Chapter 1 What Is Politics? PDF

CHAPTER 1 What is Politics? ‘Man is by nature a political animal.’ A R I S T O T L E , Politics, 1 PREVIEW Politics is exciting because people disagree. They disagree about how they should live. Who should get what? How s...

CHAPTER 1 What is Politics? ‘Man is by nature a political animal.’ A R I S T O T L E , Politics, 1 PREVIEW Politics is exciting because people disagree. They disagree about how they should live. Who should get what? How should power and other resources be distributed? Should society be based on cooperation or conflict? And so on. They also disagree about how such matters should be resolved. How should collective decisions be made? Who should have a say? How much influence should each person have? And so forth. For Aristotle, this made politics the ‘master science’: that is, nothing less than the activity through which human beings attempt to improve their lives and create the Good Society. Politics is, above all, a social activity. It is always a dialogue, and never a monologue. Solitary individuals such as Robinson Crusoe may be able to develop a simple economy, produce art, and so on, but they cannot engage in politics. Politics emerges only with the arrival of a Man (or Woman) Friday. Nevertheless, the disagreement that lies at the heart of politics also extends to the nature of the subject and how it should be studied. People disagree about what it is that makes social interaction ‘political’, whether it is where it takes place (within government, the state or the public sphere generally), or the kind of activity it involves (peacefully resolving conflict or exercising control over less powerful groups). Disagreement about the nature of politics as an academic discipline means that it embraces a range of theoretical approaches and a variety of schools of analysis. Finally, globalizing tendencies have encouraged some to speculate that the disciplinary divide between politics and international relations has now become redundant. KEY ISSUES  What are the defining features of politics as an activity?  How has ‘politics’ been understood by various thinkers and traditions?  What are the main approaches to the study of politics as an academic discipline?  Can the study of politics be scientific?  What roles do concepts, models and theories play in political analysis?  How have globalizing trends affected the relationship between politics and international relations?  2 POLITICS DEFINING POLITICS Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. Although politics is also an academic subject (sometimes indicated by the use of ‘Politics’ with a capital P), it is then clearly the study of this activity. Politics is thus inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. On the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing needs and opposing interests guaran- tees disagreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognize that, in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others – hence Hannah Arendt’s (see p. 7) defini- tion of political power as ‘acting in concert’. This is why the heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution, in which rival views or competing interests are reconciled with one another. However, politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for conflict resolution than as its achievement, as not all conflicts are, or can be, resolved. Nevertheless, the inescapable presence of diversity (we are not all alike) and scarcity (there is never enough to go around) ensures that politics is an inevitable feature of the human condition. Any attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘politics’ must nevertheless address two major problems. The first is the mass of associations that the word has when used in everyday language; in other words, politics is a ‘loaded’ term. Whereas most people think of, say, economics, geography, history and biology simply as academic subjects, few people come to politics without preconceptions. Many, for instance, automatically assume that students and teachers of politics must in some way be biased, finding it difficult to believe that the subject can be approached in an impartial and dispassionate manner (see p. 19). To make matters worse, politics is usually thought of as a ‘dirty’ word: it conjures up images of trouble, disruption and even violence on the one hand, and deceit, manipulation and lies on the other. There is nothing new about such associa- tions. As long ago as 1775, Samuel Johnson dismissed politics as ‘nothing more than a means of rising in the world’, while in the nineteenth century the US historian Henry Adams summed up politics as ‘the systematic organization of hatreds’. The second and more intractable difficulty is that even respected authorities cannot agree what the subject is about. Politics is defined in such different ways: as the exercise of power, the science of government, the making of collective decisions, the allocation of scarce resources, the practice of deception and manipulation, and so on. The virtue of the definition advanced in this text – ‘the making, preserving and amending of general social rules’ – is that it is suffi- ciently broad to encompass most, if not all, of the competing definitions.  Conflict: Competition However, problems arise when the definition is unpacked, or when the meaning between opposing forces, is refined. For instance, does ‘politics’ refer to a particular way in which rules are reflecting a diversity of made, preserved or amended (that is, peacefully, by debate), or to all such opinions, preferences, needs or processes? Similarly, is politics practised in all social contexts and institutions, or interests. only in certain ones (that is, government and public life)?  Cooperation: Working From this perspective, politics may be treated as an ‘essentially contested’ together; achieving goals concept, in the sense that the term has a number of acceptable or legitimate through collective action. meanings (concepts are discussed more fully later in the chapter). On the other  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 3 Politics as an arena Politics as a process Definitions of The art of government Compromise and consensus politics Public affairs Power and the distribution of resources Approaches to the Behaviouralism Feminism study of politics Rational-choice theory Marxism Institutionalism Post-positivist approaches Figure 1.1 Approaches to defining politics hand, these different views may simply consist of contrasting conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept. Whether we are dealing with rival concepts or alternative conceptions, it is helpful to distinguish between two broad approaches to defining politics (Hay, 2002; Leftwich, 2004). In the first, politics is associated with an arena or location, in which case behaviour becomes ‘polit- ical’ because of where it takes place. In the second, politics is viewed as a process or mechanism, in which case ‘political’ behaviour is behaviour that exhibits distinctive characteristics or qualities, and so can take place in any, and perhaps all, social contexts. Each of these broad approaches has spawned alternative definitions of politics, and, as discussed later in the chapter, helped to shape different schools of political analysis (see Figure 1.1). Indeed, the debate about ‘what is politics?’ is worth pursuing precisely because it exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological disagreement in the academic study of the subject. Politics as the art of government ‘Politics is not a science... but an art’, Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have told the German Reichstag. The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of govern- ment, the exercise of control within society through the making and enforce- ment of collective decisions. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece. The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, meaning literally ‘city-state’. Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often portrayed as the cradle of democratic government. In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis – in effect, ‘what concerns the polis’. The modern form of this definition is therefore ‘what concerns the state’ (see p. 57). This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do so. It is  Polis: (Greek) City-state; classically understood to imply also a definition that academic political science has helped to perpetuate. the highest or most desirable In many ways, the notion that politics amounts to ‘what concerns the state’ is form of social organization. the traditional view of the discipline, reflected in the tendency for academic  4 POLITICS study to focus on the personnel and machinery of government. To study politics CONCEPT is, in essence, to study government, or, more broadly, to study the exercise of Authority authority. This view is advanced in the writings of the influential US political Authority can most scientist David Easton (1979, 1981), who defined politics as the ‘authoritative simply be defined as allocation of values’. By this, he meant that politics encompasses the various ‘legitimate power’. processes through which government responds to pressures from the larger Whereas power is the society, in particular by allocating benefits, rewards or penalties. ‘Authoritative ability to influence the values’ are therefore those that are widely accepted in society, and are considered behaviour of others, authority is the right to binding by the mass of citizens. In this view, politics is associated with ‘policy’ do so. Authority is (see p. 352): that is, with formal or authoritative decisions that establish a plan therefore based on an of action for the community. acknowledged duty to However, what is striking about this definition is that it offers a highly obey rather than on any restricted view of politics. Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of form of coercion or manipulation. In this social organization centred on the machinery of government. Politics is therefore sense, authority is power practised in cabinet rooms, legislative chambers, government departments and cloaked in legitimacy or the like; and it is engaged in by a limited and specific group of people, notably rightfulness. Weber (see politicians, civil servants and lobbyists. This means that most people, most insti- p. 82) distinguished tutions and most social activities can be regarded as being ‘outside’ politics. between three kinds of authority, based on the Businesses, schools and other educational institutions, community groups, fami- different grounds on lies and so on are in this sense ‘non-political’, because they are not engaged in which obedience can be ‘running the country’. By the same token, to portray politics as an essentially established: traditional state-bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important international or authority is rooted in global influences on modern life, as discussed in the next main section. history; charismatic authority stems from This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. This is evident in the personality; and legal– tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics. In other words, the rational authority is realm of ‘the political’ is restricted to those state actors who are consciously grounded in a set of motivated by ideological beliefs, and who seek to advance them through impersonal rules. membership of a formal organization such as a political party. This is the sense in which politicians are described as ‘political’, whereas civil servants are seen as ‘non-political’, as long as, of course, they act in a neutral and professional fashion. Similarly, judges are taken to be ‘non-political’ figures while they inter- pret 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. This is because, in the popular mind, politics is closely associated with the activities of politicians. Put brutally, politicians are often seen as power-seeking hypocrites who conceal personal ambition behind the rhetoric of public service and ideo- logical conviction. Indeed, this perception has become more common in the  Polity: A society organized modern period as intensified media exposure has more effectively brought to through the exercise of political authority; for Aristotle, rule by light examples of corruption and dishonesty, giving rise to the phenomenon of the many in the interests of all. anti-politics (as discussed in Chapter 20). This rejection of the personnel and machinery of conventional political life is rooted in a view of politics as a self-  Anti-politics: serving, two-faced and unprincipled activity, clearly evident in the use of deroga- Disillusionment with formal or tory phrases such as ‘office politics’ and ‘politicking’. Such an image of politics is established political processes, reflected in non-participation, sometimes traced back to the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, who, in The Prince support for anti-system parties, ( 1961), developed a strictly realistic account of politics that drew atten- or the use of direct action. tion to the use by political leaders of cunning, cruelty and manipulation.  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 5 Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician and author. The son of a civil lawyer, Machiavelli’s knowledge of public life was gained from a sometimes precarious existence in politically unstable Florence. He served as Second Chancellor (1498–1512), and was despatched on missions to France, Germany and throughout Italy. After a brief period of imprison- ment and the restoration of Medici rule, Machiavelli embarked on a literary career. His major work, The Prince, published in 1532, drew heavily on his first-hand observations of the statecraft of Cesare Borgia and the power politics that dominated his period. It was written as a guide for the future prince of a united Italy. The adjective ‘Machiavellian’ subsequently came to mean ‘cunning and duplicitous’. Such a negative view of politics reflects the essentially liberal perception that, CONCEPT as individuals are self-interested, political power is corrupting, because it Power encourages those ‘in power’ to exploit their position for personal advantage and Power, in its broadest at the expense of others. This is famously expressed in Lord Acton’s (1834–1902) sense, is the ability to aphorism: ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. achieve a desired Nevertheless, few who view politics in this way doubt that political activity is an outcome, sometimes inevitable and permanent feature of social existence. However venal politicians seen as the ‘power to’ do may be, there is a general, if grudging, acceptance that they are always with us. something. This includes everything from the Without some kind of mechanism for allocating authoritative values, society ability to keep oneself would simply disintegrate into a civil war of each against all, as the early social- alive to the ability of contract theorists argued (see p. 62). The task is therefore not to abolish politi- government to promote cians and bring politics to an end but, rather, to ensure that politics is conducted economic growth. In within a framework of checks and constraints that guarantee that governmental politics, however, power is usually thought of as a power is not abused. relationship; that is, as the ability to influence the behaviour of others Politics as public affairs in a manner not of their A second and broader conception of politics moves it beyond the narrow realm choosing. This implies having ‘power over’ of government to what is thought of as ‘public life’ or ‘public affairs’. In other people. More narrowly, words, the distinction between ‘the political’ and ‘the non-political’ coincides power may be associated with the division between an essentially public sphere of life and what can be with the ability to punish thought of as a private sphere. Such a view of politics is often traced back to the or reward, bringing it work of the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle declared close to force or manipulation, in contrast that ‘man is by nature a political animal’, by which he meant that it is only within to ‘influence’. (See ‘faces’ a political community that human beings can live the ‘good life’. From this view- of power, p. 9 and point, then, politics is an ethical activity concerned with creating a ‘just society’; dimensions of global it is what Aristotle called the ‘master science’. power, p. 428.) However, where should the line between ‘public’ life and ‘private’ life be drawn? The traditional distinction between the public realm and the private realm conforms to the division between the state and civil society. The institu- tions of the state (the apparatus of government, the courts, the police, the army, the social security system and so forth) can be regarded as ‘public’ in the sense that they are responsible for the collective organization of community life. Moreover, they are funded at the public’s expense, out of taxation. In contrast,  6 POLITICS Aristotle (384–322 BCE) Greek philosopher. Aristotle was a student of Plato (see p. 13) and tutor of the young Alexander the Great. He established his own school of philosophy in Athens in 335 BCE; this was called the ‘peripatetic school’ after his tendency to walk up and down as he talked. His 22 surviving treatises, compiled as lecture notes, range over logic, physics, metaphysics, astronomy, meteorology, biology, ethics and politics. In the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s work became the foundation of Islamic philosophy, and it was later incorporated into Christian theology. His best-known political work is Politics, in which he portrayed the city-state as the basis for virtue and well-being, and argued that democracy is preferable to oligarchy (see p. 267–9). civil society consists of what Edmund Burke (see p. 36) called the ‘little platoons’, CONCEPT institutions such as the family and kinship groups, private businesses, trade Civil society unions, clubs, community groups and so on, that are ‘private’ in the sense that Civil society originally they are set up and funded by individual citizens to satisfy their own interests, meant a ‘political rather than those of the larger society. On the basis of this ‘public/private’ divi- community’. The term is sion, politics is restricted to the activities of the state itself and the responsibili- now more commonly ties that are properly exercised by public bodies. Those areas of life that distinguished from the individuals can and do manage for themselves (the economic, social, domestic, state, and is used to describe institutions that personal, cultural and artistic spheres, and so on) are therefore clearly ‘non- are ‘private’, in that they political’. are independent from An alternative ‘public/private’ divide is sometimes defined in terms of a government and further and more subtle distinction; namely, that between ‘the political’ and ‘the organized by