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POLITICS – Franciszek Ryszka notes that p. is as old a concept as the history of our culture and refers to the part of interpersonal relations characterized by domination, government, power – the decisions of one man or a group of people imposed on others and enforced. He brings the definition of p.to the statement: p. is a planned and organised pursuit of gaining and maintaining power – a pursuit which corresponds to certain human actions. This definition refers to the classical definition of Max Weber: p. is a desire to take part in power or to influence the division of power, whether between states or within the state among the groups of people that it covers. In his opinion, the one who cultivates the p. is seeking power – the power understood as a means of serving other purposes, ideal or selfish, or to power itself, in order to benefit from the sense of dignity which it gives. According to Weber, p. in the broader sense is any kind of self-governing action, in the narrower – a set of activities undertaken with the intention of participating in power – either between states or between groups within the state. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck noted that p. is not a science... but art, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called it the domain of dirt. There are five most popular concepts of p.: classic, coercive, conflicting, consensual, concept of p. without ideology. 1. The classic concept of p. in essence synthesizes three basic assumptions: the objective of p. is the common good of citizens; caring for the common good requires careful management of the state; management of the state is an art requiring knowledge, skills and psychological predisposition, hence the most popular and one of the oldest terms is: p. is the art of state management. What lies in the centre of the classic interpretation is the problem of power and state institutions. The key term is the state. The origin of this concept goes back to the ancient Greek tradition. The word p. comes from the term polis – p. in this view was connected with the issues of polis and as a result it was what concerned the polis. 2. In the coercive concept of p., the emphasis is placed on the basic task of a modern state, namely the care for safety and the maintenance of public order. Therefore, p. is the legitimate application of the means of public regulation, including coercion, not only to the human body, but also to the material goods that are his property. Coercive policy is the p. of the state of law. 3. In the conflicting concepts of p. the key terms are: contradiction, aggression, violence, combat, disintegration, confrontation. Conflict is characterized by the fact that the parties strive for mutually exclusive goals, which generally have an existential value for them (e.g., the territory of the state, its sovereignty), it is resolved by battles, during which new enemies and allies appear. The conflicting views of p. occur in many variants, for example, in Carl Schmitt’s decisionism, what is political is constituted by the relationship between us and the enemy. The terms “friend” and “enemy” have a concrete existential meaning. The enemy is a fighting or at least ready-to-fight organised group of people who stands in the way of another, similarly organised group. Politics is thus reduced to maintaining the social order and locating anyone who can take hostile actions. The existential antagonisms are always taken into account and the nature of the enemy is described as the one who disturbs the order in the state. Schmitt’s politicalness assumes a constant dispute, or more precisely, the ever-present willingness to dispute. 4. In consensual concepts, p. is perceived as the art of reaching a compromise, eliminating violence in interpersonal relations – p. as a consensus. As in the sentence: consent builds, dissent ruins. The proponents of such an optics are, above all, liberals. They reduce the p. to the need to safeguard the conditions of civil liberties and to eliminate the causes of its limitations – such as wars, conflicts. In this specific view, p. is a method based on compromise and negotiation, not on coercion and naked power. 5. In concepts of p. without ideology, it is perceived as the art of being chosen and having been chosen. Being chosen becomes an end in itself, not a means leading to the right political goal. Political success is measured by the number of received votes. P. is limited to the fight for the acquisition of the political market, that is, primarily, the support of voters. The market is governed by the laws of supply and demand, and the offered goods require promotion (→ politics and administration according to Weber) [ J.G .Otto ].

Literature: F. Ryszka, Nauka o polityce [Science about politics], Warszawa 1984 ■ M. Weber, Polityka jako zawód i powołanie [Politics as a vocation], Kraków 199 ■ Społeczeństwo i polityka. Podstawy nauk politycznych [Society and politics. The fundamentals of political science], ed. K.A. Wojtaszczyk, W. Jakubowski, Warszawa 2007.