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Politics
322. PoliticsSee also 185. GOVERNMENT .
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"Politics." -Ologies and -Isms. 1986. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Politics." -Ologies and -Isms. 1986. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505200333.html "Politics." -Ologies and -Isms. 1986. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505200333.html |
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Politics
PoliticsTHE CHARACTER OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY THE SCOPE OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY The term politics derives from the ancient Greek word polis, meaning “city-state,” the main form of political community in ancient Greece. We continue to use the term even though few city-states remain in existence. A commonsense understanding of the term is illustrated by this analogy: Politics is to the polis what athletics is to athletes. Just as the world of athletics is subdivided into different types of sport, politics comes in numerous modes and orders: democratic, tyrannical, constitutionalist, oligarchic, theocratic, bureaucratic, fascist, authoritarian, and so on. However, everyday language is not a reliable guide to defining politics, because we regularly apply the term to practices that are not political. We speak of office politics, locker-room politics, or the politics of high school cliques. These usages are too broad and fail to distinguish politics as a unique activity, distinct from business, sports, social interactions, and so on. In order to gain a more comprehensively scientific understanding of the meaning of politics, it is helpful to consider two basic components: (1) the character of political activity and (2) the scope of political activity. THE CHARACTER OF POLITICAL ACTIVITYPolitics has been defined in numerous ways. The philosopher Plato (c. 428–348 bce) defined it as the art of caring for souls, meaning that the duty of political rulers is to cultivate moral virtue or excellence in their citizens. Numerous thinkers throughout history have reiterated Plato’s view. The medieval theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–1274), who closely studied the philosophy of Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 bce), characterized politics as the activity of bringing together diverse individuals and groups, including doctors, economists, professors, and priests, each with their own talents and characteristics, into a unity: “The object for which a community is gathered is to live a virtuous life. For men to consort together that they may thus attain a fullness of life which would not be possible to each living singly: and the full life is one which is lived according to virtue” (Fuller 2000, p. 85). Both Plato and Aquinas were concerned with cultivating virtue and living a good life. Aquinas further emphasizes the synthetic or “architectonic” dimension of politics as the activity of building coalitions and maintaining harmony among the constituent parts of political society. Politics for Plato and Aquinas reflects humanity’s sociable nature. Ancient and medieval thinkers emphasized the moral purpose of politics (the why) and the means of reaching that purpose (the how), while modern thinkers, including contemporary political scientists, are more likely to emphasize only means (the how). For example, the Renaissance thinker Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) wrote in The Prince that it is unrealistic for princes to provide moral guidance to citizens because politics requires rulers to perform unjust deeds to ensure the security and glory of the state, including such acts as treating one’s friends as subjects and killing family members if necessary. Machiavelli thus introduced what would later become known as the fact-value distinction into the study of politics. It states that facts are the only objects that can be analyzed empirically and with certainty, while values are less certain. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) provided what in the early twenty-first century one would consider a more scientific understanding of politics. His method was to deduce political principles from general and abstract theories. In his view humans resembled atoms, and human behavior was “matter in motion,” whose principle mode of behavior was self-preservation. Unlike Plato and Aquinas, Hobbes regarded humans not as social but as asocial. He sums this up in his famous formulation of human behavior:
This general principle of human behavior leads Hobbes to characterize the activity of politics as the pursuit of peace and security, not as the perfection of human social inclinations. While Hobbes was not what in the early twenty-first century one would call a liberal democrat, his theory laid the foundations for liberal democracy by making consent the basis of government. He also placed politics on a lower (and in his eyes, more stable) ground than earlier thinkers by making peace and security its purpose, not the cultivation of virtue and community. Machiavelli and Hobbes’s distinction between the moral purpose of politics and the pragmatic pursuit of power can be seen in some twentieth-century definitions of politics, which deemphasize moral excellence in favor of the use of power and the distribution of goods within a community. The French thinker Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903–1987) defined politics as the activity of gathering and maintaining support for human projects: “We should regard as ‘political’ every systematic effort, performed at any place in the social field, to move other men in pursuit of some design cherished by the mover” (Jouvenel 1963, p. 30). Allan Ball emphasizes conflict in his definition: “[Politics] involves disagreements and the reconciliation of those disagreements, and therefore can occur at any level. Two children in a nursery with one toy which they both want at the same time present a political situation” (Ball 1971, p. 20). Harold Lasswell emphasizes distribution in his treatment of politics, as reflected in the title of his 1936 treatise Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How. While these definitions have their benefits, they fail to distinguish