POLITICS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 414.

POLICY

ORDER

Order, in everyday language, refers to regular and tidy patterns, as when soldiers are said to stand ‘in order' or the universe is described as being ‘ordered'. In social life, order describes regular, stable and predictable forms of behaviour, for which reason social order suggests continuity, even permanence. Social disorder, by contrast, implies chaotic, random and violent behaviour, that is by its very nature unstable and continually changing. As a political principle, therefore, order is associated with personal security, both physical security, freedom from intimidation and violence and the fear of such, and psychological security, the comfort and stability which only regular and familiar circumstances engender. However, order may be conceived of as either a political or a natural phenomenon. Political order stands for social control which is imposed ‘from above' through a system of *law and *government. Order in this sense is linked to the ideas of discipline, regulation and *authority. Natural order, on the other hand, arises ‘from below' through the voluntary and spontaneous actions of individuals and groups. In this sense, order is linked to ideas such as social harmony and equilibrium.

Significance

A fear of disorder and social instability has been one of the most fundamental and abiding concerns of Western *political philosophy. Order has, moreover, attracted almost unqualified approval from political theorists, at least in so far as none of them is prepared to defend disorder. However, there are deep differences about the most appropriate solutions to the problem of order. The public/natural order divide has profound implications for *government and reflects differing views of *human nature. At one extreme Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) argued that absolute government is the only means of maintaining order because the principal human inclination is a ‘perpetual and restless desire for power, that ceaseth only in death'. At the other extreme, Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) supported *anarchism on the grounds that order can be established by ‘liberty and fraternal care', and that crime is merely the result of ‘idleness, law and authority'.

In modern politics the conservative view of order links it closely to law, often viewing ‘law and order' as a single, fused concept. Domestic order is therefore best maintained through a fear of punishment, based upon the strict enforcement of law and stiff penalties, and also respect for traditional values, seen as the moral bedrock of society. Modern liberals and socialists, in contrast, have traditionally argued that a reliance upon fear and respect is inadequate because disorder is largely a consequence of poverty and social deprivation. From this perspective, order is best maintained through social reform designed, for example, to improve housing conditions, reduce unemployment and counter urban decay.

A policy, in a general sense, is a plan of action adopted by, for example, an individual, group, business or *government. To designate something as a policy implies that a formal decision has been made, giving official sanction to a particular course of action. Public policy can therefore be seen as the formal or stated decisions of government bodies. However, policy is better understood as the linkage between intentions, actions and results. At the level of intentions, policy is reflected in the stance of government – what government says that it will do. At the level of actions, policy is reflected in the behaviour of government – what government actually does. At the level of results, policy is reflected in the consequences of government action – the impact of government upon the larger society.

Significance

In a sense, policy is the aspect of government which concerns most people. As the ‘outputs' of the political process, it reflects the impact government has upon society; that is, its ability to make things better or make things worse. During the 1960s and 1970s, policy analysis emerged as a distinctive area of study. It set out to examine both how policy is made (the ‘how' of policy-making), and the impact of policy for the larger society (the ‘what' of policy-making). Policy is usually seen to be ‘made' though four distinct stages: initiation, formulation, implementation and evaluation. Policy initiation sets the political agenda by defining certain problems as ‘issues', as matters that engage the interest of government usually because they are the subject of public debate or disagreement. Policy formulation is often seen as the crucial stage in the policy process, because it develops a political issue into a firm policy proposal through a process of debate, analysis and review. Policy implementation comprises the actions though which policy is put into effect, sometimes in ways that differ from the original intentions of policy-makers. Policy evaluation is a review of the impact of public policy, which produces a policy feedback process by stimulating further policy initiation and shaping the formulation process.

