POLITICAL SCIENCE

POLITICS

·         Politics refers to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the corporate, academic, and religious segments of society.

·         It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.

·         Modern political discourse focuses on democracy and the relationship between people and politics. It is thought of as the way we "choose government officials and make decisions about public policy

Political science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government, and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state.  It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior.

Politics as an art of government

·         This is the traditional definition of politics, based upon the original meaning of the term in ancient Greek Civilization. The word 'Politics' is derived from the Greek word 'Polis' literally meaning city-state.

·         Ancient Greece consisted of independent city states, each of which had its own system of government. Politics refers to the affairs of the 'Polis' or what concerns the state. This is the classical view of political science.

·         According to J. W. Garner, "................... political science begins and ends with the state". The study of politics concerns itself with the life of man in relation to organized state. Paul Janet states,

·         Hence, the state came to occupy the central place in politics. The ethical basis of the state, its evolution, the functions it is supposed to perform, its relationship with individuals became the main concern of political science.

·         Since the state performs its functions through the government, its main forces remained on the personnel and machinery of government. To study politics essentially meant the study of government or more broadly the study of authority.

·         David Easton defined politics as the "authoritative allocation of values" by this he meant that politics includes all those processes through which government allocates benefits, rewards or penalties. This is how it meets the demands and needs of society.

·         The distribution of such benefits, rewards or penalties is called authoritative because these are widely accepted in society and considered binding by the people. Hence, politics involves formal policies or authoritative decisions made by the government.

·         A major problem with this definition is that it presents a limited view of politics as essentially the affairs of state and government, thereby involving only a limited group of people engaged in the management of government as well as those trying to influence it. This implies that most people, most institutions and most social activities are considered as being outside politics.

Politics as public affairs

Another notion of politics takes it beyond a narrow focus on government to what is thought of as 'Public Life' or 'Public affairs'. The public sphere of life can be considered as 'Political' whereas the private sphere of life remains 'non-political'.

The roots of such a view of politics can be located in the writings of the famous Greek Philosopher Aristotle. In his book 'Polities', he said that "man is by nature a political animal". By this, he meant that human beings could live 'the good life' only within a political community.

Hence, politics is a moral activity essential for creating a 'just society'. In other words, politics is a noble activity precisely because of its public character. This is the reason for which Aristotle describes politics as the 'master science'.

However, the distinction between 'public life' and 'private life' needs to be clarified. There are two ways of understanding this distinction.

According to the traditional approach institutions of state can be regarded as public. Hence politics is restricted to the activities of the state which is considered responsible for managing the collective problems of the community. Those areas of social life like the economic, cultural, artistic, personal, domestic, etc. which, the individuals manage for themselves are considered 'nonpolitical'.

The other approach to 'public/private' division takes note of the fact that besides the state there are many other institutions which are opening, which operate in public and the public has access to these.

Institutions such as business, factory, trade unions, church, university and other community groups come to be considered as public and hence political. This definition of politics, however, excludes disagreements and conflicts emerging in the private or personal sphere. It is strongly believed that politics does not and should not interfere in personal affairs and institutions.

Politics as compromise

Politics is commonly called the "art of compromise." This label is thought to be especially appropriate for democratic politics.

Elected officials representing different voters meet in legislative chambers to hammer out policies that all constituents can live with. Of course, no politicians or voters receive everything they want in the final legislative package:

The need to assemble at least a simple majority to implement any policy almost invariably means that supporters of some policy must sacrifice something of value to others active in the political process

Few doubt that politics is indeed the art of compromise. politicians who refuse to compromise seldom win and hold on to office for the obvious reason that uncompromising politicians garner too little to send home to voters.

 Successful politicians early on learn the survival value of compromise. Economist Donald Wittman (1995: 154) correctly observes, "That is what good politicians do: create coalitions and find acceptable compromises." Political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain (1995: 61) is almost rhapsodic about democratic compromise: “But compromise is not a ordinary way to do politics; it is an adventure, the only way to do democratic politics.”

While the centrality of compromise to politics is beyond question, we argue that the current story of political compromise is misleadingly incomplete. Our argument is built of two points. First, that politics is the art of compromise only at the level of legislative activity; politics is not the art of compromise at the ballot box. While compromise by elected officials is necessary for the successful political careers of these officials, the argument is that the institutional structure of democratic elections causes voters to seek representatives who at least appear to be uncompromising.

A complication for elected officials is that many voters also want their representatives to bring home the cake. Because bringing home the cake requires compromise with other legislators, each legislator confronts the difficult task of being an expert compromiser in legislatures while appearing to voters to be an uncompromising champion of principle.

Politics as concensus

This is a method where the ruling party uses a system of asking the various sides in an argument to put forward their own ideas and then trying for find a consensus, which is a agreement that all parties can agree with. By getting all sides to contribute their own ideas, the final agreement is built with input from all sides of the question, rather than one group over-ruling all the others, with their power.

Consensus is a hall mark of a mature nation's ability to make good laws with agreement from all sides of the political spectrum.

Politics as power

Power politics  is a form of international relations in which sovereign entities protect their own interests by threatening one another with military, economic or political aggression.

Power politics is essentially a way of understanding the world of international relations: nations compete for the world's resources and it is to a nation's advantage to be manifestly able to harm others. It prioritizes national self-interest over the interest of other nations or the international community.

Techniques of power politics include, but are not limited to, conspicuous nuclear development, pre-emptive strike, blackmail, the massing of military units on a border, the imposition of tariffs or economic sanctions etc.