Political Sciences 114
Textbook: Andrew Heywood: Politics
Chapter 1: What is Politics?
WHAT IS POLITICS: an ‘essentially contested’ concept as the term has a number of
acceptable/legitimate meanings; different notions/concepts (general idea about something; a departure
point for thinking about something) provide different angles.
1. ‘Making, preserving and amending of general social rules.’
a. e.g. rules/legislation parliament makes or amends, determining acceptable behaviour;
traffic laws constituting general social rules; traffic police ensure prescribed appropriate
behaviour is maintained/preserved
2. ‘Politics as the art of government.’ (the exercise of control within society through the making and
enforcement of collective decisions - perhaps the classical definition of politics; to study politics is,
in essence, to study government, or, more broadly, to study the exercise of authority.)
a. Art = not neatly outlined; requires negotiation, interpretation, reading a situation,
responding.
b. However: art of government; in state institutions (e.g. parliament, cabinet,
bureaucracy/departments in government); direct attention to process of lawmaking,
decision making, role of bureaucracy. There is a tendency to treat politics as the
equivalent of party politics.
3. ‘Compromise and consensus.’
a. looking at the nature of decision making; politics as a way of conflict reslution (e.g.
negotiations process of transition from apartheid to democracy); politics as an activity for
conciliation and community survival -- positive view of politics)
b. ‘Politics [is] the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are
conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the
welfare and the survival of the whole community.’
c. There are bound to be disagreements with the existence of different
opinions/diversity/scarcity and yet people recognise that working together is necessary to
uphold or influence rules.
d. One conception of politics is being resolvable through consensus, though, is heavily
biased towards the form of politics that takes place in Western pluralist democracies: in
effect, politics is equated to electoral choice and party competition and this model has
little to tell us about one-party states or military regimes.
, e. Failure to understand that politics as a process of compromise and reconciliation may
have contributed to a growing popular disenchantment with democratic politics across
much of the developed world; expressed in the rise of populism and emergence of a style
of politics that disdains compromise and consensus and places much more emphasis on
conflict (e.g. election of Donald Trump)
4. ‘Politics as public affairs.’ where is politics practiced? - shifting of arenas where we think politics
are relevant
a. People disagree about what it is that makes social interaction political in terms of where it
takes place (e.g. within government) and what activity it involves (e.g. peacefully
resolving conflict).
b. In public, what is studied as politics is only the government apparatus; designation
indicates there is no studying of civil society in the private sector (e.g. business, unions,
clubs) which is therefore ‘non-political’ - traditional distinction between state and civil
society.
c. However with a different conceptualisation: public realm includes government,
commerce, work, art culture - broadens notion of the political and transfers the economy
from private to public; private/private realm includes family and domestic life (i.e. no
politics in these spaces)
i. This notion has been challenged by the feminist perspective that gender
inequality is maintained because of the perceived ‘natural’ sexual division of
labour
d. If politics only takes place through government apparatus, most people, most institutions
and most social activities can be regarded as being ‘outside’ politics - but to portray
politics as an essentially statebound activity is to ignore the increasingly important
international or global influences on modern life.
e. ‘Politics is the most important form of human activity because it involves interaction
amongst free and equal citizens, however politics as public activity has also been
portrayed as a form of unwanted interference’
, 5. ‘Politics as power.’ - sees politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of human
existence.
a. What does it mean to have power? Who gets what, when and how? The ability to
influence the behaviour of others; at its broadest, politics concerns the production,
distribution, and use of resources in the course of social existence; power used for
struggle for scarce resources.
b. Faces of power: thinking of power as authority to make decisions; look at how
governments choose what policy concerns they focus on/leave off the agenda (agenda
setting); power as substantially more hidden in thought control (e.g. ideological
indoctrination or psychological control, marketing, manipulation)
c. Advocates of the view of politics as power: feminists (viewed politics as a process; one
related to the exercise of power over others) and Marxists (apparatus of the state rooted
in the class system; exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie)
d. Such a negative view of politics reflects the essentially liberal perception that political
power is corrupting, because it encourages those ‘in power’ to exploit their position for
personal advantage and at the expense of others. However, these negative implications
could be said to be balanced by the emancipating force of politics; means of challenging
injustice and domination (e.g. Marxism - proletarian revolution; radical feminists - sexual
revolution)
Connotations: politicians are described as ‘political’, whereas civil servants are seen as ‘non-political’, as
long as they act in a neutral and professional fashion. Similarly, judges are taken to be ‘non-political’
figures while they interpret the law impartially and in accordance with the available evidence, but they
may be accused of being ‘political’ if their judgement is influenced by personal preferences or some other
form of bias. The link between politics and the affairs of the state also helps to explain why negative or
pejorative images have so often been attached to politics.
, HOW DO WE STUDY POLITICS? different approaches/lenses to study political phenomena that give
you a different perspective, goal, methodological approach to thinking about and studying politics - what
is this approach directing your attention to?
Politics emerged originally as a branch of philosophy, aiming to encover principles on which human
society should be based; it was focused into a scientific discipline until the late 20thC but is now more
fertile because it embraces a range of theoretical approaches and a variety of schools of analysis. It is
exciting because people disagree about how matters should be resolved; it is an ethical activity
concerned with creating a ‘just society’. Aristotle believed this made political science the master science;
politics is a social activity - a dialogue not a monologue.
1. Normative approaches:
a. Directing attention to how things should be rather than what is; ethical questions or
prescriptive values and standards, making judgements & recommendations (e.g. how
should governments operate?); analytical study of ideas & doctrines central to political
thought
i. Focuses a lot on a collection of ‘major’ thinkers (e.g. Plato & Marx; their
development and justification of views) and a canon of ‘classic’ text
ii. Cannot be objective in a scientific sense - e.g. ‘why should I obey the state’ ‘what
should the limits of individual freedom be?’
2. Empirical approach: institutional approach; descriptive (seeks to analyse and explain);
observations about how things work in practice (e.g. how do democratic governments operate);
offering a dispassionate & impartial account reality
a. Positivism: emerged from empirical ideas; believed that philosophical (& all other) enquiry
should adhere to methods of natural sciences
3. Behaviouralism: social theories based on the study of behaviour; using scientific methods to
analyse politics with objective and quantifiable data (e.g. voting behaviour, behaviour of
legislators & politicians etc)
4. Rational-choice theory: individuals use rational calculations to make rational choices and achieve
outcomes that are aligned with their own personal objectives; some argue it may overestimate
human rationality, ignoring the fact that few people make decisions in light of full and accurate
knowledge; also fails to pay attention to social and historical factors by focusing on the individual,
or recognise that human self-interestedness may be socially conditioned and not innate.
a. Game theory: a way of exploring problems of conflict or collaboration by explaining how
one actor’s choice of strategy affects another’s best choice and vice versa (e.g. the
‘prisoners’ dilemma)
5. Institutionalism:
