What is politics?

So far, you have had a rather broad introduction to politics and its importance, on both a grand and an ordinary scale. You will now be introduced to some of the ways in which those who study politics have defined it. Through an engagement with various definitions of politics, this section of the course will also introduce you to the idea that many concepts in the social sciences are contested, politics included, and will explore the implications of this for studying and engaging in politics.

For writer Ernest Benn, ‘politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy’ (cited in Rodman, 1946). This view of politics is certainly not uncommon. It is probably representative of how many of us have, at one time or another, felt about politics. Economist Milton Friedman’s remark, ‘If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand’ (Duronio, 2012) expresses a similar sentiment: leave it to politicians, and they will find a way to empty the desert of sand. Politics is a loaded term, one that evokes strong emotional responses from both critics and champions. Still greater contempt is often reserved for those who practise politics for a living. Politicians are often the butt of jokes and subjects of derision. Even Henry Kissinger, himself a political figure loathed by many, had little to say in defence of his profession when he opined that ‘Ninety per cent of the politicians give the other ten per cent a bad reputation’ (Byrne, 1984).

Figure 4 A common, even if inaccurate view of politicians

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This hand-drawn, colour cartoon shows a middle-aged, smartly dressed woman sitting across the table from a teenage boy, dressed in jeans and a jumper. The woman (possibly a teacher or parent) is scolding the embarrassed boy. Pointing a finger at him, she says: ‘You’d make a great politician – you’re good at lying through your teeth and talking out of the back of your head.’

Figure 4 A common, even if inaccurate view of politicians

If politics does indeed have a bad name, the first question we might ask is: Why? Those disillusioned with politics would have no shortage of evidence: self-interested, deceitful, corrupt and aloof politicians; incompetent or unresponsive governments; the frequent pettiness and absurdity of political debate in both the government and the media. In recent years, political corruption scandals have shaken the Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, Russia and Turkey, to name but a few. The UK has certainly not been immune. According to The Independent’s Jonathan Brown, ‘recent British scandals can compete with the best Europe can offer’ (Brown, 2013).

And that is just Europe; political fraud, corruption and nepotism are so commonplace in many parts of the world that more often than not they are no longer considered ‘scandalous’. Add to this the ineptitude of some politicians (the innumerable ‘Bush-isms’ of former US President George W. Bush come to mind), the petty, at times violent brawls that erupt during parliamentary sessions in many parts of the world and the often uninspiring levels of political debate, and it is no wonder that many have lost faith in politics and politicians, and feel apathetic towards and disenfranchised from the political process. It is no wonder that many feel that the world would be a better place if we could just put an end to politicking.

But is this all that politics is about? Is there more to politics than what makes the headlines, notorious for prioritising the shocking and scandalous? Does politics extend beyond the politicians and parties we often distrust, the halls of government most of us have little access to, the ritual of voting that many of us find increasingly inconsequential?

Politics – and by extension, the actors in political dramas and the stages on which politics is enacted – is far more ubiquitous than we might suspect. Yet the questions of what politics is, who it is done by, where it takes place and how we study it elicit contradictory responses. Rather than providing definitive answers, we will introduce you to different perspectives; it is up to you to decide which you find most compelling.

In the following sections, you will be invited to consider a number of distinct definitions of politics. It is useful to conceptualise these definitions as existing along a spectrum, from narrow to broad understandings of politics. As you read on, you will notice that this spectrum, although useful, will itself come under scrutiny, particularly as we consider whether all of the definitions fall squarely towards the narrow or broad side, or whether some definitions are narrow in certain aspects and broad in others, or indeed could have both narrow and broad variations.

Having considered a number of distinct definitions of politics, we will then reflect on what this might mean for the practice and study of politics. We will do so with the help of a term that has been immensely influential both in the study of politics and in the social sciences and humanities more broadly: ‘essentially contested concept’. The phrase, originally coined by the social and political theorist Walter Bryce Gallie, was popularised by William E. Connolly in his seminal book The Terms of Political Discourse, first published in 1974 (Connolly, 1993). As you will see, the idea that the definitions of concepts – such as the concept of politics in general, but also more specific political concepts like freedom or equality – are disputed, and that two or three incompatible definitions could all be equally legitimate, has implications not just for politics, but for the nature of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities more generally.