Another aspect of policy analysis focuses upon how decisions are made. *Rational choice theorists, influenced by *utilitarianism, assume that political actors are rationally self-interested creatures, who select whatever means are most likely to secure their desired ends. This emphasis upon rationality has, however, been criticised by supporters of ‘bounded rationality', who acknowledge that decision-making is essentially an act of compromising between differently valued and imprecisely calculated outcomes ( Simon, 1983 ). The principal alternative to rational decision-making, incrementalism, has been described as the ‘science of muddling through' ( Lindblom, 1959 ). It views policy-making as a continuous, exploratory process; lacking overriding goals and clear-cut ends, policymakers tend to operate within the existing pattern or framework, adjusting their position in the light of feedback in the form of information about the impact of earlier decisions. Bureaucratic organisation models of decision-making shift attention away from the motives of political actors to the impact that the structure of the policy-making process has upon the resulting decisions. This either draws attention to the impact upon decisions of the values, assumptions and regular patterns of behaviour that are found in any large organisation, or the impact upon decisions of bargaining between personnel and agencies each pursuing different perceived interests. Finally, there are decision-making models that place emphasis upon the role of beliefs and *ideology. These recognise that beliefs are the ‘glue' of politics, binding together people on the basis of shared values and preferences. In the hands of Marxists and feminists, such ideas have led to the conclusion that the policy process is biased, respectively, in favour of *capitalism or in favour of men.

Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. Although politics is also an academic subject (sometimes indicated by the use of ‘Politics' with a capital P), it is then clearly the study of this activity. Politics is thus inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. On the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing needs and opposing interests guarantees disagreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognise that, in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work together with others – hence Hannah Arendt's (1906–75) definition of political power as ‘acting in concert'. This is why the heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution, in which rival views or competing interests are reconciled with one another. However, politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for conflict resolution than as its achievement, as not all conflicts are, or can be, resolved. From this perspective, politics arises from the facts of diversity (we are not all alike) and scarcity (there is never enough to go round).

However, four quite different notions of politics can be identified. First, it is associated specifically with the art of *government and the activities of the *state. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece (politics is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state). In this view politics is an essentially state-bound activity, meaning that most people, most institutions and most social activities can be regarded as being ‘outside' politics. Second, politics is viewed as a

specifically ‘public' activity in that it is associated with the conduct and management of the community's affairs rather than with the ‘private' concerns of the individual. Such a view can be traced back to Aristotle's (384–22 BCE) belief that it is only within a political community that human beings can live ‘the good life'. Third, politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict, that is, by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than through force and naked *power. This is what is implied when politics is portrayed as ‘the art of the possible', and it suggests a distinction between ‘political' solutions to problems involving peaceful debate and arbitration, and ‘military' solutions. Fourth, politics is associated with the production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence. In this view politics is about power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. Advocates of this view include feminists and Marxists.

Significance

The ‘what is politics?' debate highlights quite different approaches to political analysis and exposes some of the deepest and most intractable conflicts in political thought. In the first place it determines the very subject matter and parameters of the discipline itself. The traditional view that politics boils down to ‘what concerns the state' has been reflected in the tendency for academic study to focus upon the personnel and machinery of government. To study politics is in essence to study government or, more broadly, to study what David Easton (1981) called the ‘authoritative allocation of values'. However, if the stuff of politics is power and the distribution of resources, politics is seen to take place in, for instance, the family, the workplace, and schools and universities, and the focus of political analysis shifts from the state to society.

Moreover, different views of politics embody different conceptions of social order. Definitions of politics that relate it to the art of government, public affairs or peaceful compromise are based upon an essentially *consensus model of society, which portrays government as basically benign and emphasises the common interests of the community. However, views of politics that emphasise the distribution of power and resources tend to based upon conflict models of society that stress structural inequalities and injustices. Karl Marx (1818–83) thus referred to political power as ‘merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another', while the feminist author Kate Millett (1970) defined politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another'. Finally, there is disagreement about the moral character of political activity and about whether it can, or should, be brought to an end. On the one hand, to link politics to government is to regard it as, at worst, a necessary evil, and to associate politics with community activity and non-violent forms of conflict resolution is to portray it as positively worthwhile, even ennobling. On the other hand, those who link politics to oppression and subjugation often do so to expose structures of inequality and injustice in society, which, once overthrown, will result in the end of politics itself.