Defining Politics PDF

| 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 acade...

| 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 guarantees dis- agreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognise that, in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others, hence Hannah Arendt's (see p. 9) definition 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) ensure that politics is an inevitable feature of the human condition. Any attempt to clarify the meaning of 'polities' 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 sub- jects, few people come to politics without preconceptions. Many, for instance, auto- matically 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. To make matters worse, politics is usually thought of as a 'dirty' word: it conjures up images of trouble, disruption alirTev^nvin I er) ce on the oneliand, and dec^ICmanipuIation and lies on the other. There is nothing new about such associations.~As long ago as 1775, Samuel Johnson dismissed politics as 'nothing more than a means of rising in the world', while in\he nineteenth century the US historian Henry Adams summed up politics as 'the systematic organisation of hatreds'. Any attempt to define politics therefore entails trying to disentangle the term from such associations. Not uncommonly, this has meant attempting to rescue the term from its unsavoury reputation by establishing that politics is a valuable, even laudable, activity. 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 exercise of authority, 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 sufficiently broad to encompass most, if :: Competition between n Q t ^ competing definitions. However, problems arise when the definition is opposing forces, reflecting a diversity of opinions, unpacked, or when the meaning is refined. For instance, does 'polities' refer to a prelerences, needs or particular way in which rules are made, preserved or amended (that is, peacefully, by interests. debate), or to all such processes? Similarly, is politics practised in all social contexts Cooperation: Working and institutions, or only in certain ones (that is, government and public life)? together; achieving goals through collective action. From this perspective, politics may be treated as an 'essentially contested' concept (see p. 18), in the sense that the term has a number of acceptable or legitimate mean- ings. On the other hand, these different views may simply consist of contrasting^ Concept conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept. Whether we are dealing with rival concepts or alternative conceptions, the debate about 'what is politics?' is worth T h e state pursuing because it exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological dis- The state is a political agreements in the academic study of the subject. The different views of politics association that examined here are as follows: establishes sovereign (see p. 143) jurisdiction within politics as the art of government defined territorial borders politics as public affairs and exercises authority through a set of permanent politics as compromise and consensus institutions. These institutions are these that politics as power and the distribution of resources. are recognisably 'public' in that they are responsible Politics as the art of government for the collective organisation of communal 'Politics is not a science... but an art', Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have told life and are funded at the public's expense. The state the German Reichstag. The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of government, the thus embraces the various exercise of control within society through the making and enforcement of collective institutions of government, decisions. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the but it also extends to the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece. courts, nationalised industries, social-security The word 'politics' is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state. Ancient system, and so forth; it can Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of which be identified with the entire possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these 'body politic'. For the city-states was Athens, often portrayed as_the cradle of demorratir g o v e r n m e n t In German sociologist Max Weber (see p. 194), the this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis, in effect, 'what state was defined by its concerns the polis. The modern form of this definition is therefore 'what concerns monopoly of the means of the state'. This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: 'legitimate violence' (see people are said to be 'in politics' when they hold public office, or to be 'entering Chapter 5); politics' when they seek to do so. It is also a definition which academic political science has helped to perpetuate. In many ways, the notion that politics amounts to 'what concerns the state' is the traditional view of the discipline, reflected in the tendency for academic study to focus upon the personnel and machinery of government. To study politics is in essence to study government, or, more broadly, to study the exercise of authority. This view is advanced in the writings of the influential US political scientist David Easton (1979, 1981), who defined politics as the 'authoritative allocation of values'. By this he meant that politics encompasses the various processes through which government responds to pressures from the larger society, in particular by allocating benefits, rewards or penalties. 