As you can see from this definition, politics, even in a narrow sense, is about much more than the activities (or careers) of politicians. Even when politics is confined to that which concerns the state, it involves a whole host of other activities, actors and spaces (from the more abstract or metaphorical space of the ‘international sphere’ to more concrete places such as the UN headquarters in New York or the Palace of Westminster in London).

Through a variety of state institutions, governments make and enforce laws that govern the conduct of those within their jurisdiction. They raise taxes through which they provide public services such as infrastructure, health care, education, employment and other social services. Of course, not all states provide citizens with the same kinds or quality of services. Likewise, successive governments may not always provide the same kinds of services as their predecessors. While one government may be concerned with the issue of national defence and channel more of its tax revenue towards the armed forces, another may reduce military spending and channel more revenue into infrastructure or health care. A further government may choose to raise levels of taxation in order to afford increased spending in both areas.

In addition to regulating and governing the conduct of those in their jurisdictions (persons, corporations or other entities) and providing public services, governments also interact with other governments in the international arena. In the most extreme situations, they may go to war with each other. More frequently, however, they interact with each other through international or regional organisations that attempt to regulate inter-state affairs, organisations such as the UN, the World Trade Organization or the African Union. Through participation in regional and international organisations, states attempt to cooperate on issues of regional or global scope such as international trade (by establishing tax-free trade zones or principles of fair trade), international crime (for example, drug trafficking or piracy) and global environmental issues (for example, climate change).

Given that all this can fall within the remit of politics, defined as that which concerns the state, you might think that this definition of politics is not actually particularly narrow. It does, after all, seem to include a lot of activities, actors and spaces. Indeed, many would agree with that assessment. But as you will later see, for many others this definition is still too narrow as it excludes or overlooks the myriad political activities that do not directly involve the state. Are anti-war or anti-globalisation protests political? Are boycott campaigns political, such as the global boycott of Nike in the 1990s or the more recent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel? Are animal rights movements, or even the choice to not consume meat, political? For many of those who argue for a broader interpretation of politics, these can indeed be political. According to such arguments, this first definition, while incorporating a number of different activities, actors and places, is still too narrowly focused on the state.

There is another challenge that proponents of a broader definition of politics could level at Crick’s definition. Are politics and violence mutually exclusive? Or does the rigid separation of politics from violence (and, perhaps even more so, from coercion) exclude a whole host of actions that should be included under the rubric of the political? Is the destruction of property – anti-capitalist protesters smashing bank machines or animal rights activists throwing paint on expensive fur coats – political? Are suicide bombers acting politically? Or are they engaging in violence, pure and simple, entirely eschewing the political process? Are revolutions – generally defined by their violent character – political? For those for whom politics is a non-violent method of conflict resolution, these would probably not qualify as political actions. Yet for many others, the distinction between politics and violence is a lot less straightforward.

An even more fundamental problem raised by the above discussion is that of definition. We might ask, for instance, what constitutes violence or, for that matter, coercion? Does the destruction of property constitute violence? Is verbal or psychological abuse violent? At what point does exerting pressure on someone become coercion or violence? These are all contentious questions, which elicit contentious (and contested) answers. We will attend more closely to the contestability of concepts later on. Yet it is important to flag it here, as the conceptual choices we make – between different definitions of violence or politics, for instance – determine how we interpret the world around us.

If we keep moving from the narrow towards the broad side of the spectrum, the political scientist Andrew Heywood offers a somewhat broader definition of politics. He defines politics as the ‘activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live’ (Heywood, 2013, p. 2). He goes on to characterise politics as a process of conflict resolution, whereby an attempt is made to reconcile rival interests. Although, in the end, the conflict may not be resolved, politics is characterised by a search for such resolution. With its focus on conflict resolution, this definition shares some commonalities with Crick’s, yet there are also some differences. Crick defines politics as a particular way of resolving conflict – the proportional sharing of power by different interests – and narrows its scope by noting that it takes place ‘within a given unit of rule’ (such as the state). Arguably, Heywood’s definition is broader, extending political activity beyond ‘units of rule’, and defining it as a search for conciliation as opposed to its achievement.

