‘An Act is Political when performed by a Politician.’

When is an act classed as political? Does the act have to be performed by politicians or can an act be deemed political when it is between ordinary people down the local pub? Are political acts purely in the hands of politicians? This article aims to discuss where politics occurs; looking at various influences that theories have put forward and how the information age has undermined the title statement.

Jef Huysmans, in ‘What is Politics,’ (2005: 43) states that the most likely place for politics to happen are with political individuals in political institutions, stating that “the obvious answer is in national and regional parliaments.” Politics most certainly happens in these places and there are no arguments against that. Councillors, MPs, Ministers, MEPs are all politicians and therefore acts by them are political.

All politicians have political power; they have control over different parts of the government and different parts of the community. There are those in positions who can exert political power but ultimately it is the politicians that make the decisions. A pressure group can fight against a cause but it is politicians who will decide on the course of action, whether the government will introduce a bill, change the law and exert influence to stop something happening. Members of the public rarely have this amount of control. On the other hand can a factory manager or head of a football team bring make political decisions? When football managers choose players from foreign countries is that making a political decision?

However, is an act political if it is performed by someone outside of the political spectrum? Can two ordinary citizens perform a political act in the pub or in the newsagents? Leftwich (2004)...

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...ens can participate in legitimate (and illegitimate) political actions.

Works Cited

Doherty, Plows and Wall (2003) ‘The Preferred Way Of Doing Things’: The British Direct Action Movement’ Parliamentary Affairs, 56, 669-689.

Facebook statistics about number of people using the service (2012) http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Hay, Colin (2007) ‘Why we hate Politics,’ Polity Press.

Huysmans, J. (2005) ‘What is Politics?’ Edinburgh University Press

Leftwich, Adrian (2004) ‘Thinking Politically: On the Politics of Politics.’ From Leftwich, A .ed, What is Politics? Pp1-22, Oxford: Polity.

Stoker, G. (2006) ‘Why Politics Matters, Making Democracy Work,’ Palgrave, Macmillan.

TNW – An internet news website with details on social networking.

http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/03/14/twitter-users-now-sending-1-billion-tweets-per-week/