If politics deals with power and struggle for its sake in any form, whether peaceful or violent, it has these implications :25 1. In a political sense, power involves human beings and presupposes the existence of two or more persons. It is not the name of a thing but it is a concept describing a relationship between two or more persons. As it is not a substantive thing but a relational concept, it may take many forms, of which brute force is only one. It may take the form of superior knowledge, wealth, reputation and the like. Moreover, it depends upon the acceptance of something as power and it is the acceptance of that thing which makes it power, not the claim of possession of power as a substantive thing.
2. Power manifests itself only in action. It is concerned with the wills and interests of particular individuals and with the inevitable conflict between these individual interests and wills. Politics is successful when it succeeds in reconciling them, when it succeeds in formulating policies that are mutually acceptable. The end of politics is policy—
the integration of conflicting interests in terms of certain interests and values which are held in common.
3. Although politics comes into being as a result of these conflict of wills and interests, it presupposes the existence of certain interests and values in common, for without this basis for reconciliation there couUl be no politics.
Politics has sometimes been defined as the technique of compromise. Persons are willing to make compromises only because they value some things more than they do the things which they are compromising. When a society no longer values common interests above personal interests, it disintegrates, compromise is no longer possible, and politics ceases. And war, international or civil, generally signalises the breakdown of politics, and the end of compromise.
Politics involves everything like activity of the individuals and their groups for the reconciliation of conflicting interests without undermining, nay destroying, a sense of security and participation among members of the community. In a sense, politics implies some kind of democracy. "It emerges when the rulers are willing to consult other people."*6
25. J.H. Hallowell : Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1950), pp. 2-6.
26. A.H. Doctor : Issues in Political Theory (New Delhi : Sterling, 1985), p. 2.
One may, however, disagree with this observation of Doctor that "in an authoritarian or dictatorial regime, where the dictator hardly consults others, there is no politics." Ibid.
POLITICAL THBORY 40
The latest development in this direction is to define politics as the study of 'political activity' in the same way as the economists define economics as the study of man's economic activities.27 This way is so comprehensive that it embraces all what we have said above. Moreover, as man is a social being and as his every activity forms part of his social activity, politics automatically be-comes a branch of social sciences. By saying so, we offer a working concept of politics signifying that it "is the way in which we under-stand and order our social affairs especially in relation to the alloca-tion of scarce resources, the principles underlying this, and the means by which some people or groups acquire and maintain a greater control over the situation than others. This means that politics is above all a social activity concerned with people's social and material relationships, varied in expression in different spatial areas and continually changing through time—a dynamic social activity."28 Following important points must, however, be borne in mind while defining political activity : 2<J
1. Not every activity of man is 'political'. It may be'political', 'semi-political', 'para-political' and 'non-political'. The implication is that political activity takes place within a certain defined arena of social affairs and that wider -social and economic considerations can be ignored. The question of racial prejudice is 'political', the activities and concerns of sport and the arts are not, and the two should not trude on one another.
2. Political activity takes place only between bodies in some sense publicly recognised as having an accepted right to behave in this way, and according to certain common recognised and enforceable rules. Bodies without this kind of legitimacy or which act outside the rules as defined by the same public authorities are deemed to be acting outside the 'arena' of politics.
27 "Activity is political when it relates to a public issue, and it relates to a public issue when two conditions are met. In the first place, it must relate to the decision-making of a group, i.e., it must concern group policy, group organisation, or group leadership, or it must concern the regulation of group inter-relationships. In the second place, it must come within the realm of the controversial." V.V, Dyke, op. cit., p. 133.
28. Geoffery Ponton and Peter Gill : introduction to Politics (Oxford : Martin Robertson, 1982), p. 6. "Poltical activi;y may be understood as relating to the management of man's collective life whose outward manifestation is the state. Those who are engaged in this activity are concerned with seeking power with a view to manage and arrange things according to their point of view. In this sense, the activity itself assumes the character of a particular kind of skill, with which many are not endowed with, because the 'art' of management of human affairs is not given to everyone." Frank Thakurdas, Essays in political Theory, p. 1.