Figure 7 Politics, violence or both? Trade union stickers on the broken window of a Madrid restaurant following demonstrations in 2014 against Spanish austerity measures

Let’s scrutinise this definition. We might think about what other definitions Heywood’s understanding of politics depends on. Among the most obvious is the definition of conflict (and, by extension, its resolution). We might ask what would qualify as conflict, or its resolution. For instance, would a resolution of conflict necessarily require consensus (or everyone’s agreement on a particular solution) or simply a majority agreement? For some political theorists, politics is (or at least ought to be) a process of consensus building; others see it as more of an adversarial process, where reconciliation and consensus are not necessarily the desired outcome. This leads us to a second, perhaps even more fundamental question we could ask of this (or any other) definition of politics: On what normative (or value) judgements is it premised?

Both Heywood and Crick define politics as a process whose end goal is the reconciliation of differences and the resolution of conflict. Thus, put very simply, it could be argued that the definitions are premised on the assumption that difference and conflict are undesirable, and their reconciliation and resolution desirable. Without explicitly stating it, both Crick and Heywood start from the normative assumption that difference and conflict are ‘bad’ and their mitigation, reconciliation or resolution ‘good’. Therefore, their definitions of politics, although seemingly merely descriptive, are actually built on certain normative assumptions about what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’. This is important to realise, as political analysis is at least in part about unearthing the often implicit, normative assumptions present in political statements and practices.

This brings us to the second problem – the limitation of the analytical framework we established for understanding politics. As you are probably beginning to see, in some cases, a definition of politics does not fit squarely under the ‘narrow’ or ‘broad’ rubric. Such is clearly the case with the definition of politics as the exercise of power. In this case, the exclusivity or inclusivity of politics depends on how we define power. However, it also depends on whether or not we consciously limit the scope of politics to include only particular actors and places. We might arrive at a narrower definition of politics if we limit the actors whose exercise of power we are interested in, or the spaces in which they exercise power. We could, for instance, define politics as the exercise of power by politicians, or as power exercised within the institutions of the state. This would considerably narrow our understanding of politics. Alternatively, we might considerably broaden the definition by arguing that politics takes place whenever and wherever power is exercised. On such a definition, we could point to the politics of playgrounds, where children negotiate who gets to play and with what toys, or politics in the home, when partners negotiate who does which chores or when parents discipline their children.

The point here is this: defining politics as the exercise of power can lead to narrower or broader definitions of politics, depending on our definition of power, but also on the parameters we set – regarding the content of politics (its relationship to the state, for instance, which would considerably narrow its scope), or the actors and spaces involved. Thus, the narrow–broad spectrum, although a useful organisational tool, can only take us so far.

Among the broadest ways of defining politics is to understand it as a ‘social activity’ – an activity we engage in together with others, or one through which we engage others. Politics, in this sense, is ‘always a dialogue, and never a monologue’ (Heywood, 2013, p. 1). A similarly broad (or perhaps even broader) definition is offered by Arendt (2005), who argues that politics does not have an ‘essence’ – it does not have an intrinsic nature, or an indispensable element according to which we can definitively, and in all circumstances, identify something as political. Thus, there are no quintessentially political acts, subjects or places. Politics, rather, is the world that emerges between us – the world that emerges through our interactions with each other, or through the ways that our individual actions and perspectives are aggregated into collectivities.

Figure 9 A roundtable discussion on the role and quality of BBC television, 1953

Having consistently critically engaged with the definitions of politics presented thus far, you are probably already asking some critical questions about these newest definitions. You might be asking, for instance, What qualifies as social? Is it simply an activity that is engaged in by more than two people? If so, is everything that is social also political? Is going to a pub or a football game or shopping political? If politics is a dialogue, is every conversation political? Conversely, is politics never a monologue? Must it always be a conversation? And what precisely qualifies as a conversation? Do politicians yelling across each other during a parliamentary debate qualify as a dialogue? Or are they simply shouting, without actually engaging with each other’s ideas, and therefore not actually ‘doing politics’? Or if, as Arendt postulates, there is nothing that is ‘essentially’ political, and politics can appear anywhere, is everything political? Does this stretch politics a bit too thin, diluting its meaning to the point of making it meaningless?

