About Politics
- Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. - Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)
- Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes. - Murray Edelman, professor, author (1919-2001)
- Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx
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Politics is the operation of power in society:
- physical power
- economic power
- legal
power
- power over opinion.
Power is
used to pursue the interests of human beings.
These interests are often aggregated into
factional alliances. Political Studies, often
also called Political Science, is the
academic discipline that tries to establish
how this happens.
The study of politics is one of the oldest
academic disciplines. In ancient Greece
political philosophers studied the uses of
power. They also concerned themselves with
creating a good society and balancing the
pursuit of power with justice and order.
They started the study of the four great
sub-disciplines of Political Studies:
- domestic politics and policy studies
(Herodotus)
- political philosophy (Plato)
- comparative politics (Aristotle)
-
international politics (Thucydides).
Source: University of Otago Political Studies Department
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