Fundamentals of

Political Science
 WHAT IS
POLITICS?
• "Man is by nature a political animal."
-- Aristotle
• "Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles."
-- Ambrose Bierce, American journalist
• "Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs
which properly concern them."
-- Paul Valery, French writer and philosopher
• "The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've
been appointed and thinking they've been anointed."
-- Claude D. Pepper, US Senator
• "My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a
whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly
any difference."
-- Harry S. Truman, US President (1945-52)
• "Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects."
-- Lester B. Pearson, Canadian PM (1963-68)
• "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with
bloodshed."
-- Mao Zedong, Chairman of People’s Republic of China
• "Politics is the art of the possible."
-- Otto Von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany
The American public’s reactions to the behaviour of their leaders in the
debt/budget battle in Washington, July-Aug 2011, Pew Research poll:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2078/debt-ceiling-limits-budget-deficit-tea-
party-republicans-obama-democrats-republicans-ridiculous
The word politics comes from
ancient Greece.
Its root is the word polis, which
began to be used about 2,800
years ago to denote a self-
governing city (city-state)
• POLIS – city-state
• POLITES – citizen
• POLITIKOS – politician
• POLITIKE – politics as the art
of citizenship and government
• POLITEIA – constitution, rules
of politics
• POLITEUMA – political
community, all those residents
who have full political rights
• Some common definitions of
politics:*
– Politics is the exercise of
power
– Politics is the public
allocation of values
– Politics is the resolution of
conflict
– Politics is the competition
among individuals, groups,
or states pursuing their
interests
*Danziger, James N.
Understanding the Political
World. NY: Addison-Wesley, 1991
Politics is often understood as:
the art and science of GOVERNMENT, as affairs of STATE
But:
The state is rooted in society.
The state maintains a particular social order.
Politics outside the state is important.
Interactions between state and society are at the core of
politics.
So, to understand politics, it has to be examined
as part of the entire fabric of SOCIAL RELATIONS –
cooperation and conflicts between individuals, groups,
classes
• Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity
through which people make, preserve and
amend the general rules under which they
live. (Heywood)
– Linked to cooperation and conflict
– The heart of the politics is often portrayed as a
process of conflict-resolution, in which rival views
or competing interests are reconciled with one
another.
• Four categories
of the definition:
– politics as the art
of government
– politics as public
affairs
– politics as
compromise
– politics as power
 …AS AN ART
• the exercise of control within society through the making
and enforcement of collective decisions.
• 'politics' is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state.
• politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the
polis, in effect, 'what concerns the polis'. (Heywood) -
'what concerns the state'.
• people are said to be 'in politics' when they hold public
office, or to be 'entering politics' when they seek to do
so.
• David Easton defined politics as the 'authoritative allocation
of values'.
– 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. Thus, politics is associated
with 'policy', with formal or authoritative decisions that establish a plan of
action for the community.
– offers a highly restricted view of politics.
• the realm of 'the political' is restricted to those state actors
who are consciously motivated by ideological beliefs and who
seek to advance them through membership of a formal
organisation like a political party.
– politicians are described as 'political' whereas civil servants are seen as 'non-
political‘
– judges are taken to be 'non-political' figures while they interpret the law
impartially and in accordance with the available evidence
…AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
• it is only within a
political community
that human beings can
live 'the good life'.
• Politics is, then, an
ethical activity
concerned with creating
a 'just society';
• the 'master science'.
 … AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
• beyond the narrow realm of government to
what is thought of as 'public life' or 'public
affairs'.
• the distinction between 'the political' and 'the
non-political' coincides with the division
between an essentially public sphere of life
and what can be thought of as a private
sphere.
 DISTINCTION
PUBLIC – THE STATE
• The institutions of the state: the
apparatus of government, the
courts, the police, the army, the
society security system and so forth
are '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.
politics is restricted to the activities
of the state itself and the
responsibilities which are properly
exercised by public bodies.
PRIVATE – CIVIL SOCIETY
• Consists of institutions like the
family and kinship groups, private
businesses, trade unions, clubs,
community groups
• '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.
• Those areas of life in which
individuals can and do manage
for themselves - economic, social,
domestic, personal, cultural,
artistic and so on - are therefore
clearly 'non-political'.

