Week 2 Reading: [Heywood]_What_Is_Politics

Politics is inevitably present within society as people are diverse and resources are
scarce. In such society people have different opinions, different needs, different
preferences, different wants, different choices, different interests, etc. Hence conflicts
are inevitable. Politics is an activity that ‘attempts’ (as not all conflicts are, or can be,
resolved) to solve conflicts through the making, preserving and amending general
social rules.

To elaborate, politics’ can then be divided into two conceptions: arena, politics can be
defined by where it takes place. The classical view of politics by Chancellor Bismarck as
‘the art of government and control of society’. This leads to a split between the public
and the private sphere or that of public affairs; feminists have criticized this because
depoliticizing the public sphere conceals many women’s issues; Marxists have criticized
this split for it removes the economy and capitalism from the political realm. In contrast it
is perceived as a process, politics as certain characteristics of behavior. This is linked
to the uneven distribution of power; the allocation of scarce resources is inherently
about compromise (a process which avoids violence) and power. This makes politics
evident in all social activities through the ability to achieve a desired outcome.

Politics as an academic discipline has been approached in various ways. Primarily

politics was seen as an art which centers around philosophy, history and law, but this
had gradually been displaced by an attempt to turn politics into a scientific discipline. It
is a social science because it tests hypotheses about political behavior and institutional
performance with both quantitative (statistics) and qualitative methods. Concepts,
models and theories are the tools of political analysis, providing the building blocks of
knowledge. They help to advance understanding by collectively presenting a logical,
systematic, and coherent explanation of a phenomenon although it is often a
generalization of the unshapely and complex realities they seek to describe.

The domestic/international divide by sovereignty, supreme legitimate authority by state

has helped to sustain a spatial and disciplinary distinction between political science and
international relations. Political science entails the collection and analysis of data to
examine political theories, such as reviewing voter data to understand patterns and
political trends whereas international relations focus on issues foreign and political that
have a direct impact on the world at large. However, the distinction between the two
disciplines has become vague as there has been a substantial growth in cross- border,
or transnational, flows and transactions – movements of people, goods, money,
information and ideas, hence globalization. Politics is becoming spatially interdependent
through overlap between the global, the regional, the national and the local spheres
which expands its complexity. Therefore, as the world continues to intertwine and
evolve politics will also continuously change over time.