinction between the public realm and the
private realm conforms to the division between the state and civil
society.
• The institutions of the state (the apparatus of government, the courts,
the police, the army, the social-security system and so forth) can be
regarded as 'public' in the sense that they are responsible for the
collective organization of community life.
• Moreover, they are funded at the public's expense, out of taxation.
• In contrast, civil society consists of what Edmund Burke called the 'little
platoons', institutions such as the family and kinship groups, private
businesses, trade unions, clubs, community groups and so on that are
'private' in the sense that they are set up and funded by individual citizens
to satisfy their own interests, rather than those of the larger society.
• On the basis of this 'public/private' division, politics is restricted to the
activities of the state itself and the responsibilities that are properly
exercised by public bodies. Those areas of life that individuals can and do
manage for themselves (the economic, social, domestic, personal, cultural
and artistic spheres, and so on) are therefore clearly 'nonpolitical'.
• An alternative 'public/private' divide is sometimes defined in terms of
a further and more subtle distinction, namely that between 'the
political' and 'the personal'.
• Although civil society can be distinguished from the state, it
nevertheless contains a range of institutions that are thought of as
'public' in the wider sense that they are open institutions, operating in
public, to which the public has Access.
• Nevertheless, although this view regards institutions such as
businesses, community groups, clubs and trade unions as 'public', it
remains a restricted view of politics.
• According to this perspective, politics does not, and should not,
infringe upon 'personal' affairs and institutions.
• Feminist thinkers in particular have pointed out that this implies that
politics effectively stops at the front door; it does not take place in the
family, in domestic life, or in personal relationships.
• This view is illustrated, for example, by the tendency of politicians to
draw a clear distinction between their professional conduct and their
personal or domestic behaviour.
• By classifying, say, cheating on their partners or treating their children
badly as 'personal' matters, they are able to deny the political
significance of such behaviour on the grounds that it does not touch on
their conduct of public affairs.
• The view of politics as an essentially 'public' activity has generated
both positive and negative images. In a tradition dating back to
Aristotle, politics has been seen as a noble and enlightened activity
precisely because of its 'public' character.
• This position was firmly endorsed by Hannah Arendt, who argued in
The Human Condition (1958) that politics is the most important form
of human activity because it involves interaction amongst free and
equal citizens. It thus gives meaning to life and affirms the uniqueness
of each individual.
• Theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill who portrayed
political participation as a good in itself have drawn similar conclusions.
Rousseau argued that only through the direct and continuous participation of
all citizens in political life can the state be bound to the common good, or
what he called the 'general will'. In Mill's view, involvement in 'public' affairs
is educational in that it promotes the personal, moral and intellectual
development of the individual.
• In sharp contrast, however, politics as public activity has also been portrayed
as a form of unwanted interference. Liberal theorists in particular have
exhibited a preference for civil society over the state, on the grounds that
'private' life is a realm of choice, personal freedom and individual
responsibility.
• This is most clearly demonstrated by attempts to narrow the realm of
'the political', commonly expressed as the wish to 'keep politics out of
private activities such as business, sport and family life.
• From this point of view, politics is unwholesome quite simply because
it prevents people acting as they choose.
• For example, it may interfere with how firms conduct their business,
or with how and with whom we play sports, or with how we bring up
our children.
Politics as Power
• The fourth definition of politics is both the broadest and the most
radical. Rather than confining politics to a particular sphere (the
government, the state or the 'public' realm) this view sees politics at
work in all social activities and in every corner of human existence. As
Adrian Leftwich proclaimed in What is Politics?
• The Activity and Its Study (1984:64), 'politics is at the heart of all
collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in
all human groups, institutions and societies'. In this sense, politics
takes place at every level of social interaction; it can be found within
families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as amongst
nations and on the global stage.
• At its broadest, politics concerns the production, distribution and use
of resources in the course of social existence.
• Politics is, in essence, power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome,
through whatever means. This notion was neatly that 'the personal is
the political'.
• This slogan neatly encapsulates the radical feminist belief that what
goes on in domestic, family and personal life is intensely political, and
indeed that it is the basis of all other political struggles.