'Authoritative values' are therefore ones that are widely accepted in society, and considered binding by the mass of citizens. In this view, politics is associated with 'policy' (see p. 382), that is, with formal or authoritative decisions that establish a plan of action for the community. However, what is striking about this definition is that it offers a highly restricted Polls: {Greek) City-state; view of politics. Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of social organ- classically understood to impiy isation centred upon the machinery of government. Politics is therefore practised in the highest or most desirable cabinet rooms, legislative chambers, government departments and the like, and it is form of social organisation. engaged in by a limited and specific group of people, notably politicians, civil servants Polity: A society organised and lobbyists. This means that most people, most institutions and most social activities through the exercise of political can be regarded as being 'outside' politics. Businesses, schools and other educational authority; for Aristotle, rule by institutions, community groups, families and so on are in this sense 'nonpolitical', the many in the interests of all.  Nlccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician and author: The son of a civil.first-hand observations of the statecraft of lawyer, Machiavelli's knowledge of public life ; Cesare Borgia and the power politics that was gained from a sometime? precarious 'dominated his period. It was written as a -existence in politically unstable Florence. He guide for the future prince of a united Italy. served as Second Chancellor (3,499-1512), The adjective 'Machiavellian' subsequently and was despatched on missions to France", came to mean 'cunning and duplicitous'. Germany and throughout Italy. After a brief period of imprisonment and the restoration o f Medici rule", Machiavelli embarked on a literary career. His majorwork, The Prince, published in 1531, drew heavily upon his because they are not engaged in 'running the country'. By the same token, to portray politics as an essentially state-bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important Authority international or global influences upon modern life, such as the impact of trans- national technology and multinational corporations. In this sense, this definition of Authority can most simply be defined as 'legitimate politics is a hangover from the days when the nation-state (see p. 117) could still be power'. Whereas power is regarded as an independent actor in world affairs. the ability to influence the This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. This is evident in the behaviour of others, authority is the right to do tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics. In other words, the realm so. Authority is therefore of 'the political' is restricted to those state actors who are consciously motivated by based on an acknowledged ideological beliefs, and who seek to advance them through membership of a formal duty to obey rather than orv organisation such as a political party. This is the sense in which politicians are any form of coercion o r manipulation. In this sense, described as 'political', whereas civil servants are seen as 'nonpolitical', as long as, of authority is power cloaked course, they act in a neutral and professional fashion. Similarly, judges are taken to in legitimacy or rightfulness. be 'nonpolitical' figures while they interpret the law impartially and in accordance Weber (see p. 194) distinguished between three with the available evidence, but they may be accused of being 'political' if their kinds of authority, based on judgement is influenced by personal preferences or some other form of bias. the different grounds upon The link between politics and the affairs of the state also helps to explain why which obedience can be established: traditional negative or pejorative images have so often been attached to politics. This is because, authority is rooted in in the popular mind, politics is closely associated with the activities of politicians. nistory, charismatic Put brutally, politicians are often seen as power-seeking hypocrites who conceal personal authority stems from ambition behind the rhetoric of public service and ideological conviction. Indeed, personality, and legal-rational authority is this perception has become more common in the modern period as intensified grounded in a set of media exposure has more effectively brought to light examples of corruption and impersonal rules (see the dishonesty, giving rise to the phenomenon of anti-politics. This rejection of the per- section on legitimising power, p. 193-6). sonnel and machinery of conventional political life is rooted in a view of politics as a self-serving, two-faced and unprincipled activity, clearly evident in the use of derogatory phrases such as 'office politics' and 'politicking'. Such an image of poli- tics is sometimes traced back to the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, who, in The Prince ( 1961), developed a strictly realistic account of politics which drew Anti-politics: Disillusionment attention to the use by political leaders of cunning, cruelty and manipulation. with formal and established Such a negative view of politics reflects the essentially liberal perception that, as political processes, reflected individuals are self-interested, political power is corrupting, because it