Similar questions could be asked of yet another interpretation of politics, that which defines politics as a public (as opposed to private) endeavour. For some, this has meant that politics occurs exclusively in the public sphere, while that which goes on in private does not merit the label ‘political’. This distinction between the public and private has been problematised and disrupted by feminist political theory, and is well captured by the feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’, or, in other iterations, ‘the private is political’. The phrase originated with second-wave feminism, a period of feminist activism that began in the 1960s and focused on issues like domestic violence and reproductive rights, previously considered matters of ‘private’ as opposed to ‘political’ concern. The phrase has since been used to argue that the narrow association of politics with public institutions or the institutions of the state (from which women have been historically excluded) should be abandoned in favour of a more inclusive definition of politics that recognises the activities of women in the private sphere (within the family structure, for instance) as potentially political. It has also been used to argue that issues such as spousal abuse or reproductive rights (often considered private matters, as opposed to public issues) should in fact be politicised, and considered matters of public concern.

However, the argument that politics is a public endeavour can also be understood more broadly. For something to be public, it need not take place in the public sphere, as defined above. Something can be public in its orientation; it can qualify as public if it is directed outward, into the world, so to speak. On this understanding of publicity, the political-ness of an action does not depend on its location in the public or private sphere, but on its public orientation. Take, for instance, the act of reading a book or watching a film that has been censored or banned by your government. Reading such a book in a coffee shop (a public space) would certainly qualify as a political activity. But so might reading it in your home (a private space), or, indeed, keeping it on your bookshelf. Though done in the privacy of your home, these acts are directed outward, into the world, in the sense of making a (political) statement against censorship. In fact, they might even be considered political in the narrower sense of the term – they do, after all, ‘concern the state’ in the sense of directly challenging its laws.

Let’s stick with this example, and return briefly to the definition of politics as a social activity. Even if we broaden the definition of ‘public’ to include reading a banned book at your kitchen table, reading is surely not a ‘social’ activity or a ‘dialogue’, so it might not qualify as political according to that definition. Yet for some of those advocating a broad interpretation of politics, the concept of ‘dialogue’ is rather fluid. Dialogue, for instance, does not need to be a dialogue with someone specific, but could be a dialogue with (or critique of) prevailing laws or social norms. This would enable us not only to stretch the category of politics to include activities such as reading a banned book, but also to include within the realm of politics individual actions that are ‘directed’ towards others (without necessarily having an identifiable audience) or engaging in a ‘conversation’ in a more metaphorical sense of the term. Literature and art more generally, as well as their consumption (the reading of novels, the watching of films or attendance at an art exhibition, for instance) could, in this sense, be political. And so too, of course, would be the writing of fiction or the production of a film or piece of visual art.

Given the example you just worked through, you might be tempted to think that politics (whether broadly or narrowly defined) is all about critically engaging with or challenging the status quo – the present state of affairs. Protests against dominant social norms or government law do indeed challenge the status quo, but politics also includes attempts to preserve the status quo. Those who have engaged in protests to preserve the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a women have been engaging in politics as much as those lobbying to change it. Thus, while some engage in politics in order to change the present state of affairs, others do so to endorse and conserve that which exists.

Figure 11 Proponents of traditional marriage protest in front of the US federal courthouse in Detroit, Michigan, 2014

Let’s take the example of kissing, which is probably not something that immediately strikes us as political. Kissing your partner at home or giving your children a goodnight kiss is certainly not political. Yet in a different context, kissing could indeed be quite political. In 2013, two Moroccan teenagers were charged with ‘public indecency’ and although eventually acquitted, faced a possible five-year prison sentence after pictures of the couple kissing were posted on Facebook. While it doesn’t seem that the couple saw their kiss as political, the gesture was quickly politicised in the socially conservative kingdom. In protest of the charges, a dozen or so couples staged a public ‘kiss-in’ in front of the Moroccan parliament while others flooded Facebook with pictures of kissing couples. In 2014, public ‘kiss-ins’ were also organised in Turkey to protest the increasingly socially conservative orientation of the government, and in Russia to protest laws that would criminalise public displays of affection between gay and lesbian couples. Thus, while kissing is not in and of itself political (which might mitigate critics’ concern that in broad definitions of politics everything is political and so politics loses its meaning), it has the potential to be political, depending on the context.

