What is politics?

Kunjal Rajyagor Student ID: 4051749

WHAT IS POLITICS?

Approaches to Politics Studies 07/08

On hearing the word politics, claimed and enhanced by dictionary definition as “the practice of the art or science of directing and administering states or other politics units” 1 what usually springs to mind are images of government, politicians and their policies or more negatively the idea of corruption and dirty tricks? The actual definition seems to have been obscured and almost lost by such representations and clichés that tend not to pinpoint the true essence, which defines this thing, called politics. Politics in its broadest sense appears to be the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. Although conversely, Politics is also an academic subject- sometimes identified by the use of “Politics” with the capital P- it is clearly the study of this apparent activity.

Politics can thus be claimed to be inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation, since on the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing needs and opposing interests guarantee disagreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognise that, in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with each other; hence Hannah Arendt’s definition of political power as “acting in concert”.2

1: McMillan and McLean, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, Oxford University Press, New York 2003. 2nd Edition.

2: Leah Bradshaw, Acting and Thinking: the political thought of Hannah Arendt

Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 22, No.4 (Dec. 1989) p906-908

However, Politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for conflict resolution than as its achievement, as not all conflicts are, or can be resolved.

Never the less, the inescapable presence of diversity- the claim that we are not all alike- and scarcity-the fact that there is never enough to go around- ensures that Politics is an inevitable feature of mankind. However this is no definition.

In order to make an attempt at a definition of politics a systematic approach is required. To begin with, a brief historical overview will be considered, to understand the origins of politics. Following this, different core concepts, which are imperative to a definition of politics, will be discussed, in the hope to discover a true and fair interpretation of the word politics.

The word politics comes from the Greek word "polis", meaning the state or community as a whole. The concept of the "polis" was an ideal state and came from the writings of great political thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. In his novel "The Republic", Plato describes the ideal state and the means to achieve it. Hence, the word politics originally has connotations in the ways in which to create the ideal society. An ideal society is in practice a rather difficult aim and even an impossible aim to achieve. Politics implies measures which could and should, in the views of their devisor, be implemented in the hope to create a better society, than that which is already present. The very fact that Plato and Aristotle saw imperfections in the societies, in which they lived, prompted them to write their political philosophies. These philosophies provided the first written recognition of politics. In his writings his "The Politics", Aristotle states that "Man is by nature a political animal" 3

3: Aristotle (1996) The Politics and the Constitution of Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

in another words, it lies deep within the instinct of man. It is almost primal. 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) because people disagree. They disagree about how they should live, who should get what? How should power and resources be distributed?

Thus, due to his nature man should consider and realise his role within the "polis". So according to Aristotle Politics is not a dreamt up concept, but rather an inherent feature of mankind.

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Thus, due to his nature man should consider and realise his role within the "polis". So according to Aristotle Politics is not a dreamt up concept, but rather an inherent feature of mankind.

To begin with, the basest premise that underpins the notion of politics should be considered in order to arrive at a fair definition. Man is self-preserving by nature. He thinks and acts, whether that is as an individual or as a group who share interests, with foremost regard to his own interests. Self-perpetuation is the number one rule. He therefore possesses his own interests, ideas and preferences, which may differ to those of his contemporaries. In the "Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought", Miller supports this premise: "Politics presupposes a diversity of view, if not about ultimate aims, at least the best ways of achieving them". 4 Politics consider this view of man, in that on meeting others whose interests oppose his own, conflict is bound to occur. What could be the cause of this conflict in interest? The world has its limits; all material wealth within it is exhaustible. Who therefore, gets how large a share, of those resources, which are present on the earth in limited supply?

If man were permitted to act on and pursue his own selfish interests, snatching that, which he desires, a society would quickly become under rule of violence and anarchy.