political activity from other forms of activity. This is especially true for Ball’s definition, which provides little guidance on the difference between a nursery and a nation-state like the United States. More promising is Bernard Crick’s definition of politics as “the activity by which different interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and the survival of the whole community” (Crick 1972, p. 22). This definition recalls Aquinas’s characterization of politics as unifying different parts of society. By mentioning survival, Crick also alludes to the fact that a political society requires a large degree of autonomy, in a way that a smaller unit, such as a family, lacks. By mentioning welfare, which is broader than survival, he also indicates that a political society is organized around a set of goals and principles. THE SCOPE OF POLITICAL ACTIVITYThe activity of politics, then, consists of a continuous attempt to fashion a unity from a diverse set of competing interests and talents. Beyond this, any analysis of politics needs to move to a more concrete level. Politics, as the activity of the polis, depends on the form the political community takes. Political actions such as the conciliation of interests would take different forms in Nazi Germany, for example, and a liberal democracy like the United States. In the former, power is based on a personality cult surrounding Adolf Hitler for the purpose of furthering the utopian ideal of a Third Reich. In the latter, coalitions of interests form and compete with one another in a law-based constitutional system. In the former, politics is seen as something that will in fact cease once the utopia is reached (this is true of any utopian system). In the latter, politics is assumed to be a never-ending activity of negotiation and bargaining, on the assumption that a diversity of opinions and interests will always exist. Political thinkers have devised a variety of methods for evaluating the differences among political systems. Plato distinguished five regimes, ranked according to the degree to which each is just. In descending order, they are the just city governed by philosopher kings, timocracy (ruled by warriors), oligarchy (ruled by the wealthy), democracy (ruled by the many), and tyranny (Plato 1991, pp. 449a–592b). Aristotle distinguished six different regimes according to who rules and for what purpose. He identified three good and three corrupt systems: (1) monarchy and tyranny, (2) aristocracy and oligarchy, (3) polity, or constitutional democracy, and mass democracy (Aristotle 1984, pp. 1288b10–1296b15). Plato and Aristotle’s typologies are based on the polis. Modern scholars have developed typologies that attempt to organize the different forms the modern state takes. Three separate axes can be identified: (1) the interpenetration of state and society, (2) whether the state is presidential or parliamentary, and (3) whether the state is federal or unitary (Dickerson and Flanagan 1998, pp. 209–310; Finer 1999, pp. 1473–1484). The first axis considers the extent to which state institutions and civil society are autonomous. For example, liberal democracies prize pluralism, which requires a multiplicity of political parties competing for power as well as a wide array of independent schools, newspapers, and other sources of opinion. Totalitarian governments—for example, that of Hitler—attempt to control all facets of society, including universities, newspapers, unions, and businesses. Totalitarian states permit only one party, which purportedly speaks for the nation. The second axis considers the composition of the representative institutions. In a presidential system like the United States, the central government is divided into three branches: executive (the president), legislative (Congress), and judicial (the Supreme Court). These three branches balance one another to ensure that no single branch of government possesses complete power. In a parliamentary system like that of Great Britain, executive power (the prime minister and cabinet) is more fused with legislative (the House of Commons). According to the doctrine of responsible government, the prime minister and cabinet must continually maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, which has the power to dissolve the government. Dissolution can occur at any time, in contrast to the U.S. presidential system, where members can only be removed by election or, in extreme circumstances, by impeachment. The third axis reflects the territorial size of a society. In ancient Greece the polis was not divided into states or provinces because city-states were small enough for government to exert control over its territory and maintain solidarity among its citizens. Modern nation-states are considerably larger in size, which poses special challenges for controlling territory and promoting social solidarity. A federal state splits up the nation-state into states or provinces and hands over to those small units specific powers appropriate to them while maintaining the powers necessary to address national concerns. Large nations such as the United States and Canada have a federal system, while smaller nations such as Great Britain are unitary. Federal systems are based on the view that citizens will have greater solidarity with those who live nearby and who share common ways of life, though this view is less salient when a society has a highly mobile population. THE STUDY OF POLITICSThe political analysis of major thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Hobbes attempted to combine the empirical study of politics with normative concerns, though the latter two dissolve that combination somewhat. Politics is studied in the early twenty-first century at the academic level in departments of political science. While the term political science is a translation of Aristotle’s politike episteme, modern usage, with the emphasis on “science,” reflects the attempt, begun by Hobbes, to study politics according to the methodologies of the physical sciences. The division of most departments of political science into four subfields of analysis reflect this methodology. Political philosophy, which focuses on normative questions of political life, is one subfield. International relations considers the complexities of the international