encourages in nonparticipation, support for those 'in power' to exploit their position for personal advantage and at the expense antisystem parties, or the use of direct action. of others. This is famously expressed in Lord Acton's (1834-1902) aphorism: 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Nevertheless, few who  Concept Aristotle (384-22 BCE) Power Greek philosopher. Aristotle was a student of Plato and Power, in its broadest tutor of the young Alexander the Great. He established his sense, is the ability to own school of philosophy in Athens in 335 BCE; this was achieve a desired outcome, called the 'peripatetic school' after his tendency to walk up and it is sometimes and down as he talked. His 22 surviving treatises, compiled referred to in terms of the as lecture notes, range over logic, physics, metaphysics, 'power to' do something. astronomy, meteorology, biology, ethics and politics. In the This includes everything Middle Ages, Aristotle's work became the foundation of from the ability to keep Islamic philosophy, and it was later incorporated into oneself alive to the ability of Christian theology. His best known political work is Politics, government to promote a study of the ideal constitution. economic growth. In politics, however, power is usually thought of as a view politics in this way doubt that political activity is an inevitable and permanent relationship, that is, as the ability to influence the feature of social existence. However venal politicians may be, there is a general, if behaviour of others in a grudging, acceptance that they are always with us. Without some kind of mechanism manner not of their for allocating authoritative values, society would simply disintegrate into a civil war choosing. It is referred to in terms of having 'power of each against all, as the early social-contract theorists argued (see p. 87). The task is over' people. More narrowly, therefore not to abolish politicians and bring politics to an end, but rather to ensure power may be associated that politics is conducted within a framework of checks and constraints that ensure with the ability to punish or that governmental power is not abused. reward, bringing it close to force or manipulation, in contrast to 'influence', which also encompasses Politics as public affairs rational persuasion (see the faces of power focus box, p. A second and broader conception of politics moves it beyond the narrow realm of 11). government to what is thought of as 'public life' or 'public affairs'. In other words, the distinction between 'the political' and 'the nonpolitical' coincides with the division between an essentially public sphere of life and what can be thought of as a private sphere. Such a view of politics is often traced back to the work of the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle declared that 'man is by nature a political animal', by which he meant that it is only within a political community that human beings can live 'the good life'. From this viewpoint, then, politics is an ethical activity concerned with creating a 'just society'; it is what Aristotle called the 'master science'. 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 institutions of the state (the apparatus of government, the courts, the police, the army, the society-security sys- tem and so forth) can be regarded as 'public' in the sense that they are responsible for the collective organisation of community life. Moreover, they are funded at the public's expense, out of taxation. In contrast, civil society consists of what Edmund Burke (see p. 45) called the 'little platoons', institutions such as the family and kin- ship groups, private businesses, trade unions, clubs, community groups and so on that are 'private' in the sense that they are set up and funded by individual citizens to satisfy their own interests, rather than those of the larger society. On the basis of this 'public/private' division, politics is restricted to the activities of the state itself and the responsibilities which are properly exercised by public bodies. Those areas of life that individuals can and do manage for themselves (the economic, social, domestic, personal, cultural and artistic spheres, and so on) are therefore clearly 'nonpolitical'.  Concept An alternative 'public/private' divide is sometimes defined in terms of a further and more subtle distinction, namely that between 'the political' and 'the personal' Civil society (see Figure 1.1). Although civil society can be distinguished from the state, it never- theless contains a range of institutions that are thought of as 'public' in the wider The term civil society has been defined in a variety of sense that they are open institutions, operating in public, to which the public has ways. Originally, it meant a access. One of the crucial implications of this is that it broadens our notion of the 'politicai community', a political, transferring the economy in particular from the private to the public realm. society governed by law, A form of politics can thus be found in the workplace. Nevertheless, although this under the authority of a state. More commonly,; it is view regards institutions such as businesses, community groups, clubs and trade distinguished from the unions as 'public', it remains a restricted view of politics. According to this perspect- state, and the term Is used ive, politics does not, and should not, infringe upon 'personal' affairs and institu- to describe institutions that tions. Feminist thinkers in particular have pointed out that this implies that politics are 'private' in that theyarej independent from- ' effectively stops at, the front door; it does not take place in the family, in domestic government and organised life, or in personal relationships. This view is illustrated, for example, by the by individuals in pursuit of tendency of politicians to dravv a clear distinction between their professional con- their own ends. 