Political Science and Politics are often dealt as same.
Political Science is a subject of study, while Politics is the set of activities that form the subject of Political Science.
Therefore, diverse definitions of Politics lead to the expanse of the scope of Political Science. Thus many scholars use both the definitions together to understand the them together, rather than distinct from each other.
I have separated them to make it convenient for the reader and also to make the post relatively short.
Please go to Topic 11: for definition of Political Science exclusively.
So, what is Politics?
Politics originated from the Greek word, politika, which means 'affairs of the cities' or the affairs of the state. Polis is the Greek word for the then existing city-states.
Let us discuss some important definitions:
Aristotle: “Politics is a noble activity in which men decide the rules they will live by and the goals they will collectively pursue.”
If we break-down this definition, we get:
- Politics is a noble activity: It is concerned noble unlike what we think politics is today or what politics has actually become.
- men decide the rules they will live by : Doesn’t it sound like rule by the people?
- the goals they will collectively pursue: There is no individual goal. Goals are collectively pursued. It is not about majority also. Collective sounds so better compared to majority,
An in-depth understanding of this definition gives a very broad and a complete meaning to politics.
This correlates with his definition of the State:
“State comes into existence originating in the bare needs of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.”
According to Aristotle, good life or happiness is the proper end (goal) of the city-state.
David Easton: “Politics is concerned with the authoritative allocation of values for a society,"
- Authoritative means through a legitimate power. It can be understood as a government elected by the people or has the support of the people in general. It is not a government by force.
- Allocation means given or distributed to the people in terms of policies and programmes.
- Values imply both material and spiritual. Values can be understood as those important ingredients of life that people as a society in general seek. These can be mean democracy, equality, liberty, justice and such other cherished goals of humanity.
So, this definition has the following conditions for ‘politics’:
- A legitimate government
- must strive to give to the people of the society/state
- the values that are cherished by humanity.
Value based Politics: Need of the Hour.
Values can be of two kinds:
- Values at personal level (Base level) - example: honesty, integrity, discipline etc.
- Values at political level (Higher level) - example: liberty, equality, justice, democracy etc.
Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted to have said “Politics without ethics is a sin”
Politicians need to have some basic ethical and moral values like, honesty, service to the public etc. Our present day politicians don’t have these values and thus result in huge corruption and lack of governance.
Therefore, since the politicians themselves have lost values at their personal level, these higher values (democracy, liberty, equality etc.) do not reach the people at all.
The above two definitions of Aristotle and David Easton are ideal definitions, preaching moralism. Let us now discuss definitions of a different kind.
Harold Dwight Lasswell: “Politics is "who gets what, when, how".
The definition stated above is actually the title of the book written by HD Lasswell. To understand the meaning of this definition, we need to summarise the works of Lasswell in totality and not just that sentence alone.
- Who here include, political elites, people and personalities, groups and even culture.
- What is essentially, ‘power’, and to be more specific, ‘political power’.
- When has two meaning here: during the crises and between the crises. He says that agitators benefit a lot during the crises, while, the organisers get the most in the period between the crises.
- How include various means used for achieving power. Some that are listed by Lasswell are symbols, violence and media.
Lasswell gives definition of Political Science and Politics.
(I have dealt with Political Science definition in a separate post.)
Harold D Lasswell: “Politics is the study of influence and the influential.” (here Politics is used as a subject)
This definition narrows down to the political elites who exert great influence over the masses. It also includes the factors contributing to the influence.
Here lies a psychological aspect of a person, or a group to dominate the affairs of a state. This is an important understanding under Behariouralism.
However, we should not infer that politics is only about acquiring and using power through various means.
Hans J Morgenthau: “Domestic and Imnternational politics are but two different manifestations of same phenomenon: the struggle for power”
This definition includes two dimensions of politics. While individual actors actors struggle for power in the domestic politics, nations or states struggle for power in the international politics.
A few more definitions:
Otto von Bismarck: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”
Harry Truman: “Politics is the art of getting things done”
Vladimir Lenin: "Politics is the most concentrated expression of economics".
Politics today includes the following:
- The actions of the government as law making and law executing body.
- Policy formulation and policy implementation.
- The actions of the political parties and leaders aimed at achieving or retaining power.
Both ethical and unethical means are in use in today’s politics to achieve political goals.
No comments:
Post a Comment