What Is Politics?
Politics is a broad term that refers to the ways in which people try to shape public decisions and policies. People who study politics learn to analyze the way governments, politicians and internal political systems work and how people interact with each other within these structures. They also gain a range of skills that they can use to make changes in society, whether as a politician or as a citizen who wants to make an impact.
One of the simplest definitions of politics is that it concerns the state, which encompasses the permanent institutions that provide public services, enforce laws, ensure security and govern people and things. The state is headed by politicians who are temporarily elected to run it, and the politicians determine what the public services should be, what laws should be made, how security should be provided, and what purposes the state should serve.
Another way to think about politics is that it involves the authoritative and legitimate struggle for limited resources or precious rights and privileges. This is true in the context of government, but it is also the case at the level of society as a whole. Politics is a process of manoeuvring to assert rival interests, and it is often messy and violent. It is sometimes possible to achieve a reasonable solution that satisfies all, but more often the solutions grossly favor one set of interests over another.
In democratic societies, citizens vote to elect officials based on their ideas about how the state should function. Those officials then make decisions for the state, based on their manifestos that they outline during campaigns. The number of elected officials depends on the size of the country, but in most countries there are too many residents to have a single central government, so they adopt a federal system of splitting power between a national government and local city or regional governments that are connected to each other through the national government.
In addition to making domestic policy, politicians also interact with other governments on the international stage. They may go to war with each other, but more typically they negotiate with each other through international or regional organisations. The rise of globalisation in the 20th century has enabled these interactions to take on an increasing scale, with more and more parts of the world becoming part of a common political space. These developments are an important consideration for those who study politics, as they change the context in which political decision making takes place. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
Politics is a broad term that refers to the ways in which people try to shape public decisions and policies. People who study politics learn to analyze the way governments, politicians and internal political systems work and how people interact with each other within these structures. They also gain a range of skills that they can use to make changes in society, whether as a politician or as a citizen who wants to make an impact. One of the simplest definitions of politics is that it concerns the state, which encompasses the permanent institutions that provide public services, enforce laws, ensure security and govern people and things. The state is headed by politicians who are temporarily elected to run it, and the politicians determine what the public services should be, what laws should be made, how security should be provided, and what purposes the state should serve. Another way to think about politics is that it involves the authoritative and legitimate struggle for limited resources or precious rights and privileges. This is true in the context of government, but it is also the case at the level of society as a whole. Politics is a process of manoeuvring to assert rival interests, and it is often messy and violent. It is sometimes possible to achieve a reasonable solution that satisfies all, but more often the solutions grossly favor one set of interests over another. In democratic societies, citizens vote to elect officials based on their ideas about how the state should function. Those officials then make decisions for the state, based on their manifestos that they outline during campaigns. The number of elected officials depends on the size of the country, but in most countries there are too many residents to have a single central government, so they adopt a federal system of splitting power between a national government and local city or regional governments that are connected to each other through the national government. In addition to making domestic policy, politicians also interact with other governments on the international stage. They may go to war with each other, but more typically they negotiate with each other through international or regional organisations. The rise of globalisation in the 20th century has enabled these interactions to take on an increasing scale, with more and more parts of the world becoming part of a common political space. These developments are an important consideration for those who study politics, as they change the context in which political decision making takes place. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Plato and Aristotle