individuals personal’ (see Figure 1.2). Although civil society can be distinguished from the in pursuit of their own ends. Civil society state, it nevertheless contains a range of institutions that are thought of as therefore refers to a ‘public’ in the wider sense that they are open institutions, operating in public, to realm of autonomous which the public has access. One of the crucial implications of this is that it groups and associations: broadens our notion of the political, transferring the economy, in particular, businesses, interest from the private to the public realm. A form of politics can thus be found in the groups, clubs, families and so on. The term workplace. Nevertheless, although this view regards institutions such as busi- ‘global civil society’ (see nesses, community groups, clubs and trade unions as ‘public’, it remains a p. 106) has become restricted view of politics. According to this perspective, politics does not, and fashionable as a means of should not, infringe on ‘personal’ affairs and institutions. Feminist thinkers in referring to particular have pointed out that this implies that politics effectively stops at the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) front door; it does not take place in the family, in domestic life, or in personal (see p. 248) and relationships (see p. 11). This view is illustrated, for example, by the tendency of transnational social politicians to draw a clear distinction between their professional conduct and movements (see p. 260). their personal or domestic behaviour. By classifying, say, cheating on their part- ners or treating their children badly as ‘personal’ matters, they are able to deny the political significance of such behaviour on the grounds that it does not touch on their conduct of public affairs. The view of politics as an essentially ‘public’ activity has generated both posi- tive and negative images. In a tradition dating back to Aristotle, politics has been seen as a noble and enlightened activity precisely because of its ‘public’ character. This position was firmly endorsed by Hannah Arendt, who argued in The  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 7 Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German political theorist and philosopher. Hannah Arendt was brought up in a middle-class Jewish family. She fled Germany in 1933 to escape from Nazism, and finally settled in the USA, where her major work was produced. Her wide-ranging, even idiosyncratic, writing was influenced by the existentialism of Heidegger (1889– 1976) and Jaspers (1883–1969); she described it as ‘thinking without barriers’. Her major works include The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which drew parallels between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, her major philosophical work The Human Condition (1958), On Revolution (1963) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963). The final work stimulated particular controversy because it stressed the ‘banality of evil’, by portraying Eichmann as a Nazi functionary rather than as a raving ideologue. Public Private The state: Civil society: apparatus of government autonomous bodies – businesses, trade unions, clubs, families, and so on Public Private Public realm: Personal realm: politics, commerce, work, art, culture family and domestic life and so on Figure 1.2 Two views of the public/private divide Human Condition (1958) that politics is the most important form of human activity because it involves interaction amongst free and equal citizens. It thus gives meaning to life and affirms the uniqueness of each individual. Theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see p. 97) and John Stuart Mill (see p. 198) who portrayed political participation as a good in itself have drawn similar conclu- sions. Rousseau argued that only through the direct and continuous participa- tion of all citizens in political life can the state be bound to the common good, or what he called the ‘general will’. In Mill’s view, involvement in ‘public’ affairs is educational, in that it promotes the personal, moral and intellectual develop- ment of the individual. In sharp contrast, however, politics as public activity has also been portrayed as a form of unwanted interference. Liberal theorists, in particular, have exhib- ited a preference for civil society over the state, on the grounds that ‘private’ life is a realm of choice, personal freedom and individual responsibility. This is most clearly demonstrated by attempts to narrow the realm of ‘the political’, commonly expressed as the wish to ‘keep politics out of ’ private activities such  8 POLITICS as business, sport and family life. From this point of view, politics is unwhole- CONCEPT some quite simply because it prevents people acting as they choose. For example, Consensus it may interfere with how firms conduct their business, or with how and with Consensus means whom we play sports, or with how we bring up our children. agreement, but it refers to an agreement of a particular kind. It implies, Politics as compromise and consensus first, a broad agreement, The third conception of politics relates not to the arena within which politics is the terms of which are accepted by a wide range conducted but to the way in which decisions are made. Specifically, politics is of individuals or groups. seen as a particular means of resolving conflict: that is, by compromise, concili- Second, it implies an ation and negotiation, rather than through force and naked power. This is what agreement about is implied when politics is portrayed as ‘the art of the possible’. Such a definition fundamental or is inherent in the everyday use of the term. For instance, the description of a underlying principles, as opposed to a precise or solution to a problem as a ‘political’ solution implies peaceful debate and arbi- exact agreement. In other tration, as opposed to what is often called a ‘military’ solution. Once again, this words, a consensus view of politics has been traced back to the writings of Aristotle and, in particu- permits disagreement on lar, to his belief that what he called ‘polity’ is the ideal system of government, as matters of emphasis or it is ‘mixed’, in the sense that it combines both aristocratic and democratic detail. A procedural consensus is a willingness features. One of the leading modern exponents of this view is Bernard Crick. In to make decisions his classic study In Defence of Politics, Crick offered the following definition: through a process of consultation and Politics [is] the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule bargaining. A substantive are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their impor- consensus is an overlap of ideological positions tance to the welfare and the survival of the whole community. (Crick, that reflect agreement 2000) about broad policy goals. In this view, the key to politics is therefore a wide dispersal of power. Accepting that conflict is inevitable, Crick argued that when social groups and interests possess power they must be conciliated; they cannot merely be crushed. This is why he portrayed politics as ‘that solution to the problem of order which chooses concili- ation rather than violence and coercion’. Such a view of politics reflects a deep commitment to liberal–rationalist principles. It is based on resolute faith in the efficacy of debate and discussion, as well as on the belief that society is character- ized by consensus, rather than by irreconcilable conflict. In other words, the disagreements that exist can be resolved without resort to intimidation and violence. Critics, however, point out that Crick’s conception of politics is heavily biased towards the form of politics that takes place in western pluralist democra- cies: in effect, he equated politics with electoral choice and party competition. As a result, his model has little to tell us about, say, one-party states or military regimes. This view of politics has an unmistakeably positive character. Politics is certainly no utopian solution (compromise means that concessions are made by all sides, leaving no one perfectly satisfied), but it is undoubtedly preferable to the alternatives: bloodshed and brutality. In this sense, politics can be seen as a civilized and civilizing force. People should be encouraged to respect politics as an activity, and should be prepared to engage in the political life of their own community. Nevertheless, a failure to understand that politics as a process of compromise and reconciliation is neccessarily frustrating and difficult (because in involves listening carefully to the opinions of others) may have contributed to a growing popular disenchantment with democratic politics across much of the  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 9 developed world. As Stoker (2006) put it, ‘Politics is designed to disappoint’; its outcomes are ‘often messy, ambiguous and never final’. This is an issue to which we will return in the final chapter of the book. Politics as power The fourth definition of politics is both the broadest and the most radical. Rather than confining politics to a particular sphere (the government, the state or the ‘public’ realm), this view sees politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of human existence. As Adrian Leftwich proclaimed in What is Politics? The Activity and Its Study (2004), ‘politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies’. In this sense, politics takes place at every level of social interaction; it can