order, including law, organizations, war, and political economy. Comparative politics examines the politics of various countries and regions of the world. A fourth subfield examines the politics of the native country, so, for instance, every political science department in the United States has an American politics subfield, and their counterparts in Canada have Canadian politics subfields. Political scientists frequently step outside of their subfields. This is most true of political philosophy and its relation to other fields, as few political phenomena can be separated from their normative dimensions. For instance, the study of power requires one to consider why a political actor seeks power, and these reasons usually depend on that actor’s particular understanding of justice. As a result, political science involves the study of the good society, just as it did for Plato 2,500 years ago. SEE ALSO American Political Science Association; Aristotle; Campaigning; Conflict; Elections; Electoral Systems; Elites; Hobbes, Thomas; Lasswell, Harold; Machiavelli, Niccolò; Participation, Political; Party Systems, Competitive; Plato; Political Science; Political System; Political Theory; Power Elite; Power, Political BIBLIOGRAPHYAristotle. Politics. 1984. Trans. Carnes Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ball, Alan R. 1971. Modern Politics and Government. London: Macmillan. Crick, Bernard R. 1972. In Defense of Politics. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dickerson, Mark O., and Thomas Flanagan. 1998. An Introduction to Government and Politics: A Conceptual Approach. 5th ed. Scarborough, ON: International Thomson Publishing. Finer, Samuel E. 1999. The History of Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fuller, Timothy, ed. 2000. Leading and Leadership. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Hobbes, Thomas. 1996. Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. (Orig. pub. 1651.) Jouvenel, Bertrand de. 1963. The Pure Theory of Politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lasswell, Harold D. 1958. Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How. New York: Meridian Books. Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1998. The Prince. 2nd ed. Trans. Harvey C. Mansfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Orig. pub. 1532.) Minogue, Kenneth. 1995. Politics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plato. 1991. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books. John von Heyking |
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Cite this article
"Politics." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Politics." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045301976.html "Politics." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045301976.html |
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Politics
PoliticsBeginning in 1970, the "environmental decade," a swift and sweeping transformation in American law radically reshaped U.S. pollution control policies. This regulatory revolution was mounted on three political foundations: skillful pressure-group politics, effective legislative advocacy, and aroused public concern about environmental degradation. These traditional American political techniques promoted, and continue to shape, contemporary pollution control through U.S. political governmental institutions. The Political Foundations: Pressure-Group PoliticsAmericans and their public officials paid scant attention to growing evidence of environmental degradation across the nation until the late 1960s. Air and water pollution control was considered the responsibility of state and local governments. Most states did little more than set drinking water standards to protect public health from a few contaminants like bacterial diseases, fearing that more aggressive control of air and water pollutants would inhibit economic growth and drive resident business and industry to other states. Such mounting environmental degradation as the Cuyahoga River fire and Love Canal focused national attention on the need for environmental restoration. This was translated into bold new governmental policies largely by environmental pressure groups during the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of the new environmental movement lay in organized political activism, coalition building, and legislative advocacy—the fundamentals of effective group politics. The focus of this political pressure was primarily the federal government with its vast authority and resources for creating nationwide pollution control. No single event dramatized the environmental movement's rise to national importance more than the first Earth Day in April 1970—a nationally televised Washington rally witnessed by 35 million Americans—that swiftly elevated public awareness of environmental degradation while advertising, especially for public officials, environmentalism's newly acquired political clout. Pressure-Group Politics Old and NewEnvironmentalism's political strength depends on its leadership's skill in creating a broad and diverse alliance of interests to support environmental advocacy. The environmental movement embraces a great diversity of influential organizations, including traditional conservation groups like the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation, established public health advocates like the American Cancer Society, newly formed environmental pressure groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and Friends of the Earth, major labor unions, public interest science organizations, and countless local organizations. Additionally, environmentalists are proficient recruiters. After the first Earth Day, environmentalist organizations multiplied and enriched their political resources, often creating innovative new organizational forms and strategies. Prior to 1970, fewer than twenty-five significant national environmental groups existed with a combined membership approaching 500,000—of these, perhaps a half-dozen organizations were important participants in national policymaking. Several hundred influential national environmentalist groups are politically active; five of the most important—the Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, and Wilderness Society—alone have a combined membership