Continued from here.
§3 Definitions of Politics — Wide and Narrow
Kick-off Definition of Politics
Acting politically amounts to monitoring, challenging, persuading, and even coercing one another, with a view to maintaining or changing the notions and prevalent patterns of admissible social behaviour that govern a community of two or more human beings, in a given situation, or as a standard of more general applicability.
This is the broadest and most inclusive, yet still meaningful definition of politics that I can think of. It comprises even bilateral influencing, as when a
spouse is trying to get his partner to attend a sports event rather than go to the opera.
Politics in a Wider Sense
Politics in a wider sense is any effort to make one's social environment comply with one's aims.
What we refer to as the social environment covers a vast range, reaching from a marital relationship to a nation of 300 million citizens. Whether a tenant tries to get his landlord to promise him not to raise the rent, or whether a nation is taking an electoral decision on rent control that is going to be binding on 100 million citizens, they are doing the same thing in term of our definition of politics.
By this definition, a bank robbery would be an instance of politics. However, a bank robbery is a kind of influence-taking that is considered socially detrimental and hence declared illegitimate in our society. In fact, we rule out a great deal of possible forms of politicking, and tend to confine much of legitimate politics to a "playground," an infrastructure of institutions, specifically designated for the purpose. This leads us to a narrower definition of politics.
Politics in a Narrower Sense
"Practising politics" in everyday life, such as maligning a colleague at work or placating an unfriendly neighbour with a gift brought home from a vacation trip, is not the sense in which we more ordinarily speak of politics. Still, it is a special case of the broader sense of the term.
Politics in a narrower sense suggests the idea that people
try to make an impact on what counts as acceptable, commendable or enforceable behaviour in a community,
community understood to be
- of a public character (such as a parish, municipality, or state) — as opposed to an exclusively private circle — and of rather large a size — compared to a family or group of friends — comprising even an entire nation made up of millions of people,
and impact understood to be
- effected with recourse to practices and institutions specifically designed for this purpose (parties, electoral procedures, official positions, e.g. representative of the people, agencies of decision making, e.g. parliament, and enforcement, e.g. public authorities etc).
It should be noted, however, that in order to understand freedom, it is indispensable to think of politics not solely in terms of activities taking place within the formal political system.
§ 4 Types of Politics — More Definitions: Formal Politics and Informal Politics, Micro-Politics and Macro-Politics
Formal Politics and Informal Politics
In order to appreciate the highly political character of freedom, it is helpful to introduce the distinction between formal and informal politics.
When more and more people refrain from smoking, a mostly private trend, new habits and expectations are being formed, which will gradually change what is and what is not considered socially adequate ("cool," "decent," "the done thing" etc.)—in the 1960s smoking used to be very "cool" and tremendous social pressure was at work in favour of smokers; at that time, many people would not have dared to tell their guests that they did not want them to smoke in their living room—etc.
Divorce, single parent households etc. are further examples of social trends that develop outside of formal politics, forming patterns of informal politics that change society sometimes incrementally, after an extended cumulative run-up, and sometimes in rapid and revolutionary fashion.
The term
informal politics subsumes behaviour that makes people change what is acceptable and doable in society, without resort to the formal processes of politics.
Freedom, Informal Politics, and Civil Society
In a society where individuals are rather free to choose their life styles and ways of living, there tend to develop strong and frequent impulses deriving from unregulated private behaviour that consolidate into paradigms of informal politics remoulding the face of society and setting new agendas for formal politics, law, and officially enforced social norms.
It is an important characteristic of a free society that citizens are able to change society in pursuit of their private preferences, decisions, and initiatives.
Under freedom, a large part of the ongoing processes of adaptation that characterise society are attained by citizens living their ordinary lives.
Micro-Politics and Macro-Politics
In a society where the individual is granted rights that empower her to assert her own views and interests against other members of the community, by definition, the free citizen becomes a political agent, even before she seeks support from and within the formal political system.
She is allowed to exert her influence on society and thereby change it, and alter prevailing structures—for instance, by operating a company that competes with another company—say, one owned by the Prime Minister—driving the rival into insolvency.
The trends and flavours and details of a society are much affected by
micro-politics, acts by which individual members of society assert themselves as autonomous participants in the overall social goings-on, especially in those affecting their immediate private concerns.
By engaging in cases that matter to themselves and perhaps a few other people, they may make minor, often imperceptible, contributions to what does and what does not count in society at large. They may win or lose a lawsuit, run for treasurer in a local election, participate in a charity, gain market share with a company of their own, join the school board etc. These are events in the sphere of micro-politics, which may overlap both with formal and informal politics, and may be distinguished from
macro-politics which makes an immediate impact on the entire society and/or is geared to organising such comprehensive influence,
like the decision to ban alcohol in the United States in 1920s.
When we think of politics, typically our attention is focussed on macro-politics. But what makes a free society special is the extensive practice of micro-politics.
Continued here.
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