Politics Of Howrah District

Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science.

It may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and nonviolent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but also often carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or limitedly, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it.

A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including warfare against adversaries..... Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.

In modern nation states, people often form political parties to represent their ideas. Members of a party often agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. An election is usually a competition between different parties.

A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a society. The history of political thought can be traced back to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's '' Republic'' and Aristotle's ''Politics'' in the West, and Confucius's political manuscripts and Chanakya's ''Arthashastra'' in the non-Western cultures.

Etymology

The English ''politics'' has its roots in the name of Aristotle's classic work, '' Politiká'', which introduced the Greek term ( grc, Πολιτικά, label=none, italic=yes, lit=affairs of the cities)''.'' In the mid-15th century, Aristotle's composition would be rendered in Early Modern English as ,"The book of " (Bhuler 1961/1941:154). which would become ''Politics'' in Modern English.

The singular ''politic'' first attested in English in 1430, coming from Middle French —itself taking from , a Latinization of the Greek grc, πολιτικός, label=none, italic=yes () from grc, πολίτης, label=none ( grc, polites, label=none, italic=yes, lit=citizen) and grc, πόλις, label=none ( grc, polis, label=none, italic=yes, lit=city).

Definitions

* Harold Lasswell: "who gets what, when, how"
* David Easton: "the authoritative allocation of values for a society".
* Vladimir Lenin: "the most concentrated expression of economics"
* Otto von Bismarck: "the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful"
* Bernard Crick: "a distinctive form of rule whereby people act together through institutionalized procedures to resolve differences"
* Adrian Leftwich: "comprises all the activities of co-operation, negotiation and conflict within and between societies"

Approaches

There are several ways in which approaching politics has been conceptualized.

Extensive and limited

Adrian Leftwich has differentiated views of politics based on how extensive or limited their perception of what accounts as 'political' is. The extensive view sees politics as present across the sphere of human social relations, while the limited view restricts it to certain contexts. For example, in a more restrictive way, politics may be viewed as primarily about governance, while a feminist perspective could argue that sites which have been viewed traditionally as non-political, should indeed be viewed as political as well. This latter position is encapsulated in the slogan "''the personal is political''," which disputes the distinction between private and public issues. Politics may also be defined by the use of power, as has been argued by Robert A. Dahl.

Moralism and realism

Some perspectives on politics view it empirically as an exercise of power, while others see it as a social function with a normative basis. This distinction has been called the difference between political ''moralism'' and political ''realism''''.''. For moralists, politics is closely linked to ethics, and is at its extreme in utopian thinking. For example, according to Hannah Arendt, the view of Aristotle was that "to be political…meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through violence;" while according to Bernard Crick "politics is the way in which free societies are governed. Politics is politics and other forms of rule are something else." In contrast, for realists, represented by those such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Harold Lasswell, politics is based on the use of power, irrespective of the ends being pursued.

Conflict and co-operation

Agonism argues that politics essentially comes down to conflict between conflicting interests. Political scientist Elmer Schattschneider argued that "at the root of all politics is the universal language of conflict," while for Carl Schmitt the essence of politics is the distinction of 'friend' from foe'. This is in direct contrast to the more co-operative views of politics by Aristotle and Crick. However, a more mixed view between these extremes is provided by Irish political scientist Michael Laver, who noted that:

Politics is about the characteristic blend of conflict and co-operation that can be found so often in human interactions. Pure conflict is war. Pure co-operation is true love. Politics is a mixture of both.

History

The history of politics spans human history and is not limited to modern institutions of government.

Prehistoric

Frans de Waal argued that chimpanzees engage in politics through "social manipulation to secure and maintain influential positions." Early human forms of social organization—bands and tribes—lacked centralized political structures. These are sometimes referred to as stateless societies.

Early states

In ancient history, civilizations did not have definite boundaries as states have today, and their borders could be more accurately described as frontiers. Early dynastic Sumer, and early dynastic Egypt were the first civilizations to define their borders. Moreover, up to the 12th century, many people lived in non-state societies. These range from relatively egalitarian bands and tribes to complex and highly stratified chiefdoms.

State formation

There are a number of different theories and hypotheses regarding early state formation that seek generalizations to explain why the state developed in some places but not others. Other scholars believe that generalizations are unhelpful and that each case of early state formation should be treated on its own.

Voluntary theories contend that diverse groups of people came together to form states as a result of some shared rational interest.. The theories largely focus on the development of agriculture, and the population and organizational pressure that followed and resulted in state formation. One of the most prominent theories of early and primary state formation is the ''hydraulic hypothesis'', which contends that the state was a result of the need to build and maintain large-scale irrigation projects.

Conflict theories of state formation regard conflict and dominance of some population over another population as key to the formation of states. In contrast with voluntary theories, these arguments believe that people do not voluntarily agree to create a state to maximize benefits, but that states form due to some form of oppression by one group over others. Some theories in turn argue that warfare was critical for state formation.

Ancient history

The first states of sorts were those of early dynastic Sumer and early dynastic Egypt, which arose from the Uruk period and Predynastic Egypt respectively around approximately 3000 BCE.. Early dynastic Egypt was based around the Nile River in the north-east of Africa, the kingdom's boundaries being based around the Nile and stretching to areas where oases