In a course on “political communication”, the first logical move is to define what this term means.

Political communication is nothing but communication strategies used in the field of politics.

This definition, again, does not bring us much further since it just plays around with the words of the linguistic construction. The adjective “political” becomes the substantive “politics”.

The trap of such common words is that they frequently are ambiguous and vague. They have accumulated several meanings in the course of their long history – and thus, the actual significance becomes blurry.

The goal of this introductory learning unit is to define what we understand in this course under “Politics”. It will be a brief and concise definition. 

The etymological origin of the word helps us, in a first step, fix the meaning.

In further steps, we will reflect on the nature and origin of political power building on the work of some classic authors who pioneered in political theory (Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hume).

Etymology

The word politics comes from Greek POLIS (πόλις).

In the following video, you learn what this word originally meant, and why the creation of the polis represented a radical novelty in the social and political organization of the human community.

Politics Defined

The word Politics refers originally to the administration of public affairs in a public place, the agora.

It implies the active participation of the citizenship to influence the public to get support for their positions.

The support of the public is what empowered political actors to carry through their ideas – to act in the administration of the city.

This capacity to act is what we denominate power.

Power, in politics, is nothing but the ability to act and influence decision making about matters that affect the community.

Contemporary society is much more complex. A direct democracy would be unthinkable in a state with millions of inhabitants. Still, the term politics has the same meaning:

Politics is nothing but the struggle for power.

And Power is nothing but the ability to act, to take decisions and carry them through.

This is our brief and concise definition of politics

Political communication studies the rhetorical strategies to achieve political power using communication tools and channels.