Politics

• Politics is the process by which individual

interests are reconciled with the collective action.
“OR”
• It is a process through which “individuals and
groups reach agreement on a course of common,
or collective, action—even as they disagree on
the intended goals of that action”
- Samuel Kernel
 Politics
• Politics is often associated with negative perceptions,
such as corruption, conflict, and abuse of power.
However, the purpose of politics and government is
creating the conditions for pursuit of good life.
• Politics has narrowly been seen as embracing institutions
and actors operating in a ‘public’ sphere concerned with
the collective organization of social existence.
• However, when politics is understood in terms of power-
structured relationships, it may be seen to operate in the
‘private’ sphere, as well.
 Politics
The vague nature of politics can better be understood in association
with two broad approaches:
a) Arena (Location) in which case behavior becomes ‘political’ because
of where it takes place.
• It is called arena because of the “place or institutional forum” in which
politics takes place. This place or institutional forum is usually that of
formal government. Politics as an arena is characteristically associated with
the realm of public politics. 
b) Process in which case behavior is the political behavior that exhibits
distinctive characteristics, that can take place in any social context.
The political behavior is independent of location, and is viewed as a
mechanism
• Politics as a process is a universal phenomenon occurring in a much wider
range of institutions, activities and groups
 Politics
• Both approaches have an implicit conception of political behavior in common, as
a particular type of human conduct or activity.
• Adopting the arena approach, politics is a particular type of human activity–
making and implementing “public policy” that occurs in a particular place – a set
of institutions of government, where human actions constituting politics, are
those associated with the influence of a public institution, i.e., government
• Defining politics as a process, it is a universal aspect of human behavior, which
comprises all the activities of “co‐operation, negotiation and conflict”, whereby
people go about organizing the use, production or distribution of resources,
including human, natural and others. As a general process, politics occurs not
only in the formal public domain but also in the informal, the private one.
• Politics is about the process of decision making that rational individuals engage
in, when faced with a problem of collective choice – a problem that may arise in
the whole range of human institutions.
 Comparative Politics
• Comparative politics focuses on understanding and
explaining political phenomena that take place within a
state, society, country, or political system
• Comparative politics focuses on internal or domestic
dynamics, which distinguishes it from International
Relations (IR) - a field of study largely concerned with the
“external” relations or foreign policies of states.
• Comparative politics studies politics in foreign countries,
whereas IR studies politics between or of foreign countries
 Comparative Politics
• Comparative politics involves a comparative study of politics—a
search for similarities and differences between and among political
phenomena, including
 Political institutions
such as legislatures, political parties, or political interest groups;
 Politicalbehavior
such as voting, demonstrating, or reading political pamphlets; or
 Politicalideas
such as Liberalism, Conservatism, or Marxism
• Everything that politics studies, comparative politics studies; the
latter just undertakes the study with an explicit comparative
methodology in mind
(Mahler, 2000)
 Comparative Politics
• Comparative politics involves the systematic study and
comparison of the world’s political systems. It seeks to
explain differences between as well as similarities among
countries. In contrast to journalistic reporting on a single
country, comparative politics is particularly interested in
exploring patterns, processes, and regularities among
political systems
(Wiarda 2000)