Politics

 The term came from the Greek word ‘politika’ meaning ‘affairs of the city-state’, which in turns came from the word ‘polis’ which mean ‘city
state’.
 The process of making decisions that apply to members of a group, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance—
organized control over a human community, particularly a state.
 The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that we are political animals, and political animals we semmed destined to remain. The truth is that
politics is a fundamental and complex human activity. In some ways it is our capacity to be political—to cooperate, bargain, and
compromise that helps distinguish us from all the other animals out there. Politics may have its baser moments, but it also allows us to
reach more exalted heights than we could ever achieve alone, from dedicating a new public library or building a national highway system,
to curing deadly diseases or exploring the stars.
 Harold Laswell, a well-known political scientist, defined politics as “who gets what when and how.” Politics is a way of determining, without
recourse to violence, who gets power and resources in society, and how they get them.
 

Arena VS Process

We can understand politics by differentiating between a narrow conception politics and a broad interpretation of politics. A narrow
interpretation politics identifies politics where politics happens, that is, the venue; while a broad interpretation of politics considers how politics
happens, that is the activity/process. The former is labeled as the arena approach to politics while the latter is the process approach to politics
(Leftwich 2011).

The arena approach follows a formalistic conception of politics. It limits politics to the state and all its instrumentalities and related
institutions, its hierarchy of offices and personnel, laws, and policies. It also covers activities and actions that are sanctioned by the state, for
example, elections.

 To understand politics using this approach is to acknowledge that politics can only happen within the formal institutions of the state, and
that political behavior can be explained as effects or outcomes of processes engaged by the state government and related institutions.
 The arena approach is also associated with the narrow sense of political party and/or electoral politics. Elections serve as the mechanism
whereby citizens get the chance to be involved in the election of individuals who will hold public office either at the national or local levels.
Ideally, when citizens vote in elections, they both exercise their right of suffrage and perform their civic duty as a citizen—to choose who
will hold public office, who will represent them, and who will be called to account.

The process approach, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive view of politics. It goes beyond what the narrow arena approach
offers in order to understand politics. Politics in this sense is not limited to formal political institutions of the state but extends to include other
institutions within the society such as the family, the church, and other parts of the society.

 As Adrian Leftwich puts it, politics "comprises all the activities of cooperation and conflict, within and between societies, whereby the
human species goes about organizing the use, production, and distribution of human, natural and other resources in the course of the
production and reproduction of its biological and social life" (Leftwich 1984, 64-65 cited in Kerkvliet 2013,11). The process approach puts
premium on the activity of governing or governance, that is, how decisions are made and executed for a society.
 Viewed in this way, to understand politics requires us to look at the role and interactions of both formal and informal institutions and
processes in decision making. Informal institutions and political actors that include, but not limited to, civil society organizations (CSOs),
social movements, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), people's organizations (POs), advocacy groups, the Catholic Church and
other religious organizations, labor groups, and other sector-based organizations, etc.
 The process approach considers both the formal political arena and the informal processes surrounding it, that is, the corridors of power.
While politics still focuses on the state government, and policies, it encompasses two broad types of actions or activities—those that are
authorized by the state (sanctioned by the state) and those that challenge the state (aims to contest the powers of the state).
 Using the process approach, the decision-making process and outcomes
 actors and the negotiation of their similar and/or opposing interests that lead to actual laws and policies that are binding to all. Central to
this conception of politics is the broad definition of politics as having to do with power relations.
 To understand better the process approach to politics, it is imperative to look at two seminal works in the study of politics. The first defined
politics as the "authoritative allocation of values for a society" (Easton 1953) and the second described the study of politics as "who gets
what, when, and how" (Lasswell 1936).