politics is restricted to the activities of the state itself and the responsibilities which are
properly exercised by public bodies.
 DISTINCTION

• An alternative 'public/private' divide is sometimes

expressed in a further and more subtle distinction,
namely between 'the political' and 'the personal'.
• Although civil society can be distinguished from the
state, it nevertheless contains a range of institutions
that are thought of as 'public' in the wider sense that
they are open institutions, operating in public and to
which the public has access. It is therefore possible
to argue that politics takes place in workplace.
 DISTINCTION
• Nevertheless, although this view regards institutions like
businesses, community groups, clubs and trade unions as
'public', it remains a restricted view of politics. According to
this perspective, politics does not, and should not, infringe
upon 'personal' affairs and institutions.
• Feminist thinkers in particular have pointed out that this
implies that politics effectively stops at the front door; it does
not take place in the family, in domestic life or in personal
relationships.
• Politicians, for example, tend to classify their own sexual
behaviour or financial affairs as 'personal' matters, thereby
denying that they have political significance in the sense that
they do not touch on their conduct of public affairs.
AS A • Politics is seen as a
particular means of
resolving conflict, namely
COMPROMISE… by compromise,
conciliation and
negotiation, rather than
through a resort to force
and naked power.
 AS A COMPROMISE
• 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 survival of the whole community. (Crick)
• The key to politics is therefore a wide dispersal of
power.
• Accepting that conflict is inevitable.
• Critics: Crick's conception of politics is heavily
biased towards the form of politics that takes
place in western pluralist democracies
Many thinkers maintain that conflict and integration are not two
opposed faces but one and the same overall process in which
conflict naturally produces integration, and divisions, by their
development, tend naturally toward their own suppression
leading to the coming of the city of harmony.”

The Idea of Politics, L.: Methuen, 1966, p.viii

Cooperation and conflict are two basic modes of politics
POLITICS AS COOPERATION,
OR INTEGRATION –
as the process of rule based
on order and justice. Politics
is driven by the
considerations of the
common good.
More natural for the thinking
of those who support the
existing social order (status
quo)
POLITICS AS POWER
• Broadest and the most radical.
• Sees politics at work in all social activities and in
every corner of human existence.
• As Adrian Leftwich put it: '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 within nations and on the global stage.
• At its broadest, politics concerns the production,
distribution and use of resources in the course of
social existence.
• Politics, in essence, is power: the ability to
achieve a desired outcome, through whatever
means.
• This notion is summed up in the title of Harold
Lasswell's book Politics: Who Gets What, When,
How?: Politics is therefore a struggle over scarce
resources, and power is the means through which
this struggle is conducted.
POLITICS AS CONFLICT -
as struggle for power.
Politics is driven by selfish interests of individuals,
groups, businesses, states.
More natural for the thinking of those who would like
to change the status quo in their favor.
At any given moment, in any political process or event, one can
discover elements of both cooperation and conflict which interact in
various ways
Political analysis seeks to make sense of the logics of these
interactions
THE LEAST CONTROVERSIAL WORKING DEFINITION OF POLITICS

A HUMAN ACTIVITY focused on:

1/ the FORMULATION and EXECUTION of:

DECISIONS, which are BINDING on members of:
A SOCIAL WHOLE (family, community, society, the world)
– and:

2/ the RELATIONS which are formed between individuals, groups, states IN THE
PROCESS of formulation and execution of those decisions.

