Politics can be broadly defined and there is no single agreed upon definition. It involves both political processes and actions of government. From the perspective of commoners, their interest in politics focuses more on how government actions impact their lives, while scholars have a deeper understanding of political processes and why certain decisions are made. Prominent definitions of politics include seeing it as the activity through which people make and amend rules under which they live (Heywood) or as being about who gets what resources from government (Laswell).
Politics can be broadly defined and there is no single agreed upon definition. It involves both political processes and actions of government. From the perspective of commoners, their interest in politics focuses more on how government actions impact their lives, while scholars have a deeper understanding of political processes and why certain decisions are made. Prominent definitions of politics include seeing it as the activity through which people make and amend rules under which they live (Heywood) or as being about who gets what resources from government (Laswell).
Politics can be broadly defined and there is no single agreed upon definition. It involves both political processes and actions of government. From the perspective of commoners, their interest in politics focuses more on how government actions impact their lives, while scholars have a deeper understanding of political processes and why certain decisions are made. Prominent definitions of politics include seeing it as the activity through which people make and amend rules under which they live (Heywood) or as being about who gets what resources from government (Laswell).
1. The study of politics leads one to infer how broad and contentious it appears to be, which explains why there is no general agreement as to which should be the major definition, or at least which is superior to another. If there are rivaling conception of politics, which is Politics being encompassing – As pointed out by Heywood, politics is a very loaded term, it could be associated to other fields of study such as economics and history. Politics being essentially contested – Another major conflict when defining politics is the numerous disparate definitions proposed by many notable political scientists that rival one another. As the political realm is primarily associated with the government, politics as a process remains to be overlooked by a commoner and looks more interested on the course of action that’s transpires in politics as an arena. On the other hand, scholars, while being considerably knowledgeable of public affairs and the government, they are intellectually superior of political processes contrary to commoners.
2. Politics in the perspective of commoners – When it comes to politics, their interest
resides more on how the government enforces laws, contributes to the lives of its constituents, or extend their help to the marginalized, they are primarily enticed by legitimate execution of action of the government. Most likely actions that benefit themselves, a shallow gratification from politics seeing only the superficial angles of the matter.
3. Politics in the perspective of scholars – From a scholar’s perspective, the political
processes are subsumed in their knowledge as well, being highly aware of how and why the government came up with such decisions, whether politicians exercise power due to nobility or it is mainly driven by personal interests. Such keen perspective on political events require so much of critical thinking and penetration to the political spectrum. II. Prominent Definitions of Politics 1. Andrew Heywood: Politics is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live – From heywood’s standpoint, it is worth noting that the people are major players in deciding which is optimal for the entirety of their community. An empowerment for the people and most probably manifests in strong democracies where consensus remains significant and majority of the citizens concur to altruistic decisions. 2. Harold Laswell: Who Gets What, When and How. – However, for Laswell, politics is about who