Anyone who participates in politics must act with transparency.
Politics is an activity ideologically oriented towards group decision-making in order to achieve certain objectives. It can also be defined as a way of exercising power with the intention of resolving or minimizing the clash between conflicting interests that occur within a society.
The use of the term gained popularity in the 5th century BC. At that time, Aristotle developed his work entitled precisely "Politics" .
Origin of the word politics
The origin of the word politics comes from the Greek word polis , whose meaning refers to the Greek cities that formed the States where the government was partially democratic. It should be noted that it is in this culture where the human need to organize social life and governments is attempted to be formalized.
If we look for the definition of the term in the Dictionary of Social Sciences we will see that it refers to political action itself, while political can be used to describe an element related to it: political power , political action , etc. For its part, the DRAE mentions it as the art of governing peoples and the aforementioned adjectivization as something related to politics.
His story
The beginnings of politics are considered to date back to the Neolithic , when society began to be organized in a hierarchical system and certain individuals acquired power over the rest. Before, power simply resided in the one who had the greatest physical strength or the most intelligent of a group. Some theorists claim that this type of organization could also be considered a form of politics, so we would fall into the definition that politics is as old as humanity itself.
The political systems of antiquity were generally absolutist, since all power was in the hands of a single subject. In Greece , there were also some polis where partial democracy was practiced and assemblies were held. After the French Revolution, the political scheme underwent an important change, where a fundamental element was the Constitution of the United States . From that moment on, regimes with democratic characteristics were established, where decision-making responds to the general will.
Democracy is the form of political organization that has gained the greatest popularity in recent decades. It is based on a State administration elected by a majority based on the provisions of a Constitution approved by the people, which exercises partial and organizational power and whose objective is to represent the ideas of the citizens . This is so in theory, but in practice it is rarely carried out in the desired way, because it is difficult for politicians to put aside their particular interests to look after those of all the people.
Through social movements and activism, politics can be done outside of party structures and without any intention of reaching government.
Exercise of politics
Politics is usually carried out in groups known as political parties . When there are elections in a democratic regime, these parties propose candidates who aspire to win the vote and thus assume the representation of the people in the Executive Branch (headed by the President or Prime Minister ) or the Legislative Branch (Congress, Parliament, Senate , etc.).
Public administration provides for a separation of powers that also includes the judiciary . However, in this case, officials are not usually elected by the population.
Election campaigns allow parties to disseminate their proposals through propaganda and political advertising. Debates are often organised between the different candidates so that citizens can analyse their projects. Before the actual elections, it is common to carry out surveys to anticipate the voting intention of the electors.
The inside and the outside
Domestic policy covers all measures that affect the inhabitants of the State: the definition of fiscal policy, the management of the economy, decision-making related to education and public health and other issues depends on the rulers. Broadly speaking, it can be said that the task of the person who assumes the management of the government consists of seeking agreements to promote the well-being of the whole community .
Foreign policy , on the other hand, is oriented towards international relations. Diplomacy is the basis of this area, which usually includes negotiations and alliances to address global issues such as climate change, migration policy and terrorism.
Gender policy is essential to fight discrimination, combat sexism and guarantee LGBTQ+ rights.
Left and right in politics
There are multiple branches of political theories and ideologies, which can be summarized in two large groups. On the one hand, we find left-wing policies (such as socialism and communism ), mainly related to social equality.
On the other hand, there are right-wing policies (such as liberalism and conservatism ), which defend the right to private property and the free market.
The influence of Plato and Aristotle
For centuries, attempts have been made to explain the concept of politics and the ways in which it should be carried out. Among the most important documents are those of Plato and Aristotle . The former, in his work "The Republic" , states that the way in which a people should be governed was through the observation of reality and the testing of idealistic changes and improvements, and that such work should be carried out by the wisest beings in that society.
Aristotle, for his part, proposed a scientific approach to politics, where social analysis was carried out taking into account psychological, cultural and social elements and establishing cause and effect relationships. He also expressed the need to create a middle class that would reduce the gap between the richest and the poorest. It is worth noting that he also published a work called " The Republic" .
Other intellectuals and politics
In 1970, it was Antonio Gramsci who, based on the old definitions, attempted to give an answer to the true reason for politics. He explained that the State must be conceived as if it were an organism belonging to the group that it must represent in order to achieve its maximum possible expansion, but that its development must be contemplated within the expansion of the rest of the nations.
He also said that it is reasonable for a group to have hegemony, but that this should not "get out of hand" to the point of creating a society governed by a system whose only interest is economic-corporate . In this treatise, we can understand that war and violence as means to achieve objectives should not be considered viable.
Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern have also tried to understand politics, offering valuable treatises on the art and science of politics . They approach politics with a multidimensional character that arises from the awareness of citizens and considers issues such as the meaning of life for our species, the development of societies, the economic systems we use and even the life and death of humanity and the extinction of the planet we inhabit. Both tried to address a policy more committed to the environment, a policy of responsibility for our environment: a multidimensional but not totalitarian policy.
Among their proposals for carrying out this task are working towards the associative and combating what is dissociative, maintaining that emancipation cannot have as its goal the isolation or the breaking of pre-existing relationships, but rather the implementation of a common objective that requires associative work. The second thing they propose is to seek a particular universality, taking special care to opt for an interest that at first glance seems universal but that encompasses an individual need. Universality can be achieved through a series of actions that are oriented towards the protection of our specific universe.
It is important to clarify that all theories agree on one thing: that political activity can only become a reality through the establishment of legal norms that establish what should or can be done and what cannot be done in a given territory.
The discipline in charge of the study of political activities is called political science , professionals in this science are called political scientists and people who occupy professional positions in charge of the State or aspire to them are defined as politicians .
More meanings of the term
Finally, we will share some other ways in which this word has the meaning.
Politics can be understood as a set of ideas , beliefs or social actions that are related to public issues or those related to power. Politics is also used when referring to a group of rulers and their relationship with the group they govern.
In legal terms, it is known in three possible ways: as a set of activities carried out by a group that allow it to create, plan and exercise power over another; as the struggle and opposition that must be carried out by a small group to dominate a larger one; and finally, as an activity whose raison d'être is to achieve a specific end: the common good (everything must be carried out with the aim of achieving peace through methods that do not include violence).
Some theories on politics claim that it should not be important to resolve how the power-dominance relationship is established, but rather how the integration of the parts of the group can be understood, even considering those minorities that in most cases are not taken into account. This means analyzing and understanding each of the relationships that exist between the members, both individual and collective. In this way, we can fall into a new definition of the word, coming to understand it as the art of integration and not of domination , as the vast majority maintains.