Social Inequality and Politics as Power for Political Science

Question: Discuss about theSocial Inequality and Politics as Power for Political Science. Answer: Many theorists have defined the term politics innumerable times over the centuries. Aristotle provided one of the first definitions of the term. According to him, politics is the natural tendency of humans to determine their position in the society, the attempt to instigate others to accept their opinions and the attempt to achieve overall wellbeing (Heywood, 2015). In the modern world, politics has assumed unimaginable definitions and power that has allowed both democrats and autocrats to mold the popular thinking. The essay will attempt to provide different definitions and explanations of politics and delve upon the different interpretations of the term over time. At first, the essay will provide the views of different political thinkers on politics. The essay will then focus on the definition of politics as power. Power as politics will be the main theme of the essay that will try to explain the politics behind social inequality. In defining politics as power, the essay will try to unearth the ways by which this power has contributed towards the issue of social inequality. In order to explain the role of power in politics, it is important to understand the concept of power. This assignment will also highlight and explain the concept of power and then analyze its role in resolving or escalating the issue of social inequality. Politics, as already stated, as been defined in numerous ways over time by different theorists. It is interesting to note that common people and people holding higher positions in the society have defined and interpreted politics differently. To a common citizen, politics is the abusive use of power by the ruling class whereas the ruling class saw politics as the way to exploit the working class. A better view of the term could be found through the definition given by renowned theorists. According to Johan Kaspar Bluntschli, politics is the science of watching the affairs of state, to fight for and understanding of the state and circumstances (Rosser, 2014). The theorist further define politics as the science, which tries to understand the state in its various forms or manifestations. Harold D Lasswells definition of politics in simple terms is the process of who gets what, when and how. This means that politics is the power sharing between people that depend upon the societal status (Durnova, Fischer and Zittoun, 2016). David Easton on the other hand defined politics as the authoritative allocation of values for a society. Easton is credited for introducing the systems theory into politics for the first time in 1953 (Easton, 2017). He attempted to combine science with politics in order to describe the patterns and processes of politics and its regularities in daily life. However, Lasswells definition has been widely accepted as the most apt explanation of politics. The contemporary theorists had a slightly different view of politics who considered it to be the philosophy that guides the modern nations. As per the views of David Held, the contemporary theory of politics occupies four different meanings. First is that politics is concerned with the normative and conceptual framework. Second is the view that politics is empirical. Thirdly, it is concerned with the study of the political concepts in a historical context and fourthly, politics is strategic that is, it concerns itself with the viability of being at the present position and the moving to a desired position. The following sections shall focus on the power relation of politics. The common notion amongst theorists or one can say, the underlying meaning of politics has always been associated with power. In the words of Kahler (2015), power in politics is possessed by those who have great network of people. In the book Networked politics: Agency, Power and Governance, the author talks about the networks that comprise traders, bankers and others across boundaries that hold power to change the politics of any nation or organization. Before going further into the topic, it is important to understand the concept of power. Power as numerous interpretations according to the field in which it is studied. In scientific terms, power relates to the ability of humans or any object to possess the energy to work. Power could be mechanical, electrical or technical. However, in terms of politics, power refers to the ability of certain individuals or groups to influence or control the behavior of others. Authority is the term that has been mostly associated with power in politics. Some people are said to be authorized to exert their decision on a wider populations. Authority thus refers to the right of an individual to exert power on a population or group of people based on his or her position in the society (Mailath, Morris and Postlewaite, 2017). Authority however has to be legitimate to consider it as the positive use of power. If authority is not legitimate as in case of dictatorship, power is used to fulfill the self-int erest of an individual. Therefore, it is important to understand the legitimacy of power and its use in resolving universal issues. When there is an unequal distribution of natural and other resources in the society, it is termed as social inequality. People who have been segregated as the backward class in any society face social inequality. Social inequality happens when an individual or group of people is denied the basic rights to education, livelihood and even the right to live (Cushing et al. 2015). Now, people may argue as to who carries out such activities that disallow a certain class of people the right to live as per their comfort. The answer to this is the people who possess the power to do so. The power might be a result of religious supremacy, gender supremacy, caste or ethnic supremacy. During the pre-World War era, social inequality was most strikingly visible in countries that had supremacy over the world. These included the United States, the United Kingdom and other European nations (Grinin, Korotayev and Tausch, 2016). Politics then was mostly about colonizing the weaker regions in order to gain maximum territorial power. Social inequality was at its peak in countries where the British Empire was ruling and in the USA where the African-American community were denied social rights. In the decades that followed, power began to shift from one side to the other through the realization of power itself. The examples are in abundance where the role of power shifted to give rise to a new kind of social inequality. In the South Asian nations like India, the British possessed the power to control the lives of the larger population. Although the Indians outnumbered the British, they still controlled the country for almost two hundred years with the power of politics. Ineq uality in every sphere beginning from civil services to the basic human needs like eating and living in humane conditions was denied. When the country was freed and it had its own people at the power positions, a different kind of inequality surfaced (Tyler, 2015). The people faced social inequalities in terms of caste and religion. Therefore, it is evident that power had a big role to play in the birth of social inequality and its gradual change. As time passed however, the presence of inequality in the society seemed to diminish slowly but gradually. As Goddard and Nexon (2015) point out, power politics