What+is+Politics?

**Summary and comment by Suzanne Ghais, February 2, 2011** Politics, most broadly, is “any kind of //independent// leadership in action” (114). This speech considers the subset of politics pertaining to leadership of a state. You cannot define a state by its functions, but rather “only in terms of the specific //means// peculiar to it… namely, the use of physical force” (114). The state today is the entity that has the “//monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force// within a given territory” (115, emphasis in Lemert’s book), and politics “means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state” (115). The state involves “men dominating men” (115). There are three ways that the state’s domination is legitimized (115): 1. //“Traditional”// domination, through “the authority of the ‘eternal yesterday,’ as exercised by princes. 2. //“Gift of grace// (charisma),” or any of a variety of powerful personal qualities. This seems to bridge past and present, from the prophet to the political party leader. 3. Domination through “’legality,’” including belief in the validity of laws and rules. This underlies the authority of the politician in the modern state. These are pure types; reality is more mixed. This speech, while reiterating Weber’s well-known and brilliant definition of the state, seems to confound power and force as well as power and authority. Weber explains clearly the meaning of “legitimate use of force” and the sources of the authority to do so legitimately; what seems an afterthought is the definition of politics as the exercise of power. The implication is that the main goal of any power-seeker is the control over this force-wielding entity. What if we were to imagine a Gandhian world that never relied on the use of force? What would be the definition of a state in such a world? It seems the state would be defined as the wielder of ultimate //authority// within a territory. It is difficult, admittedly, to imagine such authority without force to back it up. However, the real power, whether backed up with violence or not, lies in the broad consensus that such final authority is legitimate. There was a time, no doubt, when such legitimacy was conferred upon the leader who successfully conquered territory by force. In today’s world, legitimacy is increasingly derived from the consent of the territory’s population. When that consent disintegrates—as is happening in Egypt today and happened in Tunisia weeks ago, and as happened in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s—the state’s (or at least the government’s) authority is undermined. It is not at all clear that the use of force would restore it. In this revised definition of the state as the wielder of ultimate authority (rather than legitimate force), the definition of political power would still be related to the state, but would entail a much broader set of possible influences not only on the state’s decision making but also on the popular will that legitimates the state.
 * Weber, “What is Politics?” (1918)**
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