'Civil duct and their personal or domestic behaviour. By classifying, say, cheating on their society' therefore refers to a realm of autonomous partners or treating their children badly as 'personal' matters, they are able to deny groups and associations: the political significance of such behaviour on the grounds that it does not touch on businesses, interest their conduct of public affairs. groups, ciubs, families and so on. Hegel (see p.'84),.. The view of politics as an essentially 'public' activity has generated both positive however, distinguished and negative images. In a tradition dating back to Aristotle, politics has been seen as a between the family and civil noble and enlightened activity precisely because of its 'public' character. This position society, viewing the latter as a sphere of egoism and was firmly endorsed by Hannah Arendt, who argued in The Human Condition selfishness. (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. 73) and John Stuart Mill (see p. 44) who portrayed political participation as a good in itself have drawn similar conclusions. Rousseau argued that only through the direct and continuous participation of all citizens in political life can the state be bound to the common good, or what he called the 'general will' (see p. 72), In Mill's view, involvement in 'public' affairs is educational in that it promotes the personal, moral and intellectual development 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 exhibited a pref- erence for civil society over the state, on thp grounds that 'private' life is a realm of choice, personal freedom and individual responsibility. This is most clearly demon- strated by attempts to narrow the realm of'the political', commonly expressed as the Civil society: The state: autonomous bodies: businesses, apparatus of government trade unions, clubs, families, and so on Fig. 1.1 Two views of the public/private divide Public realm: Personal reality politics, commerce, work, art, family and domestic life culture, and so on  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), The Human Condition (1958), On Revolution (1963) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), which she described as a study of the 'banality of evil'. wish to 'keep politics out of private activities such as business, sport and family life. From this point of view, politics is unwholesome quite simply because it prevents people acting as they choose. For example, it may interfere with how firms conduct their business, or with how and with whom we play sports, or with how we bring up our children. Politics as compromise and consensus The third conception of politics relates not so much to the arena within which politics is conducted as to the way in which decisions are made. Specifically, politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict, that is, by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than through force and naked power. This is what is implied when politics is portrayed as 'the art of the possible'. Such a definition is inherent in the everyday use of the term. For instance, the description of a solution to a problem as a 'political' solution implies peaceful debate and arbitration, as opposed to what is often called a 'military' solution. Once again, this view of politics has been traced back to the writings of Aristotle and, in particular, to his belief that what he called 'polity' is the ideal system of government, as it is 'mixed' in the sense that it com- bines both aristocratic and democratic features (see p. 25-6). One of the leading modern exponents of this view is Bernard Crick. In his classic study In Defence of Politics, Crick offered the following definition: 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 sur- vival ofthe whole community. (Crick, 1993:21) 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 por- trayed politics as 'that solution to the problem of order which chooses conciliation rather than violence and coercion' (p. 30). Such a view of politics reflects a deep commitment to liberal-rationalist principles. It is based on resolute faith in the effi- cacy of debate and discussion, as well as on the belief that society is characterised by consensus rather than by irreconcilable conflict. In other words, the disagreements that exist can be resolved without resort to intimidation and violence. Critics, how-  Concept ever, point out that Crick's conception of politics is heavily biased towards the form of politics that takes place in western pluralist democracies; in effect, he equated Consensus politics with electoral choice and party competition. As a result, his model has little The term consensus means to tell us about, say, one-party states or military regimes. agreement, but it usually This view of politics has an unmistakeably positive character. Politics is certainly refers to an agreement of a no Utopian solution (compromise means that concessions are made by all sides, particular kind. It implies, leaving no one perfectly satisfied), but it is undoubtedly preferable to the alterna- first, a broad agreement, the terms of which are tives; bloodshed and