What is politics about? At its core, politics is about resolving matters that are contested in a society or group. It exists not only within and between states, but also within religious institutions, sports organisations, commercial enterprises, schools and social organisations. Politics is driven by conflict, but also by cooperation. To understand politics, we must ask specific ('key') questions about the nature of political conflict, about persons, groups and institutions that are involved, about their resources, and about the wider context that both constrains and provides opportunities for all. It also requires an understanding of concepts such as power, influence and political community, and, of course, of the terms politics, conflict and cooperation.
This book is about the 'essence' of politics, which is introduced by way of key questions and concepts that are indispensable for understanding politics in many different settings.
- Cover
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1 What is Politics?
- Definitions of politics
- Essentially contested concepts
- The struggle over words and language as an aspect of politics
- The perspective on politics used in this book
- Chapter 2 Conflict and Cooperation
- What is conflict and cooperation?
- When are goals and interests incompatible or synergetic?
- The inevitability of conflict and cooperation
- Not all conflict and cooperation is political in character
- Relations between and dynamics of conflict and cooperation
- Chapter 3 Key Questions
- Five Key Questions
- Everything changes, continuously
- Chapter 4 Political Actors
- Varieties of actors
- Elites and non-elites
- Structure and agency – perspectives on actors’ behaviour
- Chapter 5 Political Conflicts
- What is at stake?
- Who are the actors in a conflict?
- The history of the conflict
- Connections between conflicts
- Chapter 6 Political Power
- Power as a concept
- Perspectives on power and approaches to the empirical study of power
- The key question about political power
- Chapter 7 The Political Landscape and the Wider Context
- The political landscape
- The wider context of politics
- Politics and context
- Chapter 8 The Political System and the Political Community
- The incomplete fit between political systems and political communities
- Responses to the outcome of political conflicts
- The reciprocal relation between political system and political community
- Bibliography
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