Politics

This is an accepted version of this page Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.

[23] For example, according to Hannah Arendt, the view of Aristotle was that, "to be political…meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through violence";[24] while according to Bernard Crick, "politics is the way in which free societies are governed.

"[25] In contrast, for realists, represented by those such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Harold Lasswell, politics is based on the use of power, irrespective of the ends being pursued.

Frans de Waal argued that chimpanzees engage in politics through "social manipulation to secure and maintain influential positions".

In ancient history, civilizations did not have definite boundaries as states have today, and their borders could be more accurately described as frontiers.

[33] Voluntary theories contend that diverse groups of people came together to form states as a result of some shared rational interest.

[37] Early dynastic Sumer was located in southern Mesopotamia, with its borders extending from the Persian Gulf to parts of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

[39] The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is considered by political scientists to be the beginning of the modern international system,[40][41][42] in which external powers should avoid interfering in another country's domestic affairs.

[43] The principle of non-interference in other countries' domestic affairs was laid out in the mid-18th century by Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel.

Liberal ideas of free trade played a role in German unification, which was preceded by a customs union, the Zollverein.

[57] Political science is related to, and draws upon, the fields of economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neurosciences.

[58] Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in psychology, social research, and cognitive neuroscience.

Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice theory, behavioralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism.

Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research, and model building.

The separation of powers describes the degree of horizontal integration between the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and other independent institutions.

These may be in the form of anocracy, aristocracy, ergatocracy, geniocracy, gerontocracy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, meritocracy, noocracy, particracy, plutocracy, stratocracy, technocracy, theocracy, or timocracy.

[59][63] The type of society sought for varies significantly between anarchist schools of thought, ranging from extreme individualism to complete collectivism.

Constitutions often set out separation of powers, dividing the government into the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary (together referred to as the trias politica), in order to achieve checks and balances within the state.

[68] Political corruption is the use of powers for illegitimate private gain, conducted by government officials or their network contacts.

States that are able to exert strong international influence are referred to as superpowers, whereas less-powerful ones may be called regional or middle powers.

Parties often espouse an expressed ideology or vision, bolstered by a written platform with specific goals, forming a coalition among disparate interests.

Democracy makes all forces struggle repeatedly to realize their interests and devolves power from groups of people to sets of rules.

Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens have given teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections.

Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socialises and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites.

Anthony Downs suggests that ideological political parties are necessary to act as a mediating broker between individual and governments.

First and foremost among these institutions is the regular occurrence of free and open elections which are used to select representatives who then manage all or most of the public policy of the society.

Democracy's role is to make visible and challenge those relations by allowing for difference, dissent and antagonisms in decision-making processes.

In contrast, the right is generally motivated by conservatism, which seeks to conserve what it sees as the important elements of society such as law and order, limited government and preserving individual freedoms.

The center-right may be less clear-cut and more mixed in this regard, with neoconservatives supporting the spread of free markets and capitalism, and one-nation conservatives more open to social welfare programs.

This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, free markets, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others.