POLITICS WEEK ONE NOTES
Definition of Politics
Politcs is above all a social activity. As Stoker put it, ‘Politics is designed to disappoint”, its
outcomes are ‘often messy, ambiguous and never final”.
To study politics is to study government. David Easton defined politics as the authoritative
allocation of values. He means that politics encompasses the various processes through which
government responded to pressures from the larger society, in particular by allocating benefits,
rewards or penalties. Politics is often associated with ‘policy’.
Politics is therefore practiced jn cabinet rooms etc. Its engaged by specific group of people, notably
politicians, civil servants etc. Businesses,schools and families etc are regarded as non political.
Because they are not engaged ‘running the country’. By the same token to portray politics as state
bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important international or the global influences on
modern life.
To treat politics as the equivalent of party politics is to say ‘the political’ is restricted to state actors
who are consciously motivated by idealogical beliefs and who seek to advance them through
membership of a formal organisation such as a political party. Civil servants are considered non
political as long as they act in a neutral way.
The link between politics and the affairs of testate also explains the negative images associated
with politics. In the popular mind politics is associated closely with politicians. Whom are seen as
power seeking hypocrites concealing personal ambitions behind rhetoric of public service and
idealogical conviction intensified media exposure brings light to examples of corruption and
dishonesty, giving rise to the phenomena of ‘anti-politics’ this view says politics is a ‘two faced and
unprincipled activity’. Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince developed a strict account of politics that
drew attention to the use by political leaders of cunning, cruelty and manipulations.
Politics concerns itself with production,distrubution and the use of resources in the course of social
existence. Politics is in essence power. Harold Laswell definition of politics is that politics is about
diversity and conflict and the crucial part is existence of scarcity. Politics can therefore bee seen as
a struggle over scarce resources, and power can be seen as the means through which this
struggle is conducted. Marxists and feminists are advocates of this view. Feminists say ‘The
Personal is Political’. Kate Millet defined politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements
whereby one group of persons is controlled by another’. Marxists use politics in two senses. For
Marx politics refer to the apparatus of the state. He and Engels refered to ‘political power’ as
merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another’. Politics together with law and
culture are part of the ‘superstructure’ that is distinct from the economic base which is the real
foundation of social life. He believed that the ‘superstructure’ arose out of and reflected the
economic base. At a deeper level politics is the most concentrated form of economics. Marxists
can be said to believe that ‘the economic is political’.
The marxist view portrays politics in a negative light as it says politics is about oppression and
subjugation. Marxists argue that politics in a capitalist society is characterised by the exploitation of
the proletariat by the bourgeoisie on the other hand politics can be seen as a emancipating force.
Politics must not be seen as a inevitable feature of social existence. Marxists believed that ‘class
politics’ will end with establishment of a classes Communist society.
Politics as power
The fourth definition of politics is the broadest and the most radical that being politics is not
confined to the public realm/sphere but rather politics is at work in all social activities and in every
corner of social existence. Adrian Leftwhich proclaimed that ‘politics is at the heart of all collective
social activity social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human groups,
institutions and societies”. Politics takes place at every level of social interaction.
Faces of power
• Power as decision making: Robert Dahl made judgements about who had power by analysing
decisions in the light of the known preferences of the actors.
• Power as agenda setting: is the ability to prevent decisions being made that is in effect “non-
decision making”. This involves the ability to set or control the political agenda.
• Power as thought control: the ability to influence another by shaping what she or he thinks, wants
or needs. This power is expressed as idealogical indoctrination or psychological control. Lukes
called this the radical view of power and it overlaps with the notion of ‘soft’ power.
Studying politics
• The philosophical tradition: the origin of this analysis dates back to Ancient Greece its tradition
is usually referred to as ‘political philosophy’. Its involved with ethical, prescriptive and or
normative questions. Plato and Aristotle are regarded as founding fathers of this tradition.
Augustine and Aquinas’s writings also formed the basis of this tradition
• The empirical tradition: A descriptive/empirical tradition was less prominent than normative
theorising. Such writings constitute the basis of what is now called ‘comparative goverment’.
The empirical approach to politics is characterised by the attempt to offer a dispassionatemand
impartial account of political reality.
• The normative approach is prescriptive, it makes judgements and offers recommendations.
• Political analysis has been dominated by ‘scientific’ tradition, reflecting the growing impact of
positivism. Positivism means the theory that the social and indeed all forms of enquiry should
adhere strictly to the methods of the natural sciences.
• David Easton proclaimed that politics could adopt the methodology of the natural sciences. It
gave rise to the studies of voter behaviour and the behaviour of of legislators and behaviour of
municipal politicians and lobbyists.
• Concepts like liberty, equality, justice and rights were sometimes discarded as being
meaningless because they were not empirically verifiable entities.
• Rational choice theory is an approach to politics based heavily on economic theory in building
models based on procedural rules usually about the rationally self interested behaviour of
individuals involved.
• The approach had the broadest impact on political analysis in the form of what called
‘institutional public choice theory’. The rational choice theory is widely accepted.