be found within families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as amongst nations and on the global stage. However, what is it that is distinctive about political activity? What marks off politics from any other form of social behaviour? Focus on... ‘Faces’ of power Power can be said to be exercised whenever A gets B to is the ability to prevent decisions being made: that do something that B would not otherwise have done. is, in effect, ‘non-decision-making’. This involves the However, A can influence B in various ways. This allows ability to set or control the political agenda, us to distinguish between different dimensions or thereby preventing issues or proposals from being ‘faces’ of power: aired in the first place. For instance, private busi- nesses may exert power both by campaigning to  Power as decision-making: This face of power defeat proposed consumer-protection legislation consists of conscious actions that in some way (first face), and by lobbying parties and politicians influence the content of decisions. The classic to prevent the question of consumer rights being account of this form of power is found in Robert publicly discussed (second face). Dahl’s Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an  Power as thought control: The third face of American City (1961), which made judgements power is the ability to influence another by shaping about who had power by analysing decisions in the what he or she thinks, wants, or needs. This is power light of the known preferences of the actors expressed as ideological indoctrination or psycho- involved. Such decisions can nevertheless be influ- logical control. This is what Lukes (2004) called the enced in a variety of ways. In Three Faces of Power ‘radical’ view of power, and it overlaps with the (1989), Keith Boulding distinguished between the notion of ‘soft’ power (see p. 428). An example of use of force or intimidation (the stick), productive this would be the ability of advertising to shape exchanges involving mutual gain (the deal), and the consumer tastes, often by cultivating associations creation of obligations, loyalty and commitment with a ‘brand’. In political life, the exercise of this (the kiss). form of power is seen in the use of propaganda  Power as agenda setting: The second face of and, more generally, in the impact of ideology (see power, as suggested by Bachrach and Baratz (1962), p. 28). 10 POLITICS At its broadest, politics concerns the production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence. Politics is, in essence, power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. This notion was neatly summed up in the title of Harold Lasswell’s book Politics: Who Gets What, When, How? (1936). From this perspective, politics is about diversity and conflict, but the essential ingredient is the existence of scarcity: the simple fact that, while human needs and desires are infinite, the resources available to satisfy them are always limited. Politics can therefore be seen as a struggle over scarce resources, and power can be seen as the means through which this struggle is conducted. Advocates of the view of politics as power include feminists and Marxists. The rise of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s, bringing with it a growing interest in feminism, stimulated more radical thinking about the nature of ‘the political’. Not only have modern feminists sought to expand the arenas in which politics can be seen to take place, a notion most boldly asserted through the radical feminist slogan ‘the personal is the political’, but they have also tended to view politics as a process, specifically one related to the exercise of power over others. This view was summed by Kate Millett in Sexual Politics (1969), in which she defined politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another’. Marxists, for their part, have used the term ‘politics’ in two senses. On one level, Marx (see p. 41) used ‘politics’ in a conventional sense to refer to the appa- ratus of the state. In the Communist Manifesto ( 1967), he (and Engels) thus referred to political power as ‘merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another’. For Marx, politics, together with law and culture, are part of a ‘superstructure’ that is distinct from the economic ‘base’ that is the real foun- dation of social life. However, he did not see the economic ‘base’ and the legal and political ‘superstructure’ as entirely separate. He believed that the ‘super- structure’ arose out of, and reflected, the economic ‘base’. At a deeper level, polit- ical power, in this view, is therefore rooted in the class system; as Lenin (see p. 99) put it, ‘politics is the most concentrated form of economics’. As opposed to believing that politics can be confined to the state and a narrow public sphere, Marxists can be said to believe that ‘the economic is political’. From this perspec- tive, civil society, characterized as Marxists believe it to be by class struggle, is the very heart of politics. Views such as these portray politics in largely negative terms. Politics is, quite simply, about oppression and subjugation. Radical feminists hold that society is patriarchal, in that women are systematically subordinated and subjected to male power. Marxists traditionally argued that politics in a capitalist society is characterized by the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. On the other hand, these negative implications are balanced against the fact that politics is also seen as an emancipating force, a means through which injustice and domination can be challenged. Marx, for instance, predicted that class exploita- tion would be overthrown by a proletarian revolution, and radical feminists proclaim the need for gender relations to be reordered through a sexual revolu- tion. However, it is also clear that when politics is portrayed as power and domi- nation it need not be seen as an inevitable feature of social existence. Feminists look to an end of ‘sexual politics’ achieved through the construction of a non- sexist society, in which people will be valued according to personal worth, rather than on the basis of gender. Marxists believe that ‘class politics’ will end with the  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 11 POLITICS IN ACTION... The rise of Women’s Liberation: making politics personal? Events: Although an organized women’s movement first emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, focused on the campaign for female suffrage, it was not until the 1960s that it was regenerated through the birth of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Often viewed as the ‘second wave’ of feminism, this reflected the belief that redressing the status of women required not just political reform, but a process of radical, and particularly cultural, change, brought about by ‘consciousness raising’ amongst women and the transformation of family, domestic and personal life. Protests designed to challenge conventional stereo- types of ‘femininity’ took place: for example, at the Miss America pageants in 1968 and 1969 (where, by throwing stiletto shoes and other symbols of oppres- sion into a ‘freedom trashcan’, demonstrators encompassing politics (as conventionally understood), claimed a great deal of publicity and also acquired a false work, art and literature, has been the preserve of men, reputation for bra burning), and at the 1970 Miss World while women have been predominantly confined to a beauty competition (where, in front of millions of televi- ‘private’ existence, centred on the family and domestic sion viewers worldwide, about fifty women and a few men responsibilities. Moreover, if politics focuses only on public started to throw flour bombs, stink bombs, ink bombs and activities and institutions, the sexual division of labour leaflets at the stage). This radical phase of feminist between ‘public man’ and ‘private woman’ appears, activism subsided from the early 1970s onwards, but the somehow, to be a natural fact of life, rather than a key women’s movement nevertheless continued to grow and mechanism through which the system of male power is acquired an increasingly prominent international dimen- established and preserved. sion. Nevertheless, the most influential feature of the radical Significance: The ‘first wave’ of feminist activism, in the feminist critique of conventional view of politics is that it nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was framed emphasizes that politics takes place not only in the public within a largely conventional notion of ‘politics’. As the sphere but also, and more significantly, in the private primary goal of feminism during this period was ‘votes for sphere. This idea was advanced through the slogan: ‘the women’, it complied with the idea that politics takes place personal is the political’. By redefining politics in terms of within a ‘public’ sphere of government institutions, politi- power, control and domination, radical feminists portrayed cal parties, interest groups and public debate. Female family and domestic life as the crucial political arena emancipation was therefore defined in terms of access to because the dominance of the husband-father over both the public sphere, and especially the acquisition of politi- his wife and children conditions girls and boys to accept cal rights already enjoyed by men. One of the central quite different social roles and to have quite different life themes of the ‘second-wave’ of feminism, however, has expectations. The patriarchal structure of family life thus been that it sought to challenge and overthrow traditional reproduces male domination in society at large, genera- thinking about politics, both about the nature of politics tion by generation. If, from this perspective, women are and where it takes place. Radical feminists in particular going to challenge patriarchal oppression, they must start objected to the idea that politics is rooted in the with ‘the personal’, instead of primarily addressing prob- public/private divide. In the first place, they argued that lems such as the under-representation of women in senior associating politics only with activities that take place in positions in public life, they should focus on their underly- the public sphere effectively excludes women from politi- ing cause: the contrasting stereotypes of ‘masculinity’ and cal life. This is because, albeit to varying degrees, all ‘femininity’ that are nurtured within the family and which contemporary and historical societies are characterized by accustom men to domination and encourage women to a sexual division of labour in which the public sphere, accept subordination.  