Politics defined, and the nature and significance of political theory

Introduction

The question first asks for a definition of politics and then for the nature and significance of political theory, the study that reflects on politics.

Politics

People have very different ideas about politics. Some see it as public service, others as manipulation and the pursuit of selfish ends, and others as what politicians do. A better definition is that politics arises from the fact that people have different visions of what is just and desirable for them and for society; it involves the many negotiations by which collective decisions are made, both at the level of what governments do and at the level of how people struggle to influence those decisions. It is wider than the affairs of government, but government is an important part of it because what governments do affects the lives of all. Every human community needs some arrangement for ordering common life and settling shared questions, so politics in some form is unavoidable.

What political theory is

Political theory is the systematic study of the ideas and principles on which political life rests: the values that shape constitutions, governments and everyday social life, and the arguments by which thinkers defend or criticise them. Its work has three sides. It is constructive, proposing how institutions and policies ought to change to become more democratic; critical, testing whether the institutions we actually deal with live up to the values they profess; and conceptual, clarifying what values such as freedom, equality and justice mean and why they matter. Underneath all three lie the basic questions of collective life: what government is for, how a society should be arranged, and what rulers and citizens owe each other.

It is not the same as the everyday activity called politics. Politics, in its wide sense, is the continuing negotiation by which a society reaches collective decisions in the face of different visions of what is just and desirable; political theory is the reflection on that activity and on the principles that ought to guide it. The DU syllabus places exactly this question at its opening: what is political theory and what is its relevance.

Nature and scope

1. It is concept-centred. Its core subject-matter is a set of ideas of two kinds: values and ideals (rights, democracy and secularism as well as liberty, equality and justice), and constitutional principles such as judicial review, the separation of powers and the rule of law.
2. It is argument-based. Its method is to examine the reasoning of thinkers (from Plato and Aristotle to Rousseau, Marx, Gandhi and Ambedkar, in the NCERT list) rather than to collect opinions.
3. It is normative as well as analytical. Political theory does not only describe how institutions work; it asks what ought to be done and which arrangements can be justified by reasons. The syllabus itself names the aim as to analyse political arguments and debates normatively and critically.
4. It is historical, empirical and evaluative at once. The syllabus asks for a historical, normative and empirical understanding of the subject: ideas must be placed in their time, tested against facts about how institutions work, and judged against values.
5. It is practical. It asks how far ideals such as freedom or equality are present, or absent, in the institutions people meet every day: a ward office that answers some callers and ignores others, or a college admissions desk that treats applicants unevenly, is a question for political theory.

Significance

Political theory is significant because it clarifies the meaning and importance of the concepts on which public life depends and tests our institutions against them; because it keeps constitutional rights alive by supplying reasons for their reinterpretation; and because it trains citizens to think rationally about political questions and to assess political events.

Conclusion

Politics is the activity by which societies decide how to live together; political theory is the systematic reflection on the values and principles that ought to guide it, and its significance is that it makes that activity answerable to reasons.