What is politics & why is power difficult to define
What is politics & why is power difficult to define
Since man began to talk politics was born, politics is the social study and interaction with another being.
Politics is the process and method of gaining or maintaining support for public or common action. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions including corporate, academic, and religious. It is also social relations involving authority and power, the study of government and other political units,
It is also the study of conflict resolution, in the modern world, people argue over many beliefs, interests and values, the aim of politics is to remove this conflict to produce a general agreement over what people want and what believe is right. So the study of conflict resolution is coming to a compromise so both groups are pleased in one way or another. But this compromise can be achieved in any way, politics can be the art of the possible, it can be about deception, you can define it in many ways because its such a wide spread thing, just about every social interaction uses politics, from two children arguing over a toy, to two world powers arguing over a border dispute, both of those examples are the same, they both involve a conflict, but what makes them different is the consequences and of course, the first example is just two children, and the second, two nations.
Those hypothetical situations involve politics because, the two children have to interact to gain something out of it, they have to protect their interests, in this situation both children have the interest to play with the toy, but they both cannot have it at once because of the lack of recourse for this instance is the toy, so they will have to resolve this conflict, if they both wish to play with the toy.
Unlike the children, the two nations are conflicting over the borders of their countries, if one way to resolve this conflict was to rewrite the map so their borders don't conflict, that would solve the problem, but what about the gap that is now left, this involves moral values, because what happens if people lived there, they now aren't under the guidance of the state, they become refugees, this conflicts with the two nations values, and moral beliefs, who should now take in the refugees? Should they be split?.
Political activity can spring from a set of ...
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Unlike the children, the two nations are conflicting over the borders of their countries, if one way to resolve this conflict was to rewrite the map so their borders don't conflict, that would solve the problem, but what about the gap that is now left, this involves moral values, because what happens if people lived there, they now aren't under the guidance of the state, they become refugees, this conflicts with the two nations values, and moral beliefs, who should now take in the refugees? Should they be split?.
Political activity can spring from a set of values, and beliefs as well as self-interest, so in other words the conflict might be better unsolved than solved because if solved, it would go against peoples values and beliefs ,which is worse than conflicting interest.
But politics is the art of the possible, one of those nations if it wanted to resolve that conflict it could have used a less diplomatic way, it could have used coercion, force in similar terms, but to be able to use force, you need power, but what is it and why is it so difficult to define?
If people have power they have the ability to influence another persons behaviour even if that person doesn't want to do it, though a threat or sanctions or manipulation, in political situations people with power have the ability to reward those who conform and punish those who do not. power that is based on direct threats is called coercion, often governments or intervals don't have to resort to coercion to get their own way, some forms of power are seen as legitimate( fair and right) and people are obedient because of that, for example the laws set by the government that the people are made to obey, they do this because they accept the government as legitimate, power described in this way is called authority.
There are three types, one, a traditional authority , people obey rules set because they are established customs for example, the largest party in the house of commons commands , and holds the form of government.
The charismatic authority arises from the personality and qualities of a leader, people obey because they believe the leader should be obeyed as a consequence of the qualities they display, such as Winston Churchill during world war two, strong loyalty and pride generated from his orator qualities
Lastly, rational legal authority, for example, the government in the U.S.A follows a set of rules called a constitution, and because the laws are written down, the government has to follow them and expects the people of the country to do the same, it is the source of all federal and state authority in the U.S.
Some theories of power go beyond the qualities of a leader and traditions. Karl Marx believed that in studying power we must focus on the state and its institutions , such as parliament, civil service ,the police, armed forces, judiciary , and that the state in a capitalist society represents a ruling class, power tests those who control production distribution and exchange, the economic style determines the political system.
The max Weber theory revolved around authority , parliament decisions where thought to be legitimate and must be obeyed .
But power based on coercion ( those who weld power do so by force), this form of power is not legitimate.
Pareto's theory works that there is a group of elites who exercise power based on their superior qualities, attributes and characteristics, this theory is called , lions and foxes, the lions rule and power is based on direct action, while the foxes rule and power is based on being cunning and guile, it works based on psychological characteristics, one elite has power over the powerless.
Mascas theory of power works similar to Pareto's except there is a change in society based on a constant renewal and decay of elites, a continual recruitment of elites, so under this theory of power, the powerless can move up and down the social scale of power.
The theory of pluralism and power (by Robert Dahl and nelson Polsby , and Floyd hunter)
Is a study of government and decision making, critique of elitism and does construct a more sophisticated model of power
They developed it out a case study of Atlanta Georgia, and asked questions like, who made all the decisions and who are individuals and is democracy a façade ?
The conclusion was it was too impossible to identify that a group of elites exist in decision making, and that the political system is very complex, its based on negotiation and that many political actors exists(acting for your interests) but mainly the power is dispersed amongst various groups, society is a plurality of groups, groups are a plurality of groups and groups compete for power, no one group denominates , politics in the pluralist theory is bargaining and compromise, and is open to reasonable influence, the governments requires ,response to demand, meaning you have to put something in before you get something out, and the political parties aim to mobilise interest and compete for voter support.
Power is so hard to define because it can be explained in many ways, and there is lots of types of power, the most legitimate is the most complex, and that power is only given to you if you put it back in, a coercive theory of power is always putting force into the scheme to stop anyone from taking power, the pluralism theory of power is a balancing act it requires people who don't have power to put respond to government before they can demand response from the government, but overall it is hard to define because of the complexity on who should get power, and how it works from then on, if an elite has power, he has all the control, and do how he wants but pluralism groups work off each other and the government which is a complicated process.
Jason Brown