

For example, according to Hannah Arendt, the view of Aristotle was that "to be political…meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through violence " while according to Bernard Crick "politics is the way in which free societies are governed. For moralists, politics is closely linked to ethics, and is at its extreme in utopian thinking.


This distinction has been called the difference between political moralism and political realism. Some perspectives on politics view it empirically as an exercise of power, while others see it as a social function with a normative basis. Politics may also be defined by the use of power, as has been argued by Robert A. This latter position is encapsulated in the slogan " the personal is political," which disputes the distinction between private and public issues. For example, in a more restrictive way, politics may be viewed as primarily about governance, while a feminist perspective could argue that sites which have been viewed traditionally as non-political, should indeed be viewed as political as well. The extensive view sees politics as present across the sphere of human social relations, while the limited view restricts it to certain contexts. There are several ways in which approaching politics has been conceptualized.Īdrian Leftwich has differentiated views of politics based on how extensive or limited their perception of what accounts as 'political' is. Adrian Leftwich: "comprises all the activities of co-operation, negotiation and conflict within and between societies".Bernard Crick: "a distinctive form of rule whereby people act together through institutionalized procedures to resolve differences".Vladimir Lenin: "the most concentrated expression of economics".David Easton: "the authoritative allocation of values for a society".Harold Lasswell: "who gets what, when, how".The singular politic first attested in English in 1430, coming from Middle French politique-itself taking from politicus, a Latinization of the Greek πολιτικός ( politikos) from πολίτης ( polites, 'citizen') and πόλις ( polis, 'city'). In the mid-15th century, Aristotle's composition would be rendered in Early Modern English as Polettiques, which would become Politics in Modern English.

The English politics has its roots in the name of Aristotle's classic work, Politiká, which introduced the Greek term politiká ( Πολιτικά, 'affairs of the cities').