29. Ponton and Gill, op. cit., pp. 6-9.
Catlin's Barest Outlines of a Conceptual System of Politics
L Fofltte^^ Preoccupied with control
in domestic, civil, ecclesiastical aPnd industrial affa^s alike ° f by maD' day WC 030 find its numerous ins<ance*
2. Po^, like Gaul, is divided into three parts: the art of practice, the philosophy, and science. The last two comprise the
3. It would be idle to pretend that the whole field of politics is quantitative. Some areas cannot be usefully dealt with in this way
then results no less like will result character of human nature and if there are recurrent like conditions,
desire is fundamental ; it is the preferred ^aoJ^^S^S^ major behoof 2Sta AtiS! ^ ^
6. Power is synonymous with domination. Power is the potential'tv of control • anrt ,-rmtrr.i v„> • i
table when it issues from a routine and habitual cooperation as> whenlt^mtoa^e Vh^ ^J™f as and be more stable than domination or the 'over-under' relationship withitstensions 6 c,rcumstan=es where it may
7. It lies in the dialectic of power that, in order in many cases to guarantee freedom in particulars it «»»t» ».„V • j , ^
co-operative association with others. Such a power generally recognised anfhnri v t\1 ? ^ 0nly restricts the absolute and general freedom of itsMembers? maUngthefr action^ ^^andfyJ^^0^ nature„both The rest remain, and these are recognised as liberties. actions assured, and also some particular freedoms.
8- ^ZlLT^l^°eiC^ 01 CmPiriCalIy' afe hdd t0 be 65Sential t0 the f™*°™e of healthy and sane men constitute 9. The relation, polar but not contradictory, between men's demands for freedoms and their demand for a,,thr,w.
„ ,
these freedoms is crucial to political science, and is comparable to the relationin ronomta^betwL^^ " L ° f uarant,ee
°- ti^Stenerels8^ "« but
unit of support is the crucial item in political calculation 6 IS & demand'there muSt te suPPor* ">d the
^S£^E»^KPS^ KS£ T^hilaf ^
Kfpomics Tnproducer as citon mTa'so by a consumer, but he is ^ rule ; the consumer mavbyTis tonand!Shape and even dictate production, but he is primarily a plain consumer.
• i c ™o„^.r t« r,htnin « much as nossible in the way of political goods and securities without paying tne
^ ^TloS^'c^nna^b" ^eTth^|,^&ey&ied theSf^e^ this link ; the
Sst denies that the costs will be paid. The issue of pessimism .s slow market and political stagnation.
1» The consumer market is limited bv factual considerations, such as those of strategy over which, in particular cases, the
consu-13- ^™h«Tn?controliuit a^ materials. Democracy, as a system
reorients broadly freV o? coLu~s market'oictatorship provides a closed, monopolistic or producers' market with high
cost Wheiil attnce is made for minority demands and diversity in the markets, a pluralistic society emerges 14 The sense of community, valuing the goods of community prejudices men in favour of accepting a market compromise
' favourable to production but where cooperation can exclude dommative techniques
IS Conflict in society resulting from the pursuit of power, is an eternal factor in politics. Nevertheless an emotional (or
fed , botii) sese'ofCommunity can so far register disapproval of conflict that men become disposed to subordinate obstinate
S^teto rational ISmU On the other hand, the urgency of need inclines to resort to dommative and violent measures
ifi Tn the extent to which in a technical age, the production of effective political goods itself becomes technical, the professional
ooWician Thisis not necessari,y l? the d advantage of the consumer
provided\htTcan keep the producers (as through elections) sensitive to the fluctuations of support. Under a despotism, these
fluctuations are ignored until a revolutionary danger point is reached.
17 Whether political parties or machines should be regarded as major producers depends upon how they are functioning in the
particular conditions. All political agencies should be regarded functionally, and not statically, in the social structure.