brutality. In this sense, politics can be seen as a civilised and accepted by a Wide range of civilising force. People should be encouraged to respect politics as an activity, and individuals or groups. should be prepared to engage in the political life of their own community. Neverthe- Secondly, it implies an less, Crick saw politics as an embattled and often neglected activity. He saw its prin- agreement about fundamental or underlying cipal enemy as 'the desire for certainty at any cost', and he warned that this is principles, as opposed to a demonstrated in many forms, including the; seductive influence of political ideo- precise or exact agreement. logies, blind faith in democracy, the impact of rabid nationalism and the promise of In other words, a > science to disclose objective truth. consensus permits disagreement on matters of emphasis or detail. The term 'consensus politics' is Politics as power used in two senses. A The fourth definition of politics is both the broadest and the most radical. Rather procedural consensus is a willingness to make than confining politics to a particular sphere (the government, the state or the 'pub- decisions through lic' realm) this view sees politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of consultation and human existence. As Adrian Leftwich proclaimed in What is Politics? The Activity bargaining, either between and Its Study (1984:64), 'politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal political parties or between government and major and informal, public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies'. In interests. A substantive this sense, politics takes place at every level of social interaction; it can be found consensus is an overlap of within families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as amongst nations the ideological positions of - two or more political, ^ t ' * and on the global stage. However, what is it that is distinctive about political activity? parties, reflected in agreement about At its broadest, politics concerns the production, distribution and use of fundamental policy goals. resources in the course of social existence. Politics is, in essence, power: the ability to Examples are the UK's postwar social-democratic achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. This notion was neatly consensus, and Germany's summed up in the tide of Harold Lasswell's book Politics: Who Gets What, When, social-market consensus.) 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 lim- ited. 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 this view of power include feminists and Marxists. Modern feminists have shown particular interest in the idea of'the political'. This arises from the fact that conventional definitions of politics effectively exclude women from political life. Women have traditionally been confined to a 'private' sphere of existence, centred on the family and domestic responsibilities. In contrast, men have always dominated conventional politics and other areas of 'public' life. Radical feminists have therefore attacked the 'public/private' divide, proclaiming instead that 'the personal is the political'. This slogan neatly encapsulates the radical- feminist belief that what goes on in domestic, family and personal life is intensely political, and indeed that it is the basis of all other political struggles. Clearly, a more radical notion of politics underlies this position. This view was summed up by Kate Millett in Sexual Politics (1969:23), in which she defined politics as 'power-  Focus on. 'Faces'of power Power can be said to be exercised whenever A gets B to do something which B would not otherwise have done. However, A can influence B in various ways. This allows us to distinguish between different dimensions or 'faces' of power: Power as decision-making: This face of power consists of conscious actions that in some way influence the content of decisions. The classic account of this form of power is found in Robert Dahl's Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (1961), which made judgements about who had power by analysing decisions in the light of the known preferences of the actors involved. Such decisions can nevertheless be influenced in a variety of ways. In Three Faces of Power (1989), Keith Boulding distinguished between the use of force or intimidation (the stick), productive exchanges involving mutual gain (the deal), and the creation of obligations, loyalty and commitment (the kiss). Power as agenda setting: The second face of power, as suggested by Bachrach and Baratz (1962), is the ability to prevent decisions being made, that is, in effect, 'non-decision-making'. This involves the ability to set or control the political agenda, thereby preventing issues or proposals from being aired in the first place. For instance, private businesses may exert power both by campaigning to defeat proposed consumer-protection legislation (first face), and by lobbying parties and politicians to prevent the question of consumer rights being publicly discussed (second face). Power as thought control: The third face of power is the ability to influence another by shaping what he or she thinks, wants, or needs (Lukes, 1974). This is power expressed as ideological indoctrination or psychological control. An example of this would be the ability of the advertising industry to remove pressure for stiffer consumer-protection laws by persuading consumers that their interests had already been looked after by business (in the form of, for example, 