"Politics is a combination of
discussing, arguing, disagreeing, understanding, and teamwork."
- Public Achievement team members
St. Bernard's Grade School
Politics is the process and method of decision-making
for groups of human beings. Although it is generally applied to
governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions
including corporate, academic, and religious.
One theorist, Harold Lasswell, has defined politics as: "who
gets what, when, and how."
The word "Politics" is derived
from the Greek word for citystate, "Polis". Corporate,
religious, academic and every other polity, especially those constrained
by limited resources, contain dominance hierarchies and therefore
politics. Politics is most often studied in relation to the administration
governments.
The oldest form of government was tribal organization.
Rule by elders was supplanted by monarchy, and a system of Feudalism
as an arrangement where a single family dominated the political
affairs of a community. Monarchies have existed in one form or another
for the past 5000 years of human history.
The Greeks were the first to develop democracy as a means of governance
of the people, by the people. However, this democracy was limited
to free, male, landholders. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the viability
of government by the governed. |