In addition to context, we also need to attend to the question of interpretation – that is, whether an act is interpreted as political, either by the actor who performs it or by those who encounter it once it is projected into the world. While it might seem that the intention behind an action (that is, the intention to engage in politics, or to make a political statement through one’s action) is more important than its interpretation, often that is not actually the case. Actions can become politicised – they can become political, generate political debate and so on – without that being the intention of the actors involved. It doesn’t seem, for instance, that the two teenagers in the Moroccan kissing drama intended their kiss to be political, but it quickly became political. Such was also the case when two female athletes kissed on a podium in Russia in the lead-up to the Sochi Olympic Winter Games. The kiss was interpreted as a political statement in defiance of Russia’s anti-gay laws. Despite repeated insistence by the athletes that it was nothing of the sort, the act acquired a life of its own, sparking international debate and controversy. Thus, when it comes to the ‘political-ness’ of an action or situation, interpretation (and, of course, context) can matter more than intention.

Figure 12 Demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey, stage a kiss-in to protest against increasing moral conservatism, 2014

Let’s take another example, that of graffiti. Is drawing or scribbling something on a wall political? Does it count as political activity? The simple answer is: it depends. It depends on which definition of politics we find most convincing and subscribe to. If we subscribe to definitions tending towards the narrow side of the spectrum – politics as that which concerns the state, or politics as conflict resolution – the production of graffiti might not qualify as a political activity. However, if we subscribe to definitions tending towards the broad side of the spectrum – politics as the exercise of power, or politics as a dialogue or public activity – graffiti might fit the bill.

As a form of expression, graffiti can be a challenge to social norms and laws that dictate what public spaces should look like and to the sanctity of private property. Thus, it can be political in the sense that it is a dialogue with (if not an outright challenge to) prevailing social norms and laws. What is more, in addition to being public in the narrow sense of the term (that is, an intervention into public space), graffiti can also be interpreted as public in the sense of being directed outward, into the world. Some graffiti is not only meant to be seen, but also meant to elicit a reaction, provoke a discussion or cause a debate. In short, it is meant to have an effect. Finally, the location or content of graffiti may also be political. Among the best-known contemporary graffiti artists is Banksy, a British street artist whose epigrams and images (as well as their locations) often contribute to some of the most salient social and political debates of our times.

Yet even if we subscribe to definitions of politics that tend toward the broader side of the spectrum, we might still want to avoid the blanket statement that all graffiti is inherently and necessarily political. Indeed, if nothing is inherently political, but rather has the potential to be political depending on context and interpretation, we need to analyse instances of graffiti in the same way that we analysed kissing in the previous example. We need to ascertain the circumstances under which graffiti can be political. The content of the graffiti, the message it is trying to convey, its location or the way it is being reacted to by those viewing or engaging with it can all help us decide whether or not it is political. Still, as you can probably very well imagine, we might not all come to the same conclusion.

Figure 13 Graffiti by the artist Banksy on the Israeli-constructed wall that separates the West Bank from Israel

As the previous examples illustrate, it seems possible to argue that politics is an activity that extends far beyond the state and its institutions without diluting it to the point that it becomes meaningless. We could indeed argue that while not everything is necessarily political, everything has the potential to be, depending on context and interpretation. Such a definition of politics enables us to transcend the halls of government and institutions of state, and multiply the stages on which politics is enacted. It enables us to recognise, and legitimate as political, acts and actors otherwise excluded from narrower definitions of politics. It also enables us to see conflict, and actions designed to provoke or to challenge the status quo, as legitimate and productive ways of doing politics. Thus, it broadens the definition of politics and multiplies the actors in political dramas, and the stages on which politics is enacted. Yet, through the proviso that not everything is necessarily political but rather has the potential to be, it broadens the political without diluting it to the extent that it loses all meaning.