12 POLITICS establishment of a classless communist society. This, in turn, will eventually lead CONCEPT to the ‘withering away’ of the state, also bringing politics in the conventional Science sense to an end. Science is a field of study that aims to develop reliable explanations of phenomena through STUDYING POLITICS repeatable experiments, observation and Approaches to the study of politics deduction. The ‘scientific Disagreement about the nature of political activity is matched by controversy method’, by which hypotheses are verified about the nature of politics as an academic discipline. One of the most ancient (proved true) by testing spheres of intellectual enquiry, politics was originally seen as an arm of philos- them against the ophy, history or law. Its central purpose was to uncover the principles on which available evidence, is human society should be based. From the late nineteenth century onwards, therefore seen as a however, this philosophical emphasis was gradually displaced by an attempt to means of disclosing value-free and objective turn politics into a scientific discipline. The high point of this development was truth. Karl Popper reached in the 1950s and 1960s with an open rejection of the earlier tradition (1902–94), however, as meaningless metaphysics. Since then, however, enthusiasm for a strict suggested that science science of politics has waned, and there has been a renewed recognition of the can only falsify enduring importance of political values and normative theories. If the ‘tradi- hypotheses, since ‘facts’ may always be disproved tional’ search for universal values acceptable to everyone has largely been aban- by later experiments. doned, so has been the insistence that science alone provides a means of disclosing truth. The resulting discipline is more fertile and more exciting, precisely because it embraces a range of theoretical approaches and a variety of schools of analysis. The philosophical tradition The origins of political analysis date back to Ancient Greece and a tradition usually referred to as ‘political philosophy’. This involved a preoccupation with essentially ethical, prescriptive or normative questions, reflecting a concern with what ‘should’, ‘ought’ or ‘must’ be brought about, rather than with what ‘is’. Plato and Aristotle are usually identified as the founding fathers of this tradition. Their ideas resurfaced in the writings of medieval theorists such as Augustine (354–430) and Aquinas (1225–74). The central theme of Plato’s work, for instance, was an attempt to describe the nature of the ideal society, which in his view took the form of a benign dictatorship dominated by a class of philosopher kings. Such writings have formed the basis of what is called the ‘traditional’ approach to politics. This involves the analytical study of ideas and doctrines that have been central to political thought. Most commonly, it has taken the form of a history of political thought that focuses on a collection of ‘major’  Normative: The prescription thinkers (that spans, for instance, Plato to Marx) and a canon of ‘classic’ texts. of values and standards of This approach has the character of literary analysis: it is interested primarily in conduct; what ‘should be’ rather examining what major thinkers said, how they developed or justified their views, than what ‘is’. and the intellectual context within which they worked. Although such analysis may be carried out critically and scrupulously, it cannot be objective in any  Objective: External to the observer, demonstrable; scientific sense, as it deals with normative questions such as ‘Why should I obey untainted by feelings, values or the state?’, ‘How should rewards be distributed?’ and ‘What should the limits of bias. individual freedom be?’  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 13 Plato (427–347 BCE) Greek philosopher. Plato was born of an aristocratic family. He became a follower of Socrates, who is the principal figure in his ethical and philosophical dialogues. After Socrates’ death in 399 BCE, Plato founded his own academy in order to train the new Athenian ruling class. Plato taught that the material world consists of imperfect copies of abstract and eternal ‘ideas’. His political philosophy, expounded in The Republic and The Laws, is an attempt to describe the ideal state in terms of a theory of justice. Both works are decidedly authoritarian and pay no attention to individual liberty, believing that power should be vested in the hands of an educated elite, the philosopher kings. He was therefore a firm critic of democracy. Plato’s work has exerted wide influence on Christianity and on European culture in general. The empirical tradition Although it was less prominent than normative theorizing, a descriptive or empirical tradition can be traced back to the earliest days of political thought. It can be seen in Aristotle’s attempt to classify constitutions (see pp. 267–8), in Machiavelli’s realistic account of statecraft, and in Montesquieu’s (see p. 312) sociological theory of government and law. In many ways, such writings consti- tute the basis of what is now called ‘comparative government’, and they gave rise to an essentially institutional approach to the discipline. In the USA, and the UK in particular, this developed into the dominant tradition of analysis. The empir- ical approach to political analysis is characterized by the attempt to offer a dispassionate and impartial account of political reality. The approach is ‘descrip- tive’, in that it seeks to analyse and explain, whereas the normative approach is ‘prescriptive’, in the sense that it makes judgements and offers recommendations. Descriptive political analysis acquired its philosophical underpinning from the doctrine of empiricism, which spread from the seventeenth century onwards through the work of theorists such as John Locke (see p. 31) and David Hume (1711–76). The doctrine of empiricism advanced the belief that experience is the only basis of knowledge and that, therefore, all hypotheses and theories should be tested by a process of observation. By the nineteenth century, such ideas had developed into what became known as ‘positivism’, an intellectual movement particularly associated with the writings of Auguste Comte (1798–1857). This doctrine proclaimed that the social sciences, and, for that matter, all forms of philosophical enquiry, should adhere strictly to the  Empirical: Based on observation and experiment; methods of the natural sciences. Once science was perceived to be the only reli- empirical knowledge is derived able means of disclosing truth, the pressure to develop a science of politics from sense data and became irresistible. experience.  Positivism: The theory that Behaviouralism social, and indeed all forms of, enquiry should adhere strictly Since the mid-nineteenth century, mainstream political analysis has been domi- to the methods of the natural nated by the ‘scientific’ tradition, reflecting the growing impact of positivism. In sciences. the 1870s, ‘political science’ courses were introduced in the universities of  14 POLITICS Oxford, Paris and Columbia, and by 1906 the American Political Science Review was being published. However, enthusiasm for a science of politics peaked in the 1950s and 1960s with the emergence, most strongly in the USA, of a form of political analysis that drew heavily on behaviouralism. For the first time, this gave politics reliably scientific credentials, because it provided what had previ- ously been lacking: objective and quantifiable data against which hypotheses could be tested. Political analysts such as David Easton (1979, 1981) proclaimed that politics could adopt the methodology of the natural sciences, and this gave rise to a proliferation of studies in areas best suited to the use of quantitative research methods, such as voting behaviour, the behaviour of legislators, and the behaviour of municipal politicians and lobbyists. Attempts were also made to apply behaviouralism to IR, in the hope of developing objective ‘laws’ of inter- national relations. Behaviouralism, however, came under growing pressure from the 1960s onwards. In the first place, it was claimed that behaviouralism had significantly constrained the scope of political analysis, preventing it from going beyond what was directly observable. Although behavioural analysis undoubtedly produced, and continues to