Politics as the Art of Government

Politics is not a science … but an art, Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have told the German Reichstag. The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of (1)________, the exercise of control within society through the making and (2)________ of collective decisions. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece.

The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state. Ancient Greek society was (3)_______ into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often portrayed as the (4)_______ of democratic government. In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis, in effect, ‘what concerns the polis ’. The modern form of this (5)______ is therefore ‘what concerns the state’. This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do so. It is also a definition which academic political science has helped to perpetuate.

However, what is striking about this definition is that it offers a highly restricted view of politics. Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of social organization centered upon the machinery of government departments and the like, and it is cabinet rooms, (6)_______ chambers, government departments and the like, and it is engaged in by a limited and specific group of people, notably politicians, civil servants and lobbyists. This means that most people, most institutions and other educations and most social activities can be regarded as being ‘outside’ politics. Businesses, schools and other educational institutions, community groups, families and so on are in this sense ‘nonpolitical’, because they are not engaged in ‘running the country’. By the same token, to portray politics as an essentially state-bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important international or (7)______ influences upon modern life, such as the impact of transnational technology and multinational corporations. In this sense, this definition of politics is a hangover from the days when the nation-state could still be regarded as an independent actor in world affairs.

This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. This is evident in the tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics. In other words, the realm of ‘the political’ is restricted to those state actors who are consciously motivated by ideological beliefs, and who seek to advance them through membership of a formal organization such as a political party. This is sense in which politicians are described as ‘political’, whereas civil (8)______ are seen as ‘nonpolitical’, as long as, of course, they act in neutral and professional fashion.

The link between politics and the affairs of the state also helps to explain why negative or pejorative images have so often been attached to politics. This is because, in the popular mind, politics is closely associated with the activities of politicians. Put brutally, politicians are often seen as power-seeking hypocrites who conceal personal ambition behind the rhetoric of public service and ideological conviction. Indeed, this perception has become more common in the modern period as intensified media exposure has more effectively brought to light examples of (9)______ and dishonesty, giving rise to the phenomenon of anti-politics. This rejection of the personnel and machinery of conventional political life is rooted in a view of politics as self-serving, two-faced and unprincipled activity, clearly evident in the use of derogatory phrases such as ‘office politics’ and ‘politicking’. Such an image of politics is sometimes traced back to the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, who, in The Prince ([1531] 1961), developed a strictly realistic account of politics which drew attention to the use by political leaders of cunning cruelty and (10)_____.

Such a negative view of politics reflects the essentially liberal perception that, as individuals are self-interested, political power is (11)_______. However, there is a general acceptance that politicians are always with us. Without some kind of mechanism for allocating authoritative values, society would simply disintegrate into a (12)_______ war of each against all, as the early social-contract theorists argued. The task is therefore not to abolish politicians and bring politics to an end, but rather to ensure that politics is conducted within a framework of checks and constraints that ensure that governmental power is not abused.