Question

define political theory & discuss the tradition of political theory

Answer 1

Common people, renowned scholars and political scientists of high repute very often use the words politics and political science to denote the same thing that is they use the two terms interchangeably. But a proper scrutiny and hair split analysis will reveal that there is a difference between the terms though this difference can easily be ignored. It is believed that the term politics is derived from the word Polis the exact meaning of which is city-state.

In ancient Greece, polis or the city state was the most popular and general form of political organisation. Every polis or city- state had its own form of government, administration, management etc and all these did not depend upon the size of the polis or city-state. Thus politics means the political affairs or administration of polis. Thus politics is understood to denote something about polis or city-state.

In today’s world there is practically no existence of city-state but the term politics derived from polis has gained popularity, publicity and importance. Now-a-days by politics we generally mean the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. We thus cannot separate the term politics from the affairs of state and these affairs are associated with the administration and decision making issues of state. Politics in this way has been inextricably connected with state as it was in ancient Greece with the polis.

We have so far noted only one meaning of the term politics but there is another meaning which is also to be found in wide circulation. This meaning is—activities aimed at improving some one’s status within an organisation. In this sense politics is used to mean as a type of instrument or vehicle to achieve definite purpose.