It is often used in opposition to low politics, which often designates economic, cultural, or social affairs.
Although the idea of high politics has been present in all cultures and epochs, Thomas Hobbes was the first to enunciate that survival (of trade, the laws, societal order) hinges upon a finite number of ingredients; these ingredients were embodied and provided by the state.
In that sense, the United States and the former Soviet Union would have gone to war for a direct atomic threat (Cuban Missile Crisis),[1] but would have never gone to war over "low politics", a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Low politics is a concept that covers all matters that are not absolutely vital to the survival of the state as the economics and the social affairs.
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye describe that previously, the international relations were based on a simple interdependence scheme based on national security (high politics); nowadays the international relations are ruled by a complex interdependence based on domestic issues: low politics.