Understanding Politics and Citizen Participation
The term ‘policy’ seems to be a reviled word in our time, associated with dark interests and corruption of all kinds, something alien and uninteresting. But politics is one of the activities of citizen status. The term, in its classic sense, comes, like so many things, from ancient Greece. Policy comes from the word ‘Politiken, that is, ‘citizen’. And the ‘citizen’ was that which dealt with the things of the *polis*, the city, participating in their government and administration. We have already alluded to how Aristotle himself used the word ‘zoon politikon’ (Political Animal) to refer to the human condition.
Politics as Citizenship
So politics is the status of citizenship, that is part of a political community that has a right and it has duties and subject to the rule of law (rule of law over the will of an individual). [By the way, the exercise of philosophy as a critical activity and the condition of the citizen should be inseparable issues]. It opposes the status of subject, one that is subject to a higher authority and whose primary obligation is to obey. The public has the opportunity to participate actively in social affairs and in government and administration. The problem is that we are currently witnessing an ominous ‘professionalization of politics’ which means that government action is typical only of a ruling class and inbreeding that is always in power, although formally subject to scrutiny elections. In any case, political activity is inherent in any human society. Another thing is how that society is organized, how to understand and exercise the policy and how to manage power.
“Liberty Leading the People” (1830) by Eugene Delacroix.
When romantic expresses the struggle of citizenship for freedom.
Political Ideologies
Ways to understand the political ideology known as a way to represent the political and social fabric which is almost a kind of ‘worldview’. Simplifying the issue, we can say that there are ideologies of the right and left-wing ideologies. The first type are usually conservative, tend to prioritize the private versus public, advocate a minimal state to ensure the widest possible freedom of entrepreneurship and market rules are based on the primacy of individual versus social or collective. The left wing is often characterized as progressive in the direction to social progress and improved living conditions for collective social priority against the individual, understand that the State should play a moderating role and to balance the imbalances and inequities inherent in the market logic, etc. The truth is that over time the ideologies of left and right have been moving (except forms of extremism) to the point that some political philosopher has “certified” death of ideologies. The outlook has become more complex, the appearance of Nationalism, an ideology that puts the membership of an ethnic community to any other consideration or other forms of political and ideological pacifism, feminism, environmentalism, or around a specific interest (animal welfare, pensioners, drivers) etc. The important thing in any case, is the guarantee of political pluralism, against the imposition of a single party and the cancellation of any alternative and dissent. However, in a civil and democratic society there are forms of political participation outside the games (hierarchical organizational forms around an ideological choice) such as neighborhood organizations, trade unions, professional, cultural, etc. A healthy democratic society is one that has a strong participatory social fabric.
The Nature of Power
The power can be defined as the ability to force other people to do what they do not want. It presupposes the possibility of using force or coercion. It is thought that early human society had a need for organization, centralizing power in one person, as a means of survival. But where does that power or emanates? For a long time there was an ‘explanation’ of divine origin. Who had the power had been vested with leadership by the god of Time. Normally this power is then transmitted in a hereditary. On other occasions, attributed the foundation of the power base.