• Political institutions are no longer equated with political organisations they are thought of as
rules instead of things
• Institutionalists emphasise that institutions are embedded in a particular
Critical approaches to politics
• Marxism had constituted the principal alternative to mainstream political science. Marx attempted
to describe politics in scientific terms using his materials conception of history . It enabled him to
make prediction of the future based on ‘laws’.
• As result many other critical approaches emerged such as feminism, green
politics,contructivism,post-structualism and post colonialism.
• There one thing that links all the different critical approaches to politics is that they all share an
antipathy towards mainstream thinking.
• The first characteristic of critical approaches is that they contest the political status quo, they in
other words seek to uncover inequalities and asymmetries that mainstream approaches to
politics tend to ignore.
• The second characteristic is that they have tried to go beyond the positivism of mainstream
politics
Concepts , models and theories
Concepts, models and theories are the tools of political analysis. A concept is a general idea about
something. A concept is more an idea of something. The value of concepts. Concepts are the tools
with we think, critize, argue, explain and analyse. Concepts also help us to classify object, argue,
explain and analyse. It is no exaggeration that to say out knowledge of the political world is built up
through redefining concepts. There is a danger that concepts will be more rounded and coherent
than the realities they seek to describes. Max Webber tried to overcome this problem by
recognizing particular concepts as ‘ideal types’. This view implies that concepts we use
constructed by singling out certain basic or central features of the phenomen in question. The
concept must be nevertheless be used with care thereby distorts understanding. Satori highlighted
similar tendencies by drawing attention to the the phenomena of conceptual ‘travelling’. It is better
to think concepts or ideals types as being ‘true’ or ‘false’ but as being more or less ‘useful’. Political
concepts are often subject of deep idealogical controversy. Politics is a struggle over a legitimate
meaning of terms and concepts. Concepts like justice have different meanings to different people.
Models and theories are broader than concepts. A model is usually thought of as represenation of
something usually on a smaller scale. Influential models in political analysis is the model of the
political system developed by David Easton. A system is an organised or complex whole set of
interrelated and interdependent parts that form a collective entity. Easton calls ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’
inputs into the political system consist of demands and supports from the general public. Outputs
consists of the decisions and actions of government including the making of policy, the passing of
laws, the imposition of taxes, and the allocation of values of public funds. Eastons model is that the
political system tends towards long term equilibrium or political stability as its survival depends on
outputs being brought into line with inputs. Conceptual models are at best simplifications of the
reality they seek to explain. Eastons model for example political parties and interest groups are
portrayed as gatekeepers, the central function of which is to regulate the flow of inputs into the
political systems respond to popular pressures. Theory and Model are terms used interchangeably
in politics. Conceptual constructs used as tools of political analysis. Theory is a proposition. In
contrast a model us merely an explanatory device. Class theories of politics advanced by marxists,
are based on broader theories about history and society. They ultimately rest on the validity of an
entire social philosophy. A sense in which analytical devices such as models and micro theories
are constructed on the basis of broader macro thesis. Major theoretical tools of political are those
that dress the issues of power and the role of the state; pluralism. Macrotheories reflect the
assumptions and beliefs of one or there of major ideological traditions. ‘Paradigms’ constitutes the
frame work. According to Kuhn the natural science are dominated at any time by a single
paradigm. Science develops through a series of ‘revolutions’. These paradigms take the form of
broad social philosophies usually called ‘political philosophies’. Each present its own account for its
existence, each offers a particular view of the world. Political analysis is narrowly idealogical, it
advances the interests of a particular group/class. Political analysis is carried out by a specific
idealogical tradition.
Politics in a global age
Politics has been focused on the state and particularly on its governmental apparatus :The
instituttinal framework. The state based paradigm is one in which politics has a distinct spatial or
territorial character. Aka borders matter, this applies especially with the distinction between
domestic politics which is concerned with maintaining order and carrying out regulations within its
own borders. International politics is concerned with the relation among states. Sovereignty is the
‘hard shell’ that divides ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ politics. Inside politics has a orderly charc=acter
contrast to outside politics that has a archaic politics, political science views states as macro level
actors within the politics and IR has treated states as micro level actors within the larger
international arena.
If political activity can no longer be seen as to take place within a discrete domestic and
international spheres, politics is perhaps best understood in terms of overlaps and
interrelationships between and among a number of spheres. One of the implications of accepting
politics takes place not only in the global, regional, national or local spheres but also crucially,
through relationships between those various spheres so it expands the parameters and the
complexity of politics it becomes difficult and maybe even impossible to make sense of it as a
whole. This is why we study elections, political parties,cosntitutions etc.
Hyperglobalizers who subscribe to the idea that politics has been caught up in a swirl in
interconnected. It fails to acknowledge that states are often transformed, continue to be the most
significant actors in both the domestic and the international spheres. Sovereignty may no longer be
a ‘hard’ shell that separates inside. What goes on inside states impacts what happens between
them.