produce, invaluable insights in fields such as voting studies, a narrow obsession with quantifiable data threatens to reduce the discipline of politics to little else. More worryingly, it inclined a generation of political scien- tists to turn their backs on the entire tradition of normative political thought. Concepts such as ‘liberty’, ‘equality’, ‘justice’ and ‘rights’ were sometimes discarded as being meaningless because they were not empirically verifiable enti- ties. Dissatisfaction with behaviouralism grew as interest in normative questions revived in the 1970s, as reflected in the writings of theorists such as John Rawls (see p. 45) and Robert Nozick (see p. 68). Moreover, the scientific credentials of behaviouralism started to be called into question. The basis of the assertion that behaviouralism is objective and reliable is the claim that it is ‘value-free’: that is, that it is not contaminated by ethical or normative beliefs. However, if the focus of analysis is observable behaviour, it is difficult to do much more than describe the existing political arrangements, which implicitly means that the status quo is legitimized. This conservative value bias was demonstrated by the fact that ‘democracy’ was, in effect, redefined in terms of observable behaviour. Thus, instead of meaning ‘popular self-government’ (literally, government by the people), democracy came to stand for a struggle between competing elites to win power through the mechanism of popular election. In other words, democracy came to mean what goes on in the so-called democratic political systems of the developed  Behaviouralism: The belief West. that social theories should be constructed only on the basis of observable behaviour, Rational-choice theory providing quantifiable data for research. Amongst recent theoretical approaches to politics is what is called ‘formal polit- ical theory’, variously known as ‘rational-choice theory’, ‘public-choice theory’  Bias: Sympathies or (see p. 252) and ‘political economy’ (see p. 129). This approach to analysis draws prejudices that (often unconsciously) affect human heavily on the example of economic theory in building up models based on judgement; bias implies procedural rules, usually about the rationally self-interested behaviour of the distortion (see ‘political bias’, individuals involved. Most firmly established in the USA, and associated in p. 183). particular with the so-called Virginia School, formal political theory provides at  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 15 least a useful analytical device, which may provide insights into the actions of voters, lobbyists, bureaucrats and politicians, as well as into the behaviour of states within the international system. This approach has had its broadest impact on political analysis in the form of what is called ‘institutional public-choice theory’. The use of such techniques by writers such as Anthony Downs (1957), Mancur Olson (1968) and William Niskanen (1971), in fields such as party competition, interest-group behaviour and the policy influence of bureaucrats, is discussed in later chapters. The approach has also been applied in the form of game theory, which has been developed more from the field of mathematics than from economics. It entails the use of first principles to analyse puzzles about individual behaviour. The best-known example in game theory is the ‘prisoners’ dilemma’ (see Figure 1.5). Game theory has been used by IR theorists to explain why states find it difficult, for instance, to prevent the overfishing of the seas, or the scale of arms to undesirable regimes. By no means, however, has the rational-choice approach to political analysis been universally accepted. While its supporters claim that it introduces greater rigour into the discussion of political phenomena, critics have questioned its basic assumptions. It may, for instance, overestimate human rationality in that it ignores the fact that people seldom possess a clear set of preferred goals and rarely make decisions in the light of full and accurate knowledge. Furthermore, in proceeding from an abstract model of the individual, rational-choice theory pays insufficient attention to social and historical factors, failing to recognize, amongst other things, that human self-interestedness may be socially condi- tioned, and not merely innate. New institutionalism Until the 1950s, the study of politics had largely involved the study of institutions. This ‘traditional’ or ‘old’ institutionalism focused on the rules, procedures and formal organization of government, and employed methods akin to those used in the study of law and history. The advent of the ‘behavioural revolution’, combined with growing concerns about its unreflective and essen- tially descriptive methods (which sometimes threatened to reduce politics to a collection of organizational rules and structures), led to institutionalism being marginalized during the 1960s and 1970s. However, interest in it was revived from the 1980s onwards by the emergence of what was called ‘new institutional- ism’. While remaining faithful to the core institutionalist belief that ‘institutions matter’, in the sense that political structures are thought to shape political behav- iour, new institutionalism has revised our understanding of what constitutes an ‘institution’ in a number of respects. Political institutions are no longer equated with political organizations; they are thought of not as ‘things’ but as sets of ‘rules’, which guide or constrain the behaviour of individual actors. These rules, moreover, are as likely to be informal as formal, policy-making processes sometimes being shaped more by unwritten  Institution: A well- conventions or understandings than by formal arrangements. Apart from established body with a formal anything else, this can help to explain why institutions are often difficult to role and status; more broadly, a set of rules that ensure regular reform, transform or replace. Finally, rather than viewing institutions as inde- and predictable behaviour, the pendent entities, in which case they exist almost outside of time and space, new ‘rules of the game’. institutionalists emphasize that institutions are ‘embedded’ in a particular  16 POLITICS normative and historical context. Thus, just as actors within an institutional CONCEPT setting are socialized to accept key rules and procedures, the institution itself Constructivism operates within a larger and more fundamental body of assumptions and prac- Constructivism (or social tices. Nevertheless, despite these shifts, institutionalism has continued to attract constructivism) is an criticism. For example, it is sometimes accused of subscribing to a structuralist approach to analysis that logic in which, to a greater or lesser extent, political actors are viewed as ‘prison- is based on the belief ers’ of the institutional contexts in which they operate. that there is no objective social or political reality independent of our Critical approaches understanding of it. Constructivists do not Since the 1980s, the range of critical approaches to politics has expanded consid- therefore regard the erably. Until that point, Marxism had constituted the principal alternative to social world as something mainstream political science. Indeed, Karl Marx can be seen as the first theorist ‘out there’, in the sense of an external world of to have attempted to describe politics in scientific terms. Using his so-called concrete objects; instead, ‘materialist conception of history’ (see pp. 40–1), Marx strove to uncover the it exists only ‘inside’, as a driving force of historical development. This enabled him to make predictions kind of inter-subjective about the future based on ‘laws’ that had the same status in terms of proof as laws awareness. In the final in the natural sciences. However, modern political analysis has become both analysis, people, whether acting as individuals or as richer and more diverse as a result of the emergence of new critical perspectives, social groups, ‘construct’ notable examples including feminism (see pp. 49–50), critical theory, green poli- the world according to tics (see pp. 50–1), constructivism, post-structuralism and postcolonialism (see those constructions. p. 52). What do these new critical voices have in common, and in what sense are People’s beliefs and they ‘critical’? In view of their diverse philosophical underpinnings and contrast- assumptions become particularly significant ing political viewpoints, it is tempting to argue that the only thing that unites when they are widely them is a shared antipathy towards mainstream thinking. shared and create a sense Nevertheless, they exemplify two broad, and sometimes linked, characteris- of identity and distinctive tics. The first is that they are ‘critical’ in that, in their different ways, they seek to interests. contest the political status quo, by (usually) aligning themselves with the inter- ests of marginalized or oppressed groups. Each of them, thus, seeks to uncover inequalities and asymmetries that mainstream approaches intend to ignore. Feminism, for example, has drawn attention to systematic and pervasive struc- tures of gender inequality that characterize politics in all its forms and at every level. Critical theory, which is rooted in the neo-Marxism (see p. 64) of the Frankfurt School, has extended the notion of critique to all social practices, drawing on a wide range of influences, including Freud and Weber (see p. 82). Green politics, or ecologism (see p. 51), has challenged