4 Miller, D (1987) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.390)

Politics is a way of combating the degradation of society into a violent and unstructured mess by reducing it to be governed by the primitive instincts of man in order to resolve conflict. Leftwich states in his essay entitled "Politics: people, resources and power" from his book "What is Politics?" "...politics compromises all the activities of co-operation and conflict, within and between societies, whereby the human species goes about organising the use, production and distribution of human, natural and other resources in the production and reproduction of its biological and social life." 5

Politics therefore may be defined a means to resolving this conflict through various means, which will be tackled later in this essay. If however one was to take this premise of the existence of opposing opinions as false, conflict between individuals should never occur and politics would not be required to resolve problems. To justify politics however, this premise must be true and through simply considering, the society in which we live it is evident, that conflict exists. In his definition of politics in the "Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought" Miller advocates this view, stating that if "people (were to) agree spontaneously on a course of action...they (would) have no need to engage in politics."6 Thus, politics exists due to the broad spectrum of ideas and opinions within any society. To resolve conflicting opinions, a consensus must be agreed upon by all parties affected. Also in "The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought", Miller cites three methods which are a feature of politics when resolving disagreements within society,

5 :Leftwich, A (1984) What is Politics? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.64-65)

6: Miller, D (1987) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.390)

these three elements are "persuasion, bargaining and a mechanism for reaching a final decision”.7 This means that politics tries to act as a peacemaker by offering solution(s) to conflict to the parties involved by means of discussion with them. The outcome will most probably require the yielding of at least one of the parties implicated in order to meet at a compromise. The mechanism is the way in which the parties make their final decisions based on the scenarios with which they have been provided. This may take the form of a vote.

How is it that the final decision made though compromise is enforceable? For surely in order for politics to be of any use as a pacifier in strained relations it must carry some sort of authority and power. Politics implies power. Dahl, in Modern Political Analysis, states that: "a political system as any persistent pattern of human relationships that involves, to a significant extent, control, influence, power or authority." 8 Certain members of a society must have the authority over other member's in order to enforce civil discussion in the first place. It seems to follow that for certain individuals to exert more power than others they must have the support of a large proportion over those which they have authority. Going back to the premise that man is at heart a selfish creature, it must be true that even those in power are immune to the effects of pursuing their own goals to a certain extent. Politics could therefore be defined as a power struggle between those in influential positions. Power can only be obtained by obtaining the support from as many groups and individuals as possible.

7: Miller, D (1987) The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.390)

8: Dahl, R (1984) Modern Political Analysis (New Jersey: Prentice Hall) (p.9-10)

This can be achieved by providing tempting solutions to conflicts that already exist in a society, whether this be in a honest or dishonest way. By appealing to members of a society with solutions to their problems and promises to act in their interests, a group or individual can gain support and ultimately authority over other groups and individuals. Politics could thus be defined as a calculating art of power gain or power retention or more simply as power struggle.

The ultimate power is found in government. Miller continues to name the state as "the chief arena of politics, in the modern world.9 It is within this institution that all of the aforementioned takes place. Thus, politics could be defined as the workings of government as a guarantor to a peaceful society. The government is run by the politicians; it is the politicians who form the ideas to hopefully settle conflict in the society they govern. However it seems that if politics are the working of government those societies and communities, which do not possess a government, are devoid of politics. In Britain, we have a government so we tend to relate the politics as the workings of that government. However, in every community and corporation where there is hierarchy politics must exist. In a company for example, a boss makes decisions and resolves conflict. In a tribe, a leader makes decisions to keep internal conflicts to a minimum and ultimately ensures the survival of his tribe. Thus politics is present in every community and is used to manage workings and disagreements that may occur within any co-habitation. John Horton, contributor in Leftwich "What is Politics?" supports this view. Horton quotes from "Rationalism in Politics and other Essays"(1962) by Michael Oakenshott; "Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have brought

9: Miller, D (1987) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.391)

together. In this sense, families, clubs and learned societies have their politics" 10 Here Oakenshott acknowledges the existence of politics in all kinds of human societies and communities, because of co-habitation. Horton however goes on to name the state as being as possessing certain features which make it particular from those other examples of politics listed by Oakenshott. These features suggest the mandatory and authoritarian nature of the state, when compared to those politics that exist in say a sports club. Politics occurs in all kinds of communities. Whether it be the sports club or the state government and is concerned with devising a method of organisation and attempting to implement that method of organisation within that community over which it acts. It is present in these communities as a necessary measure to avoid conflict due to those inevitable diversities in opinion and therefore ultimately needed to promote as peaceful an existence as possible.

