political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

(and in the discipline of

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

in particular), the concept high politics covers all matters that are vital to the very survival of the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

: namely national and

international security ''International Security'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of international and national security. It was founded in 1976 and is edited by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and publis ...

concerns. It is often used in opposition to low politics, which often designates economic, cultural, or social affairs.

History

Although the idea of high politics has been present in all cultures and epochs,

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...

was the first to enunciate that survival (of

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

, the

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

s, societal order) hinges upon a finite number of ingredients; these ingredients were embodied and provided by the state. Interpreting Hobbes, these ingredients are what one can call "high politics". The term "high politics" in itself was probably coined during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, given the stakes of an atomic war. The advent of the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

made it clear what was ultimately worth fighting for and what was not, hence, made clear what "high politics" meant. In that sense, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and the former

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

would have gone to

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

for a direct atomic threat (

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

), but would have never gone to war over "low politics", a

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...

of the

1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad () and officially branded as Moscow 1980 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russ ...

. Trade, for all its importance, is considered by most political scientists as "low politics", as it depends on specific security conditions to come into effect. Low politics is a concept that covers all matters that are not absolutely vital to the survival of the state as the economics and the social affairs. The low politics are the domain of the state's welfare. It concerns all things about social or

human security Human security is a paradigm for understanding global social vulnerability, vulnerabilities whose proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be ...

Robert Keohane Robert Owen Keohane (born October 3, 1941) is an American political scientist working in the fields of international relations and international political economy. Following the publication of his influential book '' After Hegemony'' (1984), he h ...

and Joseph Nye describe that previously, the

were based on a simple interdependence scheme based on

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

(high politics); nowadays the international relations are ruled by a complex interdependence based on domestic issues: low politics.Jackson, Robert H. and Sørensen, Georg. 2007. Introduction to International Relations: Theories and approaches. 3rd ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, p. 106 The classical realist theory of international relations only considers the high politics as relevant and completely rejects the low politics. The complex interdependence of the liberal theory considers the low politics as fundamental without rejecting the high politics.

References

Bibliography

{{Portal, Politics, Political science * Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and. Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977) Political science terminology