the anthropocentric (human-centred) emphasis of established political and social theory, and cham- pioned holistic approaches to political and social understanding. Post- colonialism emphasizes the cultural dimension of colonial rule, showing how western cultural and political hegemony (see p. 174) over the rest of the world has been preserved despite the achievement of formal political independence across almost the entire developing world. The second characteristic of critical approaches to politics is that, albeit in  Post-positivism: An different ways and to different degrees, they have tried to go beyond the posi- approach to knowledge that tivism of mainstream political science, emphasizing instead the role of questions the idea of an ‘objective’ reality, emphasizing consciousness in shaping social conduct and, therefore, the political world. instead the extent to which These so-called post-positivist approaches (sometimes called ‘interpretivism’ or people conceive, or ‘construct’, ‘anti-foundationalism’) are therefore ‘critical’, in that they not only take issue the world in which they live. with the conclusions of mainstream approaches, but also subject these  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 17 Focus on... The prisoners’ dilemma Two prisoners, held in Prisoner B separate cells, are faced with the choice of ‘squeal- Confesses Does not confess ing’ or ‘not squealing’ on one another. If only one of them confesses, but A: B: A: B: Confesses 6 yrs 6 yrs 0 yrs 10 yrs Prisoner A provides evidence to convict the other, he will be released without Does not A: B: A: B: charge, while his partner confess 10 yrs 0 yrs 1 yr 1 yr will take the whole blame and be jailed for ten years. If both prisoners confess, Figure 1.3 Options in the prisoners’ dilemma they will each be jailed for six years. If both refuse to confess, they will only be maximum sentence. Ironically, the game shows that convicted of a minor crime, and they will each receive a rational behaviour can result in the least favourable one-year sentence. Figure 1.3 shows the options avail- outcome (in which the prisoners jointly serve a total of able to the prisoners and their consequences in terms 12 years in jail). In effect, they are punished for their of jail sentences. failure to cooperate or trust one another. However, if the game is repeated several times, it is possible that In view of the dilemma confronting them it is likely the prisoners will learn that self-interest is advanced by that both prisoners will confess, fearing that if they do cooperation, which will encourage both to refuse to not the other will ‘squeal’ and they will receive the confess. approaches themselves to critical scrutiny, exposing biases that operate within them and examining their implications. This can be seen, in particular, in rela- tion to constructivism and post-structuralism. Constructivism has had a signifi- cantly greater impact on IR than it has had on political science, with many now treating constructivism as a mainstream international relations theory. However, constructivism is not so much a substantive theory as an analytical tool. In arguing that people, in effect, ‘construct’ the world in which they live, suggesting that the world operates through a kind of ‘inter-subjective’ awareness, construc- tivists have thrown mainstream political analysis’s claim to objectivity into ques- tion. For example, as subjective entities, political actors have no fixed or objective interests or identities; rather, these are fashioned (and can be re-fashioned) through the traditions, values and sentiments that prevail at any time. Post-structuralism emerged alongside postmodernism (see p. 18), the two terms sometimes being used interchangeably. Post-structuralism emphasizes that all ideas and concepts are expressed in language which itself is enmeshed in complex relations of power. Influenced particularly by the writings of the French philosopher and radical intellectual Michel Foucault (1926–84), post-  18 POLITICS structuralists have drawn attention to the link between power and systems of CONCEPT thought using the idea of discourse, or ‘discourses of power’. In crude terms, this Postmodernism implies that knowledge is power. However, in the absence of a universal frame of Postmodernism is a term reference or overarching perspective, there exists only a series of competing that was first used to perspectives, each of which represents a particular discourse of power. Although describe experimental post-structuralism and postmodernism reject the idea of absolute and universal movements in western truth (foundationalism), post-structuralists argue that it is possible to expose arts, architecture and hidden meanings in particular concepts, theories and interpretations through a cultural development in general. As a tool of social process of deconstruction. and political analysis, postmodernism highlights the shift away from Concepts, models and theories societies structured by Concepts, models and theories are the tools of political analysis. However, as industrialization and class solidarity to increasingly with most things in politics, the analytical tools must be used with care. First, let fragmented and pluralistic us consider concepts. A concept is a general idea about something, usually ‘information’ societies. In expressed in a single word or a short phrase. A concept is more than a proper these, individuals are noun or the name of a thing. There is, for example, a difference between talking transformed from about a cat (a particular and unique cat) and having a concept of a ‘cat’ (the idea producers to consumers, and individualism replaces of a cat). The concept of a cat is not a ‘thing’ but an ‘idea’, an idea composed of class, religious and ethnic the various attributes that give a cat its distinctive character: ‘a furry mammal’, loyalties. Postmodernists ‘small’, ‘domesticated’, ‘catches rats and mice’, and so on. The concept of ‘equality’ argue that there is no is thus a principle or ideal. This is different from using the term to say that a such thing as certainty; runner has ‘equalled’ a world record, or that an inheritance is to be shared the idea of absolute and universal truth must be ‘equally’ between two brothers. In the same way, the concept of ‘presidency’ discarded as an arrogant refers not to any specific president but, rather, to a set of ideas about the organ- pretence. ization of executive power. What, then, is the value of concepts? Concepts are the tools with which we think, criticize, argue, explain and analyse. Merely perceiving the external world does not in itself give us knowledge about it. In order to make sense of the world, we must, in a sense, impose meaning on it, and this we do through the construction of concepts. Quite simply, to treat a cat as a cat, we must first have a concept of what it is. Concepts also help us to classify objects by recognizing that they have similar forms or similar properties. A cat, for instance, is a member of the class of ‘cats’. Concepts are therefore ‘general’: they can relate to a number of objects, indeed to any object that complies with the characteristics of the general idea itself. It is no exaggeration to say that our knowledge of the political world is built up through developing and refining concepts that help us make sense of that world. Concepts, in that sense, are the building blocks of human knowledge. Nevertheless, concepts can also be slippery customers. In the first place, the  Discourse: Human interaction, especially political reality we seek to understand is constantly shifting and is highly communication; discourse may complex. There is always the danger that concepts such as ‘democracy’, ‘human disclose or illustrate power rights’ and ‘capitalism’ will be more rounded and coherent than the unshapely relations. realities they seek to describe. Max Weber tried to overcome this problem by recognizing particular concepts as ‘ideal types’. This view implies that the  Deconstruction: A close reading of philosophical or concepts we use are constructed by singling out certain basic or central features other texts with an eye to their of the phenomenon in question, which means that other features are down- various blind spots and/or graded or ignored altogether. The concept of ‘revolution’ can be regarded as an contradictions. ideal type in this sense, in that it draws attention to a process of fundamental,  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 19 Debating... Should students of politics seek to be objective and politically neutral? Many believe that a strict distinction should be drawn between studying politics and practising politics, between having an academic interest in the subject and being politically engaged or committed. But does this distinction stand up to examination? Should we (teachers as well as students) approach the study of politics in a neutral manner, adopting a stance of ‘scientific’ objectivity? Or should we accept that, in politics, interest and commitment are inevitably linked, and even that political conviction may drive political understanding? YES NO Desire to explain. The motives for studying politics and Myth of neutrality. Whereas natural scientists may be practising politics are – or should be – different. Students able to approach their studies from an objective and of politics should seek, above all, to understand and impartial standpoint, this is impossible in politics. explain the (all too often complex and baffling) political However politics is defined, it