• Clearly, a more radical notion of politics underlies this position. This
view was summed up by Kate Millett in Sexual Politics (1969:23), in
which she defined politics as 'power structured relationships,
arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another'.
Feminists can therefore be said to be concerned with 'the politics of
everyday life'.
• In their view, relationships within the family, between husbands and
wives, and between parents and children, are every bit as political as
relationships between employers and workers, or between
governments and citizens.
• Marxists have used the term 'politics' in two senses. On one level,
Marx used 'politics' in a conventional sense to refer to the apparatus of
the state.
• In the Communist Manifesto ([1848] 1967) he thus referred to
political power as 'merely the organized power of one class for
oppressing another'.
• For Marx, politics, together with law and culture, are part of a
'superstructure' that is distinct from the economic 'base' that is the real
foundation of social life.
• However, he did not see the economic 'base' and the legal and political
'superstructure' as entirely separate. He believed that the
'superstructure' arose out of, and reflected, the economic 'base'. At a
deeper level, political power, in this view, is therefore rooted in the
class system; as Lenin put it, 'politics is the most concentrated form of
economics'.
• As opposed to believing that politics can be confined to the state and a
narrow public sphere, Marxists can be said to believe that 'the
economic is political'. From this perspective, civil society,
characterized as Marxists believe it to be by class struggle, is the very
heart of politics.
• Views such as these portray politics in largely negative terms. Politics
is, quite simply, about oppression and subjugation. Radical feminists
hold that society is patriarchal, in that women are systematically
subordinated and subjected to male power.
• Marxists traditionally argued that politics in a capitalist society is
characterized by the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.
On the other hand, these negative implications are balanced against the
fact that politics is also seen as the means through which injustice and
domination can be challenged.
• Marx, for instance, predicted that class exploitation would be overthrown by
a proletarian revolution, and radical feminists proclaim the need for gender
relations to be reordered through a sexual revolution. However, it is also
clear that when politics is portrayed as power and domination it need not be
seen as an inevitable feature of social existence.
• Feminists look to an end of 'sexual politics' achieved through the
construction of a nonsexist society, in which people will be valued
according to personal worth rather than on the basis of gender. Marxists
believe that 'class politics' will end with the establishment of a classless
communist society. This, in turn, will eventually lead to the 'withering away'
of the state, bringing politics in the conventional sense also to an end.
Politics as Compromise and Consensus
• The fourth conception of politics relates not so much to the arena
within which politics is conducted as to the way in which decisions are
made.
• Specifically, politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict:
that is, by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than
through force and naked power.
• This is what is implied when politics is portrayed as 'the art of the
possible'. Such a definition is inherent in the everyday use of the term.
• For instance, the description of a solution to a problem as a 'political'
solution implies peaceful debate and arbitration, as opposed to what is
often called a 'military' solution.
• In his classic study In Defence of Politics, Bernard Crick offered the
following definition: ‘Politics [is] the activity by which differing
interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a
share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and the
survival of the whole community’.
• In this view, the key to politics is therefore a wide dispersal of power.
Accepting that conflict is inevitable, Crick argued that when social
groups and interests possess power they must be conciliated; they
cannot merely be crushed.
• This is why he portrayed politics as 'that solution to the problem of
order which chooses conciliation rather than violence and coercion'.
Such a view of politics reflects a deep commitment to liberal-
rationalist principles.
• It is based on resolute faith in the efficacy of debate and discussion, as
well as on the belief that society is characterized by consensus rather
than by irreconcilable conflict. In other words, the disagreements that
exist can be resolved without resort to intimidation and violence.
• Critics, however, point out that Crick's conception of politics is
heavily biased towards the form of politics that takes place in western
pluralist democracies: in effect, he equated politics with electoral
choice and party competition. As a result, his model has little to tell us
about, say, one-party states or military regimes.
• This view of politics has an unmistakeably positive character. Politics
is certainly no Utopian solution (compromise means that concessions
are made by all sides, leaving no one perfectly satisfied), but it is
undoubtedly preferable to the alternatives: bloodshed and brutality.
• In this sense, politics can be seen as a civilized and civilizing force.
People should be encouraged to respect politics as an activity, and
should be prepared to engage in the political life of their own
community.