'planet- friendly' products). In political life, the exercise of this form of power is seen in the use of propaganda and, more generally, in the impact of ideology (see p. 41). structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another'. Feminists can therefore be said to be concerned with 'the politics of everyday life'. In their view, relationships within the family, between husbands and wives, and between parents and children, are every bit as political as relationships between employers and workers, or between governments and citizens. Marxists have used the term 'politics' in two senses. On one level, Marx (see p. 51) used 'politics' in a conventional sense to refer to the apparatus of the state. In the Communist Manifesto ( 1967), he thus referred to political power as 'merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another' (p. 105). For Marx, politics, together with law and culture, are part of a 'superstructure' that is distinct from the economic 'base' which is the real foundation of social life. However, he did not see the economic 'base' and the legal and political 'superstructure' as entirely separate. He believed that the 'superstructure' arose out of, and reflected, the economic 'base'. At a deeper level, political power, in this view, is therefore rooted in the class system; as Lenin (see p. 75) 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 perspective, civil society, characterised 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 charac- terised 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 the means through which injustice and domination can be challenged. Marx, for instance, predicted that class exploitation would be overthrown by a proletarian revolution, and radical feminists proclaim the need for gender relations to be reordered through a isexual revolution. However, it is also clear that when politics is portrayed as power and domination 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 nonsexist society, in which people will be valued according to personal worth rather than on the basis of gender. Marxists believe that 'class poli- tics' will end with the establishment of a classless communist society. This, in turn, will-eventually lead to the 'withering away' of the state, bringing politics in the conventional sense also to an end. | Studying politics Approaches to the study of politics Disagreement about the nature of political activity is matched by controversy about the nature of politics as an academic discipline. One of the most ancient spheres of intellectual enquiry, politics was originally seen as an arm of philosophy, history or law. Its central purpose was to uncover the principles upon which human society should be based. From the late nineteenth century onwards, however, this philo- sophical emphasis was gradually displaced by an attempt to turn politics into a scientific discipline. The high point of this development was reached in the 1950s and 1960s with an open rejection of the earlier tradition as meaningless metaphysics. Since then, however, enthusiasm for a strict science of politics has waned, and there has been a renewed recognition of the enduring importance of political values and normative theories. If the 'traditional^search for universal values acceptable to everyone has largely been abandoned, so has been the insistence that science (see p. 16) alone provides a means of disclosing truth. The resulting discipline is today 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',  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. Plato's work has exerted wide influence on Christianity and on European culture in general. 'ought' or 'must' be brought about, rather than 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' thinkers (that spans, for instance, Plato to Marx) and a canon of'classic' texts. This approach has the charac- ter of literary analysis: it is primarily interested in examining what major thinkers said, how they developed or justified their views, and the intellectual context within which they worked. Although such analysis maybe carried out critically and scrupu- lously, it cannot be objective in any scientific sense, as it deals with normative ques- tions such as 'why should I obey the state?', 'how should rewards be distributed?' and 'what should the limits of individual freedom be?'. The empirical tradition Although it was less prominent than normative theorising, 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 p. 25-6), in Machiavelli's realistic account of statecraft, and in Montesquieu's (see p. 294) sociological theory of government and law. In many ways, such writings constitute 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 empirical approach to political analysis is characterised by the attempt to offer a dispassionate and impartial account of political reality. The approach is 'descriptive' in that it seeks to analyse and explain, whereas Objective: External to the the normative approach is 'prescriptive' in the sense that it makes judgements and observer, demonstrable; untainted by feelings, values or offers recommendations. bias. Descriptive political analysis acquired its philosophical underpinning from the Normative: The prescription of doctrine of empiricism, which spread from the seventeenth century onwards values and standards of through the work of theorists such as John Locke (see p. 43) and David Hume conduct; what 'should be' rather than what 'is'. (1711-76). The doctrine of empiricism advanced the belief that experience is the