Will hoey

[Monica+Ellie]

For my homework I have been asked to answer the question: What is politics?

I have already included the dictionary definition, but don't know where to go from here.

 

How would you answer the question: What is politics?

Thank You!

[Olly]

That's quite a difficult one!

 

Politics is (or should that be 'politics are'!) ... the expression of opinons/beliefs about society and in particular the way that society should be governed?

 

I'm making this up as I go along, I have no idea of what the dictionary definition is.

[Valkyrie]

It is indeed Olly - couldn't think, but your off the cuff version is good. Sort of something that people agree to that makes everyones lives better, laws set out for the greater good - then someone comes up with a different idea and that divides the people - then votes in order and then we have a government. Which needs a jolly good shake up all round!

[Angels4]

From Wikipedia:

Politics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power"[1] and refers to the regulation of a political unit,[2] and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.[3]

 

LOADS of information.

[Guest]

remember not to copy word for word though!

 

Politics

 

Politics consists of activities associated with government or institutions of government. The adoption and execution of laws by a town, a province or state, a nation, or even an international body is one of the most common examples of politics. Public protest is also considered to be a form of politics.

 

The term politics also refers to beliefs, values or ideologies pertaining to law and government. It can refer to a person or organization's positions on particular issues of public concern, for example, taxation, freedom of speech, and foreign affairs. Politics also refers to broad, general beliefs about the design, purposes and ends of government. Differences about the purposes or ends of government are often discussed in terms of a political spectrum, where beliefs are categorized from left wing to right wing.

 

Since the 20th century, it has become increasingly common to speak of politics in contexts other than government, contexts which are not traditionally public. For example, one may speak of the politics of a family or the politics of a corporate office. In this sense, politics refers to how people use power within any social setting to gain or maintain status.

 

Finally, politics is an area of study and debate. In most colleges or universities, a wide variety of political topics are studied within the academic field of Political Science, as well as within most fields of social science and the humanities, for example, History, Sociology, Journalism and Communications, Economics and Philosophy.

http://www.politicsdefined.com/content/politics.htm

[majorbloodnock]

As always, it's helpful not just to know what a word means, but how it arrived at that meaning. The etymology of the word "politic" is enlightening indeed.

 

The Greek word "polis", meaning city, gave rise to "polites" - citizen. From this came "politikos" - "of citizens, or the state", thereby passing to the Latin "politicus" and then the middle French "politique".

 

The word's meaning, therefore, fundamentally relates to matters of the state, but also carries a heavy implication of that state being a democratic one (i.e. one made up of individual citizens, not simply a dictatorship). This latter implication has, of course, been terribly abused when Hitler's treatment of Jews, Stalin's massacre of millions of Russians or, more recently, Ceausescu's war crimes have been attempted to be passed off as politics.

[Monica+Ellie]

thank you all, you've been a great help

i may speak to you again next time i have trouble with my homework; which wont be too long