exceeding seven million. Although all the major organizations use the sophisticated resources of pressure-group politics—mass-mailing technology, skilled media specialists, and full-time legislative lobbyists—the environmental movement has also benefited by developing specialized legal advocacy groups, like the National Resources Defense Council, staffed primarily with lawyers and scientific experts committed exclusively to litigation that establishes important legal precedents and enforces pollution-control regulations for environmental protection. Creating and Mobilizing Public OpinionThe radical transformation of U.S. pollution-control laws would have been impossible without strong, consistent public pressure on federal and state governments, especially on the Congress and state legislators. Current public opinion polls suggest that more than 80 percent of Americans agree with the goals of the environmental movement. The strength of this support is suggested by other polls consistently reporting since 1980 that more than two-thirds of the public believe environmental protection should be a major government priority, even at the risk of reducing economic growth. The breadth and depth of this ecological consciousness are remarkable, considering that few Americans understood the implications of ecology or the nature of domestic environmental pollution only a few decades ago. The most important political impact of this vigorous public environmentalism is on the electoral system: Candidates for major federal and state office are now customarily expected to support strong pollution controls and other ecologically protective policies, at least in principle. While Americans often disagree vigorously over pollution control methods, air and water pollution regulation itself is now an enduring component of the "American political consensus"—those policies Americans overwhelmingly view as the essential responsibility of their government. A Regulatory Revolution: The Environmental DecadeThe design of U.S. air and water pollution control was crafted in federal law during the "environmental decade" between 1970 and 1980. Responding to dramatic media revelations of ecological deterioration, growing environmental group pressure, and voter concerns, Congress laid the legislative foundation for all contemporary regulation through six statutes: The Clean Air Act Amendments (1970), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments (1972), the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (Superfund) in 1980. Altogether, the Congress wrote or amended nineteen major environmental laws in this remarkable decade. And by changing the law, Congress also reordered its political underpinning. Federal LeadershipThe laws listed above radically recast the U.S. approach to pollution management. Most important, the federal government assumed the primary responsibility for air and water pollution regulation; Washington set national pollution standards and supervised their implementation, thus defining pollution control priorities and prescribing acceptable control methods. The Clean Air Act, for example, now requires all states to control at least six dangerous pollutants (sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, lead, particulates, and volatile organic compounds) and a rapidly growing list of other substances currently believed to be "air toxins." The act additionally mandates that car manufacturers install pollution-control devices on all new automobiles. The new pollution laws also extended federal protection to the natural environment instead of exclusively to human health and safety. The Toxic Substances Control Act, for example, authorizes the federal government to regulate the manufacture, sale, or use of any chemical presenting "an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment." Regulatory FederalismRegulatory federalism has become a fundamental regulatory principle. This means that Washington prescribes national pollution standards and control procedures, but allocates the appropriate resources to states so they assume the primary responsibility for implementing and enforcing these requirements. States are then said to exercise "delegated authority." Using delegated authority, for instance, thirty-eight states as of 2002 issue permits for water pollution discharges required by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments and forty-nine states certify pesticides for local use as required by the Federal Environmental Pesticides Control Act (1972). Thus, the states assume an essential and highly influential role in national pollution regulation; pollution policymaking continually requires negotiation, conflict, and cooperation between the states and Washington. New Regulatory AgenciesNew federal agencies were created, and others reorganized, to implement these new control programs. The most important federal pollution control entity is now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created in 1972. The EPA is the nation's largest regulatory agency with 18,000 employees, a 2002 budget exceeding $7.5 billion, and responsibility to fully or partially implement all the nation's important pollution control laws. In 1970 the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), a much smaller agency, was created within the White House to advise the President on environmental affairs. At the same time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was created within the U.S. Department of Commerce to conduct research on and monitoring of ocean and atmospheric pollution. The authority and staff of many other federal agencies concerned with environmental quality, such as the Department of the Interior, were also vastly expanded to implement new pollution control programs. These agencies also provide research support and grants to the states to facilitate the enforcement of pollution control laws. The EPA, for instance, has distributed more than $150 billion in grants to state and local governments to upgrade their sewage treatment systems. New Policymaking ProceduresFederal pollution laws created new, often controversial, regulatory procedures. The most contentious of these is risk assessment —the process used by regulatory agencies to determine if a substance constitutes a sufficient threat to human