Paghari-on, James Matthew M.

12031542

When one develops in an interest in the field of politics one word always comes into mind and
that is power. Power has always been an important part in the field of politics, and the discipline
of political science identifies this as such with some noted political theorists producing material
on the basis of analyzing and defining the concept alone. Power in the context of politics is noted
to have this ability to make people or groups do decisions that they would not be able to make
under normal circumstances, and as such this concept has been used to provide context or
explanation for decisions that political actors have made in terms of governing or leading by
theorists and analysts in the field of politics for centuries.

With proper context given on why power is such an important concept in politics, why is it
important for people to understand or define politics as power? It is mentioned earlier in this
paper that power has the ability for people to make decisions that they wouldn’t otherwise have
made if they weren’t under pressure due to power disparity from other parties. And these
decisions can place in the context of economical decisions, national security, and general welfare
in which they all respectively have the ability to affect people on a personal level. This also leads
to the idea of political power having the capacity to enact drastic societal changes or deny them
altogether.

Various examples throught history has shown what power in the political realm can do in terms
of societal change. A notable example is the downfall of the Soviet Union in which Brown
(2007) noted that during the Cold War that Gorbachev’s policies of Glasnost and Perestroika
have dealt significant changes in the political structure and society in the Soviet Union which
contributed to it’s subsequent downfall. These measures enacted by Gorbachev wouldn’t be
possible without the legitimate political power he held during that time.

Another example includes Reagan’s economic policies of Reaganomics has also brought
signficant change to the economic situation during his time, Blanchard et al. (1987) mentioned
that Reagan’s policies brought a negative effect to the macroeconomics situation of the United
States. And as such, these economic policies enacted by Reagan wouldn’t be enacted if there was
a significant opposition from their implementation into the United States’s economic policies
during the time.

Power and politics go hand in hand with one another, and in turn the effects of politics in one’s
personal life cant be understated, it encompases so many aspects in our personal lives and how
the concept of power is integral to understanding politics itself. Focault (1982) mentioned
‘Power as such does not exist’ but power ‘needs to be considered as a productive network which
runs through the whole social body’. It implies power exists in every social interaction and that
applies as well to the field of politics and how we can understand the idea of politics as power.
References:

Blanchard, O. J., Branson, W., & Currie, D. (1987). Reaganomics. Economic Policy, 2(5), 15.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1344620

Brown, A. (2007). Perestroika and the end of the Cold War. Cold War History, 7(1), 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14682740701197631

Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795.
https://doi.org/10.1086/448181