Figure 14

Concepts are abstract ideas (or mental images) that allow us to make sense of a messy world by enabling us to classify, categorise and order the multitude of things we encounter. Having a concept of a cat allows us to recognise that many of the ‘small’, ‘domesticated’, ‘furry mammals’ we encounter belong to a single class of entities we call ‘cat’. Similarly, having a concept of politics allows us to recognise a host of activities we encounter on a daily basis as having similar forms or properties, and thus as belonging to a distinct class of entities called ‘political’.

Concepts allow us to make sense of the world by enabling us to impose form and meaning on what might otherwise appear as formless and meaningless chaos. But what if little agreement exists about the concept itself? What if the concept itself is contested? Wouldn’t the existence of two different concepts of ‘cat’ – whereby according to one concept cats were ‘small’, ‘domesticated’ and ‘furry’ but according to another they were actually ‘small’, ‘winged’ and ‘feathered’ – reduce the utility of the concept, making it more difficult for us to make sense of the animals we were encountering? While you might agree that having two competing concepts of ‘cat’ might reduce the utility of the concept, you might also be thinking that the whole premise of this exercise is rather silly. Cats are cats, and the meaning of cat is universally shared; what qualifies as a cat is not really contested, and no one would actually imagine a cat as ‘winged’ and ‘feathered’.

While that may indeed hold for the concept of ‘cat’, it does not, as you have seen in this section, hold for the concept of politics. Politics is much more of a contested concept than the concept of ‘cat’ and little agreement exists on what ‘counts’ as politics. Some have argued that this is the case for most, if not all, concepts in the social sciences – they are often more fundamentally contested than those in the ‘harder’ sciences such as zoology or physics. Concepts in the social sciences can be ‘slippery customers’ (Heywood, 2013, p. 18). In this section, we have looked at only one concept – politics – and you can already see what a ‘slippery customer’ it can be. There are many more concepts, the meaning of which are, to a greater or lesser extent, contested. Contests over these concepts are not just ‘academic’; they have considerable real-life consequences. As Heywood (2013, p. 20) points out, many have argued, fought and even gone to war ‘claiming to be “defending freedom”, “upholding democracy”, or “having justice on their side”’.

Concepts such as democracy, freedom and justice, and the concept of politics itself, are seen by many to be ‘essentially contested concepts’ – ‘controversy about them runs so deep that no neutral or settled definition can ever be developed’ (Heywood, 2013, p. 20). Walter Bryce Gallie, who originally coined the phrase, offered the following definition of ‘essentially contested concepts’: ‘concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users’ (Gallie, 1956, p. 169). In his book, The Terms of Political Discourse, William E. Connolly applied the phrase to politics, arguing that some key political concepts – including the concept of politics itself – are essentially contested. Using democracy as an example, Connolly noted that the commonly accepted criteria of democracy are weighed differently by different parties and:

The same, Connolly argues, goes for politics, ‘a concept particularly susceptible to contests about its proper range of application’ (p. 20). What is more, ‘not only is politics an internally complex concept with a broad and variable set of criteria but each criterion itself is relatively complex and open’ (p. 14). Think back to some of the definitions of politics we previously discussed – for instance, politics as a ‘social’ activity or politics as distinct from ‘violence’. It is not only the concept of politics that is contested here. Equally contested are the concepts of ‘social’ and ‘violence’. Remember some of the questions we asked while discussing these definitions of politics, like what qualifies as ‘social’, or what qualifies as ‘violence’? The contested nature of politics is also related to the contested nature of other concepts.

Where does this bring us? Have we again gone too far? If so many crucial political concepts are contested, then what is the use of trying to understand them? For Connolly (1993, p. 6), ‘conceptual contests are central to politics’. Indeed, he adds, ‘To examine and accept, or to examine and revise the prevailing terms of political discourse is not a prelude to politics but a dimension of politics itself’ (p. 3). And so, to the multiple definitions of politics we have already encountered, we can add one more: politics as critical engagement with the prevailing terms of political discourse. As Heywood (2013, p. 20) puts it, ‘politics is, in part, a struggle over the legitimate meaning of terms and concepts’.