health and safety, or to the environment, to require control. Federal pollution laws, including the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and Superfund, require the EPA or other responsible agencies to conduct such risk assessments—usually focused on the risk of cancer—on thousands of chemicals never previously evaluated according to the rigorous new standards. Risk assessments proceed slowly due to the huge number of substances involved, a lack of basic information about their distribution and impact, and intense controversy about the appropriate procedures for the assessments. Federal pollution legislation has also vastly increased opportunities for the public, and particularly environmental advocacy groups, to become informed and involved in federal environmental decision making. Major federal pollution laws such as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts removed a major legal impediment to public involvement in pollution control by granting individuals and organizations standing to sue federal and state agencies for failure to enforce pollution control laws. Almost all federal environmental laws also require the responsible federal and state agencies to actively inform the public and to provide numerous opportunities for public comment and review of contemplated regulations. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is apparent that the environmental movement permanently and comprehensively altered the law and politics of U.S. pollution regulation. Pressure-group politics, public opinion, and congressional legislation were the powerful driving forces in this change. The result was unprecedented, aggressive federal leadership in an active national program of pollution control based on federally mandated pollution standards and pollution controls. By promoting new national pollution control laws and agencies, expanded opportunities for public involvement in pollution regulation, and vigorous public concern for environmental degradation, the environmental movement has created a continuing "environmental era." see also Activism; Brower, David; Carson, Rachel; Citizen Suits; Earth Day; Environmental Impact Statement; Government; Industry; Laws and Regulations, United States; Legislative Process; National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); New Left; Progressive Movement; Public Participation; Public Policy Decision Making; Risk. BibliographyBuck, Susan J. (1996). Understanding Environmental Administration and Law, 2nd edition. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Cohen, Richard E. (1995). Washington at Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Graham, Mary. (1999). The Morning after Earth Day: Practical Environmental Politics. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Marzotto, Toni; Moshier Burnor, Vicky; and Bonham, Gorden Scott Bonham. (2000). The Evolution of Public Policy: Cars and the Environment. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Rosenbaum, Walter A. (2002). Environmental Politics and Policy, 5th edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. internet resourceProject on Teaching Global Environmental Politics Web site. Available from http://webpub.alleg.edu/employee. Walter A. Rosenbaum |
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Rosenbaum, Walter A.. "Politics." Pollution A to Z. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Rosenbaum, Walter A.. "Politics." Pollution A to Z. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3408100199.html Rosenbaum, Walter A.. "Politics." Pollution A to Z. 2004. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3408100199.html |
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politics
pol·i·tics / ˈpäləˌtiks/ • pl. n. [usu. treated as sing.] the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, esp. the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power: the Communist Party was a major force in French politics thereafter he dropped out of active politics. ∎ the activities of governments concerning the political relations between countries: in the conduct of global politics, economic status must be backed by military capacity. ∎ the academic study of government and the state: [as adj.] a politics lecturer. ∎ activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone's status or position and are typically considered to be devious or divisive: yet another discussion of office politics and personalities. ∎ a particular set of political beliefs or principles: people do not buy this newspaper purely for its politics. ∎ (often the politics of) the assumptions or principles relating to or inherent in a sphere, theory, or thing, esp. when concerned with power and status in a society: the politics of gender. PHRASES: play politics act for political or personal gain rather than from principle. |
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"politics." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "politics." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-politics.html "politics." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-politics.html |
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Politics
513. Politics
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"Politics." Allusions--Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. 1986. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Politics." Allusions--Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. 1986. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505500522.html "Politics." Allusions--Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. 1986. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2505500522.html |
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politics
politics Sphere of action in human society in which power is sought in order to regulate the ways in which people shall live together. For a society to engage in politics, it must conceive of society as being in a state of perpetual change.
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"politics." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "politics." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-politics.html "politics." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-politics.html |
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