The simple answer to that complex question of what politics is, is the competition of interests and values between peoples

Politics is a reflexive activity because the end result of a political process depends on the beliefs and feelings of people which themselves can change as a result of political action

Regardless of the issue at hand, we can think politically by looking for the underlying interests or values at play and who stands to gain or lose if things turn out one way or the other

Photo by Jezael Melgoza

Everyday we are consumed by new information about things near and far. We read the news and we listen to people’s reaction about the news, which in turn becomes new news these days. What does it all mean and why should it matter to any of us what goes on outside the boundaries of our voting authority?

For most of us, not much is the honest truth. Our concerns extend out in increasingly diminished concentric circles centred on ourselves and wherever the last circle is drawn is the point in which the issues do not matter.

To talk about politics is to talk about what operates prior to that last drawn circle. Politics is what occurs in the spaces that matter to us. Of course what matters to each individual is unique, but what does matter will always be part of the political domain because it is our interests and values that determine what matter to us and it is the competition of these interests and values that define what is political, even among those that consider themselves “non-political”.

The ordinary course of a person’s life ensures that she or he will move in and out of diverse political spaces as their interests and values evolve. But somewhere along each of our lifetimes, we will consider healthcare issues, just as we will of housing and education and many other cornerstone institutions. As we consider these issues we may possess certain interests about how we wish to be treated which we may subsequently abandon when we progress to a different stage of life.

Do you spend hours grousing about the congested roads on your morning commute but never spend a second thinking about the pollution generated by all those vehicles? If you do, then transport is a genuinely political issue to you while environmental concerns aren’t quite. If tomorrow a bill is passed taxing owners of older and more pollutive cars at a higher rate, it will probably invoke an emotional response from you if you drive an old car. An environmental issue that previously wasn’t a concern to you has now become a political one.

To remove all the complexity and variety of how politics is defined is to strip it down to the basics of how human life unfolds in groups. It isn’t merely what governments do and it certainly isn’t what politicians do. It also isn’t policy and it isn’t polls; even if these do happen from time to time in politics.

It is more than these and it encompasses activities – scientific endeavours, corporate work, family life, and others – that we might have assumed functioned independently but which in fact occur within the political arena.

Because very little about human life isn’t political, we must each of us develop the nous for understanding how to navigate in political space. Looking for the underlying interests or values at play, and who stands to gain or lose if things turn out one way or the other is the most practical way for the average person to “think politically”.

Thinking politically also requires us to be aware of how actions occur in political space. This is where things begin to differ from other domains of human life.

In economics for example, we know that holding all else equal, when demand for a good increases, its price also increases; likewise when supply for a good increases, price decreases. These are logical relationships that exists between different factors in an economic model. Similar relationships exist in scientific models with greater degrees of certainty. Highly certain relationships such as the law of gravity are also highly deterministic and allow us to model behaviour with little risk of error.

In politics, the relationships between different factors are highly uncertain, unpredictive, and non-deterministic. We simply have few, if any, rules and laws that explain political behaviour and therefore what explanations we have for past political events and trends are ill suited to make predictions about the future.

The reason for this can be traced back to our earlier definition of what politics is, and that is the competition of interests and values between peoples. But those interests and values do not emerge separate from the political domain. On the contrary, they emerge out of or are at least informed by other political processes. They may also be subsumed, converted, or defeated by the political process into other interest or value groups.

Hence the very act of politics, indeed political life itself, not only sets the ground for the competition of interests and values but is also a participant of that competition.

To say then that politicians and others who execute political action are managing groups of people is to be slightly erroneous. And surely for a politician to say that that is what their job entails is to be completely disingenuous.

A great part of political action is to define the interests and values that are at play. That remains the principal job of politicians and other political actors that sets them apart from those who may have to implement political decisions, such as civil servants and administrators, but who do not otherwise shape political spaces per se.

Effective political actors walk a fine balance between their role as definers of interests and values, with their responsibilities to facilitate healthy competition among peoples with differing interests and values, and finally with their obligation to compete as parties to that very competition.

The most successful political actors are those who exert the maximum effort in whichever capacity has the least cost to themselves and the minimum effort in areas that are likely to incur a high price to their credibility among the groups they lead. Usually, this means that in decreasing order, political actors ought to invest heavily in defining what interests and values are at stake, facilitating competition, and then competing.

Analysing political competition requires us to look at whether the right balance of a political action is struck, and if not what would be the optimum formula.

Beginning with a structured methodology for thinking and acting politically allows us to conduct our debates coherently and improves both the professionalism of those of us in the business of political analysis and the acumen of those who are not.

by Huang Ling