addresses questions about world. As they want to ‘make sense’ of things, any the structure and functioning of the society in which we personal preferences they may hold must be treated as of live and have grown up. Family background, social expe- strictly secondary importance. In contrast, practitioners rience, economic position, political sympathies and so on of politics (politicians, activists and the like) are princi- therefore build into each and every one of us preconcep- pally concerned with reshaping the political world in line tions about the political world we are seeking to study. with their own convictions or preferences. Political Indeed, perhaps the greatest threat to reliable knowledge convictions thus blind people to ‘inconvenient’ truths, comes not from bias as such, but from the failure to allowing political analysis to service the needs of political acknowledge bias, reflected in bogus claims to political advocacy. neutrality. Objective knowledge. There is an approach to the acqui- Emancipatory knowledge. Very few people are drawn to sition of knowledge that has unrivalled authority in the the study of politics through a disinterested quest for form of scientific method, and this should be applied to knowledge alone. Instead, they seek knowledge for a all areas of learning, politics (or ‘political science’) purpose, and that purpose invariably has a normative included. Using observation, measurement and experi- component. As Marx famously put it, ‘The philosophers mentation, scientific method allows hypotheses to be have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the verified or falsified by comparing them with what we point is to change it’. Such an approach is most clearly know about the ‘real world’. Systematic enquiry, guided embraced by modern critical theorists, who adopt an by such scientific principles, is the only reliable means of explicit commitment to emancipatory politics. The producing and accumulating knowledge. This knowledge purpose of critical theory is to uncover structures of is ‘objective’ because it is generated through a value-free oppression and injustice in domestic and global politics approach that is concerned with empirical questions and in order to advance the cause of individual and collective does not seek to make normative judgements. freedom. Free-floating intellectuals. Education and intellectual Competing realities. Post-positivist theorists question enquiry are themselves a training-ground in dispassion- the very idea of scientific objectivity, arguing that there is ate scholarship, allowing students and teachers to more than one way in which the world can be under- distance themselves, over time, from the allegiances and stood. There is thus no single, overarching truth about biases that derive from social and family backgrounds. the ‘real world’ out there, separate from the beliefs, ideas The German sociologist Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) and assumptions of the observer. If the subject (the thus argued that objectivity is strictly the preserve of the student of politics) cannot in any reliable way be distin- ‘socially unattached intelligentsia’, a class of intellectuals guished from the object (the political world), then who alone can engage in disciplined and dispassionate dispassionate scholarship must be treated as, at best, an enquiry. As free-floating intellectuals, they can stand back unachievable ideal, social and political analysis being an from the world they seek to understand, and thereby see inevitably value-laden activity. it more clearly.  20 POLITICS and usually violent, political change. It thus helps us make sense of, say, the 1789 CONCEPT French Revolution and the Eastern European revolutions of 1989–91 by high- Ideal type lighting important parallels between them. The concept must nevertheless be An ideal type (sometimes used with care because it can also conceal vital differences, and thereby distort ‘pure type’) is a mental understanding – in this case, for example, about the ideological and social char- construct in which an acter of revolution. Sartori (1970) highlighted similar tendencies by drawing attempt is made to draw attention to the phenomena of conceptual ‘travelling’ (the application of out meaning from an concepts to new cases) and conceptual ‘stretching’ (the distortion that occurs otherwise almost infinitely complex reality when these concepts do not fit the new cases). For these reason, it is better to through the presentation think of concepts or ideal types not as being ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as being more or of a logical extreme. Ideal less ‘useful’. types were first used in A further problem is that political concepts are often the subject of deep economics, for instance, ideological controversy. Politics is, in part, a struggle over the legitimate in the notion of perfect competition. Championed meaning of terms and concepts. Enemies may argue, fight and even go to war, in the social sciences by all claiming to be ‘defending freedom’, ‘upholding democracy’ or ‘having justice Max Weber, ideal types on their side’. The problem is that words such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and are explanatory tools, not ‘justice’ have different meanings to different people. How can we establish approximations of reality; what is ‘true’ democracy, ‘true’ freedom or ‘true’ justice? The simple answer is they neither ‘exhaust reality’ nor offer an that we cannot. Just as with the attempt to define ‘politics’, we have to accept ethical ideal. Weberian that there are competing versions of many political concepts. Such concepts examples include types are best regarded as ‘essentially contested’ concepts (Gallie, 1955/56), in that of authority (see p. 4) controversy about them runs so deep that no neutral or settled definition can and bureaucracy (see ever be developed. In effect, a single term can represent a number of rival p. 361). concepts, none of which can be accepted as its ‘true’ meaning. For example, it is equally legitimate to define politics as what concerns the state, as the conduct of public life, as debate and conciliation, and as the distribution of power and resources. Models and theories are broader than concepts; they comprise a range of ideas rather than a single idea. A model is usually thought of as a representation of something, usually on a smaller scale, as in the case of a doll’s house or a toy aeroplane. In this sense, the purpose of the model is to resemble the original object as faithfully as possible. However, conceptual models need not in any way resemble an object. It would be absurd, for instance, to insist that a computer model of the economy should bear a physical resemblance to the economy itself. Rather, conceptual models are analytical tools; their value is that they are devices through which meaning can be imposed on what would otherwise be a bewil- dering and disorganized collection of facts. The simple point is that facts do not speak for themselves: they must be interpreted, and they must be organized. Models assist in the accomplishment of this task because they include a network of relationships that highlight the meaning and significance of relevant empiri- cal data. The best way of understanding this is through an example. One of the most influential models in political analysis is the model of the political system developed by David Easton (1979, 1981). This can be represented diagrammati- cally (see Figure 1.4).  Model: A theoretical This ambitious model sets out to explain the entire political process, as well representation of empirical as the function of major political actors, through the application of what is called data that aims to advance understanding by highlighting systems analysis. A system is an organized or complex whole, a set of interrelated significant relationships and and interdependent parts that form a collective entity. In the case of the political interactions. system, a linkage exists between what Easton calls ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’. Inputs  W H AT I S P O L I T I C S ? 21 Outputs Gate People Inputs keepers Inputs Government Outputs Figure 1.4 The political system into the political system consist of demands and supports from the general public. Demands can range from pressure for higher living standards, improved employment prospects, and more generous welfare payments to greater protec- tion for minority and individual rights. Supports, on the other hand, are ways in which the public contributes to the political system by paying taxes, offering compliance, and being willing to participate in public life. Outputs consist of the decisions and actions of government, including the making of policy, the passing of laws, the imposition of taxes, and the allocation of public funds. Clearly, these outputs generate ‘feedback’ which, in turn, shapes further demands and supports. The key insight offered by Easton’s model is that the political system tends towards long-term equilibrium or political stability, as its survival depends on outputs being brought into line with inputs. However, it is vital to remember that conceptual models are at best simplifi- cations of the reality they seek to explain. They are merely devices for drawing out understanding; they are not reliable knowledge. In the case of Easton’s model, for example, political parties and interest groups are portrayed as ‘gate- keepers’, the central function of which is to regulate the flow of inputs into the political system. Alth