Politics

Politics is the art, science, and activities involving the government or the state. The word "politics" is derived from the Greek word πολιτική (politiki) which was in turn derived from the words πόλη (poli) meaning city or state and πολίτης (politis) meaning citizen. Some of the earliest writings on politics are those of Aristotle, particularly his treatise entitled Politics which introduced the concepts of six types of governance. According to Aristotle, every Athenian was a "zoon politikon", a "political animal". This idea reflects the fact that every citizen was connected to the "res publica", the public life of the polis, since he could take decisions and actions that would affect the city inside the Ecclesia (the popular assembly in ancient Athens).

In the 10th Chapter of his treatise, Artistotle proposes one of the first typologies of political systems. These six types of governance are classified according to two main criteria: the number of holders of the supreme power (the quantitative criterium), and the main purpose of the power holders (the qualitative criterium). The first three types of governance are monarchy (where there is only one power holder: the monarch), aristocracy (where only a few hold the power), and the republic (where the people are the power holders). In these three types, the purpose of the power holders is the public interest. These are therefore just forms of government according to Aristotle. However, they can deviate from their original purpose because of the emergence of personal interests. Monarchy becomes tyranny under the rule of a despotic monarch, aristocracy degenerates in oligarchy when the government serves the purpose of the rich minority, and the republic becomes a democracy where only the poor govern. Democracy is not a just form of government according to Aristotle because the poor become tyrants and are dominated by demagogues.

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published his most famous work, Leviathan, in which he proposed a model of early human development to justify the creation of a government. Hobbes described an ideal state of nature wherein every person had equal right to every resource in nature and was free to use any means to acquire those resources. He claimed that such an arrangement created a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). Further, he noted that men would enter into a social contract and would give up absolute rights for certain protections. Hobbes made a second claim: that the solution to the aggression problem was a centralized authoritarian state, which he called Leviathan.

While it appears that social cooperation and dominance hierarchies predate human societies, Hobbes' model illustrates a rationale for the creation of societies (polities).

V.G. Childe described the transformation of human society that took place around 6000 BCE as an urban revolution. Among the features of this new type of civilization were the institutionalization of social stratification, non-agricultural specialised crafts (including priests and lawyers), taxation, and writing, all of which require clusters of densely populated settlements or city-states.

In recent years politics has also been used in a pejorative manner with regard to the activities within organizations such as in the phrase "office politics". At one time politics also referred to the academic study of government activities (i.e. "He is a professor of politics.") but the term political science is now more commonly used.

Political Concepts

• Power -- Max Weber defined power as the ability to impose one's will upon another, while Hannah Arendt states that "political power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert."
• Authority is the ability to enforce laws, to exact obedience, to command, to determine, or to judge.
• A government is the body that has the authority to make and enforce rules or laws.
• Legitimacy is an attribute of government gained through the acquisition and application of power in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles.
• Sovereignty is the ability of a government to exert control over its territory free from outside influence.

Authority and legitimacy

Max Weber identified three sources of legitimacy for authority, known as the tripartite classification of authority. He proposed three reasons why people follow the orders of those who give them:

Traditional

Traditional authorities receive loyalty because they continue and support the preservation of existing values, the status quo. Traditional authority has the longest history. Patriarchal (and more rarely matriarchal) societies gave rise to hereditary monarchies where authority was given to descendants of previous leaders. Followers submit to this authority because "we've always done it that way." Examples of traditional authoritarians include absolute monarchs.

Charismatic

Charismatic authority grows out of the personal charm or the strength of an individual personality (see cult of personality for the most extreme version). Charismatic regimes are often short-lived, seldom outliving the charismatic figure that leads them.

Examples of Charismatic regimes include: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Hitler, Napoleon, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro.

For a charismatic regime to survive the rule of the individual personality, it must transform its legitimacy into a different form of authority. An example of this would be Augustus' efforts to create the position of the Roman principate and establish a ruling dynasty, which could be viewed as a shift to a traditional form of authority, in the form of the principate that would exist in Rome for more than 400 years after his death.

Legal-rational

Legal-rational authorities receive their ability to compel behavior by virtue of the office that they hold. It is the authority that demands obedience to the office rather than the office holder. Modern democracies are examples of legal-rational regimes. People also abide by legal-rational authority because it makes sense to do so for their own good, as well as for the greater good of society.

Other considerations

Often hybrid forms of the above will be found, especially in transition from one form to another, such as in the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi domination of Germany, in which the Nazi party gradually suspended many laws regarding various civil rights for an indefinite period.

See also

• Politics by country
• Political science
• Political history
• Political scientists
• Comparative government
• International relations
• Political economy
• Political philosophy
• Political psychology
• Form of government
• Sovereignty
• Public administration
• Consent of the governed
• Theories of political behavior

In Famous Quotations

• Harold Lasswell defined politics as "who gets what, when, where, and how."
• Mao Zedong -- "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
• Otto von Bismarck -- "Politics is the art of feasibility."

References

• Otto von Bismarck; remark, Aug. 11, 1867
• Dickerson, Mark O. & Flanagan; Thomas, 1990 Introduction to Government & Politics: A Conceptual Approach. third edition
• Gompers, Samuel; “Men of Labor! Be Up and Doing,” editorial, American Federationist, May 1906, p. 319
• Mao Zedong; Lecture, May 1938. "On Protracted War," Selected Works, vol. 2 (1965).)