• See Larry Johnston’s Politics, Broadview Press, 1998, p. 16

Maurice Duverger:
“The state – and in a more general way, organized power in any
society – is always and at all times both the instrument by which
certain groups dominate others, an instrument used in the
interest of the rulers and to the disadvantage of the ruled, - and
also a means of ensuring a particular social order, of achieving
some integration of the individual and the collectivity for the
general good…
The two elements always co-exist, though the importance of
each varies with the period, the circumstances, and the country
concerned…
 Political Science
Systematic study of state and government

Political
Greek word polis
“City or sovereign state”

Science
Latin word scire
“to know”
 Scope of Political Science
1. Political Theory
2. Public Law
3. International Relations
4. Comparative Government
5. Public Administration
6. Political Dynamics
7. Government & Business
8. Legislation and Legislatures
Relationship of Political Science with other
Studies

1. History
2. Economics
3. Sociology
4. Psychology
5. Anthropology
6. Geography
7. Philosophy
 Methodology of Political Science

1. Observational/Empirical
2. Historical
3. Comparative
4. Analytical
Why should a student study Political Science

1
Education for citizenship
Teaching g the students
their obligation as a citizens of the
country
2
Essential part
of liberal education
“eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty”
3
Knowledge & understanding
of government
A good citizen must
know the answer to the following:
how the government operates;
interest & forces behind policies;
result of the policies; rights & obligation
 Concepts of
State and Government
 State
A community of
persons more or less numerous
permanently occupying
a definite portion of territory, governed
and free from external control.
 Elements of State

1 People
Mass of population living within the state
No requirement as to the number
“not be too small or too large”
2 Territory
 Land jurisdiction of the State
 Terrestrial domain
 Aerial domain
 Fluvial Domain
3 Government
“rule or to govern”
Refers to the agency through which
the will of the state is formulated,
expresses and carried out.
4 Sovereignty
Supreme power of the state
to command and enforce obedience
from people within jurisdiction
2 manifestation:
 Internal: within its territory
 External: without subject to or
control by other state
(independence)

Characteristics of Sovereignty;
1. Comprehensive
2. Absolute
3. Permanent
4. Indivisible
Types of State Sovereignty

1. Legal
2. Political
3. Internal
4. External
 Origin of State
Divine Right Theory
State is a divine creation

Rulers is obtained by God

to govern the people
Necessity or force theory

State is created through force

Great warriors imposing into the weak
 Paternalistic

Enlargement of the family

which remained under the authority
of the father or mother
family clan

nation tribe

State
Social Contract Theory

State is formed by
deliberate & voluntary compact
among people to form a
society and organize government
for their common good
 State
Political concept

vs.
Nation
Group of people bound together
by characteristic (people)
 State
Subject to external
control

vs.
Nation
May or may not be independent
of external control
 State
May consist of 1 or more nation

vs.
Nation
Made up of several State
 State cannot exist
without a government
but
it is possible to have a government
without State
“ A government may change (form)
but the state as long as its
essential elements
are present, remains the same”
Instinctive Theory

State was created because of the

natural inclination of men towards
political association.

Man by nature as a social animal

associate themselves for self
preservation and security.
Economic Theory
State is formed as a results of Man’s
isolation could not procure all the
necessity that he needed.

According to Plato, State is a social

system of services in which the
members both gave and received not
only for their mutual benefits but also
for the general well-being of the
community
Purpose & necessity of government

1 Advancement of the
public welfare

It should exist & continue to exist

for the benefit of the people
governed.
2 Consequence of absence
 Without an organized structure
there would be anarchy & disorder.
 Feeling of fear & insecurity
 Progress & development will not be
possible
 Forms of government
As to number of person exercising
sovereign powers
Monarchy
Supreme & final authority is in the
hands of a single person
 Absolute: ruler rules by divine right
 Limited: ruler rules in accordance
with a constitution
Aristocracy

Political powers is exercised by

a few privileged class
Democracy
Political power is exercised by
majority of the people
 Direct or pure
 Indirect, representative or
republican
 Forms of government
As to extent of powers
exercised by the
central or national government
Unitary government

Control of the national & local affairs

is exercised by
the central or national government
Federal government
The powers of government are divided
between two sets of organs
National affairs and Local affairs
 Forms of government
As to the relationship
between the
executive & legislative branches
of government
Parliamentary government
The state confers upon
legislature the power to terminate
the tenure of office of the real executive.
Presidential government
The state makes the
executive constitutionally
independent
 Philippines
Representative democracy ,
Unitary & presidential government
with separations of power

Some aspects of pure democracy:

initiative and referendum