in the contemporary world has been identified by the growing conscience of the so-called less powerful citizens towards social inequality. Earlier, unequal treatment to the politically, socially and economically weak people used to be carried out openly but now, the situation has changed. Inequality persists but it has taken a very different form. Unequal treatment to the politically less powerful nations like the South Asian nations in international organizations like the UN confirms this fact. In the UN, nations like the U.S. and the UK are given prominence in the decision-making process for other weaker nations because of their dominance in the global political sphere (Jolly, 2016). Power in politics can be explained through this decision-making process. Steve Lukes first introduced the three dimensions of power including power as decision-making in his seminal work titled Power: A Radical View (Dowding, 2006). The other two dimensions include power as agenda-setting and power as thought control that shall be discussed in the later sections. Decision-making power may be explained as the capacity to persuade decisions that affects both private and public life of an individual. It has mostly been observed that within the decision-making sphere, women are given least importance. This leads to social inequality based on gender. During the 1990s, women had less than 15% representation in the houses of parliament across nations whereas the figures for women heads of state in countries were limited to only 12. However, with the rise in power of women as equal social beings, this inequality was reduced but at a very slow rate. In 2015, womens representation in the house s of parliament went up to 22% while the number of heads of state went up to 19 (Unstats.un.org, 2018). These statistics showed that the power gained by women in the decision-making process witnessed a good progress. The decision-making power can also be understood through the functioning of governments in many countries both democratic and dictatorships. In countries like North Korea, social inequality is the most prevalent as the militarily and politically powerful dictator Kim Jong Un possesses the ultimate power to make even the basic decisions for people like what books should they read or which movies should they watch (Barry, 2016). After analyzing power as decision-making, it is important to understand power as agenda-setting. Now, agenda-setting is a theory that explains the ability to influence the significance put on the issues concerning public agenda. Bachrach and Baratz were the first theorists who introduced this concept of power (Baratz and Bachrach, 2017). Mostly, agenda setting power is vested in the media that uses this power to bring forth the topic in the public sphere that least concerns the people. Here also, the inherent power rests with the ruling class that exerts its power on the media and compels it to hide the controversial issues from the public eye. Social inequality is an issue that is inherent in almost every nation and using this agenda-setting power, the powerful class manages to subdue it. The voices of the deprived class remain unheard. The third and the most influential dimension of power is thought-control. According to Lukes, real power is when someone is able to control the thought of another individual in such way that the other individual does whatever that someone wants him to do. The powerful class transforms the powerless class in a way that the powerless class obliges the orders of the powerful class without showing any coercion or opposition. Power as thought-control forces the weak individual to accept his or her special status thinking that this is what she or he deserves. The agenda-setting power of Bachrach and Baratz has been rejected by Lukes because he believes that power is not when someone manages to come out victorious from a conflict situation. Power is demonstrated when someone manages to prevent the rise of any conflict. Social inequality is a conflict situation and to make it a situation or a thought that has no significance is the power that most governments in the past have done (Abadie, D iamond and Hainmueller, 2015). To conclude, it can be stated that social inequality is an evil that has been suppressed for ages in most countries with the use of power politics. The essay provided an explanation of politics and its interpretation by different theorists. Politics can be said to be the mechanism by which governments rule their subjects and take care of their needs. On the other hand, politics can also be defined as the instruments of power by which the powerful ruling class forces the weaker class to surrender to the powerful class. The essay elaborated on the use of politics as an instrument of power by which the problem of social inequality has been suppressed. In the essay, the three dimensions of power have been explained as well. Further, the use of these dimensions of power to suppress the voices of the weaker class against the unequal status in society has been elaborated. References: Abadie, A., Diamond, A. and Hainmueller, J., 2015. Comparative politics and the synthetic control method.American Journal of Political Science,59(2), pp.495-510. Baratz, M.S. and Bachrach, P., 2017. Two Paces of Power. InParadigms of Political Power(pp. 118-131). Routledge. Barry, M.P., 2016. On a US President meeting Kim Jong UN: the importance of senior-level engagement.International Journal on World Peace,33(3), p.79. Cushing, L., Morello-Frosch, R., Wander, M. and Pastor, M., 2015. The haves, the have-nots, and the health of everyone: the relationship between social inequality and environmental quality.Annual Review of Public Health,36. Dowding, K., 2006. Three-dimensional power: A discussion of Steven Lukes' Power: A radical view.Political studies review,4(2), pp.136-145. Durnova, A., Fischer, F. and Zittoun, P., 2016. Discursive Approaches to Public Policy: Politics, Argumentation, and Deliberation. InContemporary Approaches to Public Policy(pp. 35-56). Palgrave Macmillan, London. Easton, D., 2017. The condition of american political science. InBehavioralism in political science(pp. 22-37). Routledge. Goddard, S.E. and Nexon, D.H., 2015. The dynamics of global power politics: A framework for analysis.Journal of Global Security Studies,1(1), pp.4-18. Grinin, L., Korotayev, A. and Tausch, A., 2016. Kondratieff waves in the world system perspective. InEconomic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery(pp. 23-54). Springer, Cham. Heywood, A., 2015.Political theory: an introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. Jolly, R., 2016. 23. Inequality: a historical issue within the United Nations System.World social science report, 2016: Challenging inequalities; pathways to a just world, p.118. Kahler, M. ed., 2015.Networked politics: agency, power, and governance. Cornell University Press. Mailath, G.J., Morris, S. and Postlewaite, A., 2017. Laws and authority.Research in Economics,71(1), pp.32-42. Rosser, C., 2014. Johann Caspar Bluntschli's Organic Theory of State and Public Administration.Administrative Theory Praxis,36(1), pp.95-110. Tyler, I., 2015. Classificatory struggles: Class, culture and inequality in neoliberal times.The Sociological Review,63(2), pp.493-511. Unstats.un.org, 2018.POWER AND DECISION-MAKING. [online] Available at: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/downloads/ch5_power_and_decision_info.pdf [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].