Any attempt to clarify the meaning of “politics” must nevertheless address two major problems. Primarily, the mass of associations that the word had when used in everyday language, in other words, politics is a “loaded” term. Whereas most people claim everyday subjects such as economics, geography, history and biology simply as academic subjects, and few come to politics without preconceptions. Many, for instance, automatically presume that the 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. The term mentioned before “dirty tricks” is highlighted again, as to make matters worse, politics is usually thought of as a “dirty” word; conjuring up images of trouble, disruption and even violence on the one hand, and deceit, manipulation and lies on the other. Such associations today, appear to be a

10: Leftwich, A (1984) What is Politics? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) (p.112)

common conception. As long ago as 1775, Samuel Johnson dismissed politics as “nothing more than a means of rising in the world”, while in the nineteenth century the US historian Henry Adams summed up politics as the “systematic organisation of hatreds”; a more controversial and harsh sounding, though slightly less cynical than Johnson, this definition is still tainted with the aforementioned bias. Any attempt to define politics therefore entails trying to disentangle the term from such associations. Not uncommonly, this has meant attempting to rescue the term from its unsavoury reputation by establishing that politics is a valuable, even laudable activity.

The second and more intractable difficulty is that even respected authorities cannot agree what the subject is about. As shown above, 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. However the definition “the making, preserving and amending of general social rules”, is that it is sufficiently broad to encompass most, if not all, the competing definitions before it.

However, problems arise when the definition is unpacked, or when the meaning is refined. For instance, does “politics” refer to a particular way in which rules are made, preserved or amended (that is peacefully, by debate), or to all such processes? Similarly, is politics practiced in all social contexts and institutions, or only in certain ones (that is government and public life?). From this perspective, politics may be treated as claimed by Gallie (1955/56); an “essentially contested” concept, in the sense that the term has a number of acceptable of 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 is exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological disagreements in the academic study of the subject.

This topic has been understood differently by different thinkers and within different traditions. “Politics is not a science… but an art”, as 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- an essentially classical definition of politics, essentially looking at “what concerns the state”, as the conduct and management of public affairs, as the resolution of conflict through debate and compromise, and as the production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence.

There is also considerable debate about the realm of the “political”. Conventionally, politics has narrowly been seen as embracing institutions and actors operating in a “public” sphere concerned with the collective organisation of social existence. However, when politics is understood in terms of power-structured relationships, it may be seen to operate in the “private” sphere as well.

Thus, a variety of approaches have been adopted to the study of politics as an academic discipline, these include political philosophy or the analysis of normative theory, an empirical tradition particularly concerned with the study of institutions and structures, attempts to introduce scientific rigour through behavioural analysis, and a variety of modern approaches including the use of rational-choice theory.

In the process of establishing the core concepts of this affair called politics, it is plain to see that a brief definition is virtually impossible. Politics is not simply an object or a single stranded idea. It is not a concise term but rather a complicated notion, which embraces premises, opinions, and qualities of human nature, actions and institutions. It seems to arise in those situations where humans live in coexistence whether that be by choice or otherwise. Any attempt at a definition would be to confine and customise politics to suit ones own particular views. Nevertheless, in fitting with the title of this essay an attempt at a definition shall be made.

Politics is the means to creating a more organised and peaceful society, by providing methods to resolve conflict that naturally occurs between men, by means of civil discussion and rational compromise. It thus stems the need for violence in tense situations and ultimately looks to avoid the degradation of a community into utter chaos. Authority is the underlying feature of politics and ensures its enforceability. Power underpins its very existence; it is a prerequisite for politics exist. Without authority, politics simply is not feasible. The most visible and widely accepted example of politics is the workings of the governmental institutions. However, although at first glance one may not be aware of it, politics in its various forms is present wherever and whenever humans form a community. Referring back to the views of Aristotle, politics is an intrinsic feature of mankind.

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