WHAT IS POLITICS?

Week 2
Lecture2
WEEK 2: LECTURE SUMMARY

1. Popular Definitions & Politics in Crisis

2. ‘Classic’ Conceptions
3. ‘Modern Liberal’ Conceptions
4. The Politics of ‘What is Politics’
WHAT IS POLITICS?
WHAT DO WE LABEL AS POLITICAL?
WHAT IS POLITICS?
WHAT DO WE LABEL AS POLITICAL?
“Climate research is necessary but it has been heavily
politicized, which has undermined a lot of the work that
researchers have been doing”
Bob Walker (former US Rep. Congressmen)

“This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue — it affects the

survival of human civilization”.
Al Gore
WHAT IS POLITICS?
WHAT DO WE LABEL AS POLITICAL?
1. Politics

2. Political

3. Politicized
This, in turn, tells us something about the nature of
politics today… and why it’s important to study it!
POPULAR DEFINITIONS &
THE CRISIS OF POLITICS
The crisis of Politics:
something that politicians do increasingly badly
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/trust-politicians-falls-sending-them-spiralling-back-
bottom-ipsos-mori-veracity-index
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/
Lack of trust can, however, provide political opportunity:
some argue that ’populist’ leaders have capitalised on
the perceived need to ‘restore trust' in politics…
Why has this happened?

1. Loss of deference

2. Political scandals, corruption

3. Government arguments about lack of own

competence

4. Inequalities and lack of fairness

­ Voting doesn’t change anything
1. The politicians' view of ‘politics’: the ‘game’
 Otto von Bismarck
‘The art of the possible’

Indira Gandhi
‘The art of acquiring, holding, and wielding power’

Margaret Thatcher
‘I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own
way in the end’
2. Politics as formal & informal institutions
3. Politics as something ‘we’ do
Politics and the ‘Everyday’

Questions several assumptions about politics:

1. Who does politics?
2. How you do politics?
3. Which issues can be object of public debate?
WHY STUDY POLITICS?
• The crisis of politics is one good reason WHY we
should be studying politics:
•To stand back from and critically conceptualise
political appraoches, and explain why they work
• To learn about other ways of organising society
• And to realise that the crisis of politics is, itself,
based on particular interpretations of what
politics is…
CLASSIC CONCEPTUALISATIONS
OF POLITICS
The Ancient Greeks

‘Politikos’ pertains to the ‘polis’ (the city state) - i.e. the

affairs of the city
Activities associated with making decisions in groups
Aristotle (384 to 322 BC):
Politics as a noble activity
Debate moral and practical issues, decision making,
and improving life
Thomas Hobbes: The Leviathan (17th century)
His response to the brutal English Civil War was that force is essential
to maintain order
He argued for a ’Social Contract’ to form sovereign power:
“Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no
injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. No arts; no
letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and
danger of violent death: and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short’.”
Political philosopher (17th century):
No Leviathan is needed to maintain social order.
Government should be limited to the rule of law &
accountability should be passed to individuals
 Harold Lasswell (1958)

Power and contestation in the maintenance of social order

Politics is… the allocation of scarce resources – in sum it is
“who gets what, when, and how”
Bernard Crick (In defence of
Politics)

‘Politics is the activity by which different interests within a given political unit of
rule are conciliated by giving them a share in proportion to their importance to
the welfare of the whole community. It is the process of practical and
ongoing reconciliation of the interests of various groups which
comprise the political’
BROAD CLASSIFICATION OF DEFINITIONS

o Arena vs Process
•Arena: Limits politics to who (politicians) and where
(institutions)
•Process: deliberating on any societal issue
• Doesn’t clarify what can and cannot be discussed
• Excludes non-decision making processes

o Public vs Private
• Limits what can be put on the agenda for deliberation
•But boundaries matter: is everything political?
‘LIBERAL’ VIEWS AND THE
PUBLIC-PRIVATE DIVIDE
The ‘Modern Liberal’ view

1. The individual is the basic unit of political

activity, and has certain inalienable rights

2. People are generally rational and informed

3. Politics should be limited to the public sphere

(state and civil society)
Public = the state & civil society
Private = individuals and families exist outside the political
sphere
Michael Oakshott (Political Philosopher)

‘Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general

arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have
brought together. In this sense, families, clubs and learned societies
have their politics’.
Valerie Bryson: The Personal is Political

‘This means that issues such as childcare or domestic

violence are redefined as political, and can be the focus
of collective feminist action; it means too that politics is
not simply something “out there”, but a part of everyday
experience.’
So if everything is political (how we dress,
where we go, what we do) – what meaning
does the word political have any more?
THE POLITICS OF DEFINING
‘POLITICS’
Concepts tend to draw boundaries, so the act of
defining ‘politics’ is, in practice, political:
How you define it can affect who gets what, who gets to
make political decisions & what can and cannot be
addressed by political processes
Economic Crisis (2008) as a ‘natural’ phenomenon:

George Osborne: ‘storm clouds are gathering again’

Vince Cable ‘The Storm’: something that politicians cannot control, and
can do nothing about - therefore a depoliticised view of politics
 Summary

1. Common definitions of politics miss a lot

2. Politics generally conceived of as being about
power and social groups
3. Defining ‘politics’ is itself political – how you
define it shapes whose voices are heard and who
benefits