18 Most men are not hungry for grand power or to be producers, because they think they have enough of what they want. The
deman^rof most men are small, routine, and disinterested. Their interest in power is not absent but moves in a narrower and
more domestic or business circles. They fear attention and their interest and freedom is rather m avoiding the burden of
ponsibility. But where new expectations are frustrated, the mass also becomes ambitious for more and even ready to pay
high costs.
19. Men's demands, fundamentally shaped by their nature, can be changed by their education or by the cruder mass media of
influence. .
20. Political science reduces the confused to the intelligible in means, as philosophy should do in ends' with a view to rational
actioti.
Source : Catlin : Political and Sociological Theory and Its Applications, Ch. V.
43
CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY
3. The 'arena' of political activity may vary from time to time and from place to place. It may be restricted in a ward country, it may be much restricted in a country under some form of totalitarian system of government. Different from this, it may be quite brisk in an 'open' and advanced country.
Thus, Ponton and Gill conclude : "Fundamentally politics is about the arrangement for ordering our social affairs and the degree of control individuals and groups have over this ordering". Essential to this situation is that all participants should have some influence and that the relationships between individuals and groups should to some degree be flexible and susceptible to change. People who can do nothing to influence their situation cannot act politically, while social relationships which are rigidly governed and controlled by custom, law or technical rules also have a low political content."30 To sum up, politics can be defined as (1) an activity occurring within and among groups, (2) which operate on the basis of desires that are to some extent shared, (3) an essential feature of the activity being a struggle of actors, (4) to achieve their desires, (5) on questions of group policy, group organisation, group leadership, or the tion of inter-group relations, (6) against the opposition of others with conflicting desires. More briefly, politics may be defined as a struggle among actors pursuing conflicting desires on public issues.31 Thus, politics exists only when ends and means are controversial.33 So Quincy Wright defines politics as the art of influencing, ing, or controlling (groups) "so as to advance the purposes of some against the opposition of others."33 It implies that most commonly the activity must confront opposition if it is to be classified as cal. This is suggested by the notion that politics should stop at the water's edge, which means that disagreement, should stop there and that a united front should be presented to the foreign adversary."3*
Political Theory Distinguished with Political Thought, Political Philosophy, Political Ideology, Political Inquiry and Political Analysis
The speculations and explanations about 'political reality' have certain recognisable forms bearing the designations of'political theory', 'political thought', 'political ideology', 'political inquiry', 30. Ibid., p. 9.
31. V.V. Dyke, op.'cit., p. 134.
32. Wright: "Political Science and World Stabilisation" in American Political Science Review, Vol. 44 (March, 1950), pp. 1-13.
33. Ibid. Also see Wright : A Study of International Relations (New York ■ Appleton-Century Crofts, 1955), p. 130-35.
34. V.V. Dyke, op. cit., p. 133.
POLITICAL THEORY 44
'political philosophy,' 'political analysis' etc. Eminent text-book writers and commentators have taken these designations as inter-changeable.33 Obviously, it creates a problem whether a student of this subject should take all these designations as inter-changeable terms, or he should try to distinguish political theory with each of them. In this section an attempt has been made to bring out the main points of distinction with a view to enable a student to be aware of all this while, at the same time, maintaining his impression that all these terms are easily interchangeable.
Political Thought and Political Theory: It is widely believed that political thought is the study of the political speculations of a whole community, over a certain period. By the whole community we mean its articulate section consisting of the leaders, statesmen, commenta-tors, writers, poets, publicists, social reformers, litterateurs and the like who react to the events of the time in their own ways. So is the factor of age. The time-span may not be specified or categorised in a rigid way, though one may earmark some loose contours in which certain events of great public importance have taken place. Thus, we have the Greek and Roman political thoughts of the ancient period followed by the thought of about one thousand years (5th to 15th century) known as middle ages. It is also possible that the time span may be short as we see in the case of England in the seventeenth century, or of France and America in the eighteenth century and the like.
