Politics

{{politics}}
'''Politics''' is the means by which public policy is decided. Technically, politics refers to the interactions between people in a given ''polis'' (Ancient Greek for the city-states that were dominant during that time), or community. The general application refers to policy-making at a [[government]] level; however, it has also come to mean the ins and outs of complex social situations, often having nothing to do with the reason the situation exists - for example, "office politics."

Whatever the system a government uses for its organization ([[democracy|democratic]] [[republic]], [[dictatorship]], [[theocracy]], etc.), there is bound to be political wrangling for power, glory, and occasionally, the public good. Some systems attempt to keep much of this political give-and-take in the public eye (usually much to the disgust of the public), while in other systems, almost everything save the occasional "announcement" takes place behind closed doors. The difference is mostly based on the degree to which political participation by the broader public is desired or allowed.

The art of politics mostly consists of obtaining a position of power or responsibility, and then figuring out how to get other people in such positions to agree to one's grand schemes in order to make them into laws. This usually involves complex negotiations and so many compromises between the parties involved that the final result is unrecognizable to either, or their constituencies. Usually, bribery of some form is the best way to get one's desired results.<ref group=note>In civilized republics, bribery is usually called "campaign contributions".</ref> Threats also work. Democracies usually have strong rules and structures governing the political process, while autocracies are more accustomed to naked power struggles. [[International relations|Politics at the international level]] still bears the hallmarks of the latter due to the anarchic nature of the system and the sovereignty of states, although organizations like the [[United Nations]] and multilateral treaties can rein them in to some extent.

Since politics is the means by which interests are brokered in a community, it is usually heavily entangled with [[economics]]. The academic discipline dedicated to the study of politics is creatively named "political science", and has similarly strong connections to other [[social science|social sciences]] like sociology and psychology.

==Political parties==
{{main|Political party}}
In most countries in which people have a say in politics, political parties form. Political parties are (in theory) a means for people to band together and present a united voice on issues of importance for them. Sometimes, these parties are loose coalitions of individuals who are mostly out to fight for themselves and retain a great deal of independence, like in the United States.<ref group=note>This is still true for the Democrats, but the Republicans have achieved a much greater extent of ideological uniformity and party discipline over the last decades.</ref> On the other hand, many European parliamentary democracies are characterized by strong, highly organized and hierarchical parties, in which politicians who defy the will of the leadership seldom thrive. Depending on several factors, different countries will give rise to specific party systems, affecting the number of choices that are available to voters.

==Political spectrum==
{{main|Political spectrum}}
[[Image:Nolan-chart.svg|thumb|right|The often-used Nolan chart]]
Modern politics and policymaking is heavily influenced by the participants' ideology and underlying [[political philosophy]]. In the West, political views have traditionally been defined in terms of "left" and "right", mostly describing differences regarding the economic agenda.<ref group=note>This terminology comes from the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly in 1789.</ref> There have been attempts to create more accurate models of political leanings that use multiple axes, such as the [[Nolan Chart]] and the [[Political Compass]]&trade;. The two most common axes are the social axis and the economic axis, each of which deal with issues regarding the respective term (social and economic). The image on the right shows the position on a two-axis compass of several leading political figures.

Even this concept has led to lightweight proseletyzing - the [[Libertarian Party]] has a compass with a very short quiz to go with it,<ref>[http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz The "World's Smallest Political Quiz"]</ref> that is designed to make ''everyone'' discover that they are actually [[libertarianism|libertarians]].<ref>See [http://world.std.com/~mhuben/wspq.html here] for some critiques of their quiz</ref>

In order to truly show where someone falls in their political views, of course, many more more axes would be needed - perhaps as many as one for every major issue in their times and locale.<ref group=note>However, there is a marked tendency for people who hold certain opinions (say, on [[same-sex marriage]]) to also hold similar views on completely unrelated topics (like [[economics]]). It is not exact, but there is a correlation that political scientists have been studying for some time now.</ref>

==To be rid of politics==
Politics can often become annoying, and in some places may rise to the level of being a [[molehill mountaineering|public nuisance]]. A desire to be rid of politics, or to circumscribe its appropriate subjects in ways that would strangle it by making it irrelevant, is a consistent feature of a variety of universalizing [[utopia]]n [[ideology|ideologies]].

Both [[socialism]] and [[libertarianism]] imagine a future state of affairs, where the problems that politics attempts to address have been solved. This tendency however is not unique to the far-left or right. In the early 1990s, [[neoconservative]] Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the "[[End of History]]", claiming that the triumph of an ideology he called '[[capitalism|capitalist]] [[democracy]]' meant that the age of ethnic, religious, and ideological conflict was over. This seems not to have worked out as planned. The [[neoreactionary movement]] explicitly rejects politics in the name of order. Somewhat more surprisingly, the academic [[liberalism]] of {{wpl|John Rawls}} also envisions an ideal universal society where most of the issues addressed by politics have been rendered moot by a robust [[law|jurisprudence]] of [[civil rights]].<ref>For further background, see generally John Gray, ''Enlightenment's Wake'' (Routledge; 1999)</ref>

However, people have always had different interests, desires, needs, etc, and it is impossible for any society to address all of them equally, either due to physical limits or the fact that some interests are mutually contradictory (to build a factory on a certain plot of land or cultivate it as a natural preserve, for instance). Politics is a direct result people having, to some extent, free will. Unless humans lose independent agency, there is no way to end, or even temporarily stop, politics. Stopping politics, after all, is also a political thing to do.

==Famous quotes==
{{cquote|Politics is the art of controlling one's environment.|||Hunter S. Thompson<ref>Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness: Modern History from the ESPN.com Sports Desk, Chapter 83: Wisdom</ref>}}
{{cquote|Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.|||John Godfrey Saxe (often misattributed to Otto von Bismark)<ref>http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe</ref>}}
{{cquote|...Politics" is derived from 'POLY', meaning many, and 'TICS', meaning small, blood sucking insects.|||Chris Clayton<ref>http://www.anvari.org/fortune/Quotations_-_Random/3261_quote-346-and-of-course-the-word-politics-is-derived-from-poly-meaning-many-and-tics-meaning-small-blood-sucking-insects.html</ref>}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
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[[Category:Politics| ]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

Categories: Politics, Philosophy