Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Robert A. Dahl, Steven Lukes
Document Summary
Topic: what is politics: use of government, politics as the study of power and effects, politics as the study of resources and their use. At the most basic level, politics is concerned with social activities and decisions. They have or likely to have direct or indirect consequences for others, and not just the individual doing the activity or making the decision. These activities lead us to politics as a study of government, one definition of politics. This means we will study activities and decisions made by government- i. e the prime minister, finance minister, and so on. Their decisions are social as they have large consequences for large numbers of people. Conflict the presence of disagreement between two actors that have different goals. One particular issue that contains interests between both parties. Politics/government also plays a large part in the economy.