What should be noted in this connection is that we may put milestones on the occurrence of significant changes in the policies,
35. For instance, while G.H. Sabine puts the study of great thinkers from the Greeks to the Fascists in his book A History of Political Theory, C.L. per covers only the most important ones (excluding Aristotle) in his cise work titled Political Thought. R.W. Carlyle and A.J Carlyle cover the study of political thought of the middle ages (in 6 volumes) titled as A Hiitory of Medieval Political Theory in the West, but W.A. Dunning covers the long history of fhe development of political ideas (in 4 volumes) known as A History of Political Theories. Likewise, we may take note of the fact that while T.I. Cook titles his book as History of Political Philosophy.
the book of C.C. Maxey on the same theme is titled Political Philosophies.
E. Barker discusses the political ideas of Plato, including his predecssors and contemporaries, in his Greek Political Theory and also discusses the
political ideas of the two great Greek giants in another book called The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, C.A. Vaughan deals with the study of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau (in 2 volumes) in his books each titled as Studies in the History of Political Philosophy. The title of hock's book is Nature of Political Inquiry; R.A. Dahl has his Modern Political Analysis, while a collection of articles on contemporary political theories, approaches, methods and methodologies edited by J.C. Charles worth is Contemporary Political Analysis. A peculiar example can be seen in the contribution of Arnold Brecht who titles his book as Political Theory : The Foundations of Twentieth Century Political Thought. Andrew Hacker cautiously includes the study of great political thinkers from Plato to Mill in his Political Theory : Philosophy, Ideology, Science. It is with a view to extricate himself from such a dilemma that W.T. Bluhm nates his study as Theories of the Political System.
45
CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY
programmes, activities, plans, organisations, constitutions etc.
that evoke different responses of the articulate sections of the community. In this sense, political thought is taken as 'time bound'.
It is due to this that political thought "has no fixed form. In other words, it expresses itself in various ways, to include speeches of the statesmen, the political commentaries of the publicists, the scholarly articles written by academicians, a poem composed by a poet who may catch the anguish of a people at any one particular moment of time and the letters of protest or affirmation written by whoever reacts to all the government decisions and policies."38
Political theory is different from political thought if we put these points in our view. First, it is the speculation of a particular thinker or writer who expresses his views on its three fundamental themes—state, government and power. His explanation is based on some hypothesis which may range from speculative to empirical directions. In this way, theory offers a model of explanation of political reality as understood and described by a writer. Naturally, one may come across the great variety in the field of political theory ranging from one extreme of idealism as contained in the Republic of Plato, Social Contract of Rousseau and Political Obligation of Green to the point of realism as contained in the Prince of Machiavelli, Leviathan of Hobbes and Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels.
Second, political theory finds its basts in a discipline or approach as philosophical, historical, economic, psychological, sociological, theological, anthropological and the like. It creates the problem of approaches in the field of political theory. For instance, while St.
Thomas expresses his view on political themes from a theological angle of vision, William McDougall dpes it from a psychological standpoint. The variety of approach leads to a variety of explana-tions. Last, political theory may be speculative or causal, it may be noted that a writer may assume the role of a critic, a reformer, or both. For instance, Burke is a critic of change, Bentham is an advocate of reforms. The greatness of Marx is that he is a vehement critic of the existing bourgeois system and an apostle of revolution.
The distinction between political theory and political thought, as made out above, is rather of a technical nature that may perhaps be beyond the comprehension of an average student of this subject.
However, we may depend upon this admirable elaboration of Prof.
E. Barker: "There is such a thing as political thought which is distinct from and greater than political theory. Political theory is the speculation of particular thinkers, which may be remote from the actual facts of the time. Political thought is the immanent philosophy of a whole age which determines its action and shapes its life. The 36. Frank Thakurdas, op. cit., p. 4. Also see J.A. Gould and V.V. Thursby (ed.s) .Contemporary Political Thought : Issues in Scope, Value and Direction (.New York ; Holt, Rinenart and Winston, 1969), pp. 1-6.
POLITICAL THEORY
POLITICAL THEORY