What Is Politics?

Politics as an area of study is concerned with developing a knowledge and understanding of government and society. The interaction of people, ideas and institutions provides the focus for understanding how values are allocated and resources distributed. Thus analyses of who gets what, when, how, why and where are central, as are concepts of power, justice, order, conflict, legitimacy, accountability, obligation, sovereignty and decision-making.

International Relations shares the concerns of Politics, but its focus is the regional and global arenas. Traditionally concerned with anarchy (the absence of international or global government) and the conflictual and co-operative engagement between states, International Relations is increasingly concerned with engagement between states, intergovernmental organisations and non-state actors such as transnational corporations and transnational civil society groups. As with the study of Politics, the study of International Relations encompasses philosophical, theoretical, institutional and issue-based concerns relating to governance, but at the regional and global levels.

The study of Politics and International Relations involves the description of political phenomena, which we try to explain using general theories and on which we reflect normatively. Normative political theory or political philosophy concerns the normative study of the political values of society and the international order, investigated both historically and analytically. Positive political theory or explanatory political theory concerns the study of the general mechanisms and forces which steer the behaviour of individuals and institutions as they interact at domestic, regional and global levels to allocate values and resources. Political science or political analysis uses these theoretical perspectives to inform and assess the explanation of historical events, political behaviour, the workings of political institutions and actors, political processes and the policy outputs of governance and regulatory structures.