Theme 16

Political sphere of society`s life as a philosophical problem

The aim of the theme is to reveal the essence of politics as the major part of society`s life, to grasp the structure of politics, to analyse the state as the basic political institution, to show the peculiarity of law–governed state and civil society.

Key words of the theme - politics, political system of society, state, civil society.

Politics and Political System of a Society. Structure of Politics

Politics (from Greek “politicos” meining citizen, civilian) is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.

In our ever changing world, the idea of policy and politics tends to have a powerful and often times contentious meaning. People see politics as a necessary evil in their day to day lives and for the most part completely forget the policy behind the politics. In some cases, most of people would like to think, tooo combine the world of politics and policy and blur the lines of what they truly are and represent.

Politics is the part of our governmental system where men and women vie for the acceptance and votes of the nation or the constituents in their respective districts. Policy on the other hand is what the elected politicians, analysts, and administrators are supposed to accomplish on a day to day basis as part of their jobs. The world of politics and political science diverges at this point but most people do not and will not see this divergence. The world of policy is a complex world of research, writing, arguing, and hopefully reaching some kind of consensus on a given issue. In the most general understanding of the terms, the world policy helps to create and write the legislation that parliaments, congresses, and other elected bodies vote on during the course of their elected terms. Politics, is the part that muddles through the policy and they help decide what is appropriate for the people and they are a form of check and balance to the policy created daily. Political scientists study the governmental systems created by man and the processes that work towards the creation of the policy that will one day become law.

In modern theories politics is regarded as the following:

1) relations between social groups (classes), people, states, that deal with supremacy, predominance, conflicts, peace as well;

2) policy, course, direction of taking decisions, forming and fulfilling different tasks and obligations of management (foreign political affairs, trade policy);

3) in practical dimention it is a field where individuals and social groups struggle for achieving power;

4) the art to manage and rule people in the society.

Social relations formed between various social groups and politics reflecting these groups’ interests are derivative of their place and roleineconomic sphere of society’s life. Some scholars regard politics to be the concentrated expression of economics. For example, Marxism affirms that politics is the superstructure over some economical basis.

Politics as the social phenomena has following functions:

1) expresses political interests of social subjects;

2) manages social and political processes in the society;

3) defines priorities in the society`s development;

4) provides harmony of various social groups’ interests, avoiding conflicts between groups;

5) preserves the unity and stability of social system.

So politics is the specific sphere of man`s activity where the central point is conquest, attainment, holding and usage of political power.

Power is an ability and opportunity of different men, groups, classes to influence on other people, classes or state’s activity. Power is administration and governance. Every power is the process of submission and subjugation. That is why the main mechanisms of power realization are:

- Authority

- Violence (a forced intrusion)

Attainment, holding and affirming political power is accomplished through the political system of society. A political system is a system of politics and government. It is usually compared to the legal system, economic system, cultural system, and other social systems. It is different from them, and can be generally defined on a spectrum: from the left - communism, to the right - fascism. However, this is a very simplified view of a much more complex system of categories involving the views: who should have authority, how religious questions should be handled, and what the government's influence upon people and economy should be.

There are several definitions of "political system":

Political system is a complete set of institutions, interest of social groups (such as political parties, trade unions, lobby groups), the relationships between those institutions and the political norms and rules that govern their functions (constitution, election law).

• Political system is composed of the members of a social organization (group) who are in power.

• Political system is a system that necessarily has two properties: a set of interdependent components and boundaries toward the environment with which it interacts.

• Political system is a concept in which theoretically regarded as a way of the government makes a policy and also to make them more organized in their administration.

• Political system is one that ensures the maintaining of order and sanity in the society and at the same time makes it possible for some other institutions to also have their grievances and complaints put across in the course of social existence.

Generally political system is the totality of state, political and civil institutions and organizations that cooperate in order to realize definite political ideas and norms. With the help of these norms the political relations between different states, nations and classes are regulated.

Political system has the following functions:

• defines goals and tasks of social development;

• mobilizes the reserves of production (material, spiritual, financial) in order to distribute and realize them;

• Integrates all elements of society, provides optimal level of social prosperity;

• provides correspondence of real political life to officially pronounced political and law norms (legalization).

The elements of politics as the sphere of society are as following:

• political relations between subjects as elements of the system;

• political activity (concerning problems of attainment and realization of power);

• state, political institutes, parties, social and civil organizations, autonomous bodies;

• political consciousness that has two levels – everyday (practical) and theoretical (scientific). The lower level forms political psychology, the higher level forms ideology;

• political culture – totality of stereotypes of political consciousness and activity (it explains the character and the peculiarity of political system, political regime, the direction of political processes);

• political and legal norms;

• Mass Media.

The following are examples of political systems, some of which are typically mutually exclusive (eg Monarchy and Republic), while others may (or may not) overlap in various combinations (eg Democracy and Westminster system, Democracy and Socialism):

• Anarchism (Rule by all/no one)

• Democracy (Rule by majority)

• Monarchy. (Rule by monarch) Monarchies are one of the oldest political systems known, developing from tribal structure with one person the absolute ruler.

• Meritocracy (Rule by best)

• Technocracy (Rule by scientist/intellectuals)

• Republic (rule by law) The first recorded Republic was in India in the 6th century BC.

• Sultanates. (Rule by Allah) an Islamic political structure combining aspects of Monarchy and Theocracy.

• Islamic Democracy. (Rule by majority in islamic context) an Islamic and democratic political structure, which combines aspects of Theocracy (as the framework) and Democracy (as the decision making method under Islam's ethical system). Iran's constitution is based on such a system.

• Theocracy (Rule by alleged representitive of God)

• Westminster system (rule by republic and representitive democracy through parliament)

• Feudalism (Rule by lord/king)

The term political structure, used in a general sense, refers to institutions or groups and their relations to each other, their patterns of interaction within political systems and to political regulations, laws and the norms present in political systems in such a way that they constitute the political landscape of the political entity. In the social domain its counterpart is Social structure. Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements which form the society as a whole, and which determine, to some varying degree, the actions of the individuals socialised into that structure. The meaning of "social structure" differs between various fields of sociology. On the macro scale, it can refer to the system of socioeconomic stratification (e.g., the class structure), social institutions, or, other patterned relations between large social groups. On the micro scale, it can refer to the structure of social network ties between individuals or organizations. On the micro scale, it can refer to the way norms shape the behavior of actors within the social system.

These meanings are not always kept separate. For example, recent scholarship by John Levy Martin who was helped by Billy Flederpon has theorized that certain marco-scale structures are the emergent properties of micro-scale cultural institutions (this meaning of "structure" resembles that used by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss). Marxist sociology also has a history of mixing different meanings of social structure, though it has done so by simply treating the cultural aspects of social structure as epiphenomena of its economic ones.