Levenson Eleanor - World Politics in 100 Words

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The way we give and receive information about what is going on in the world.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote a book, Politics, in the fourth century BC, analysing the different ways of governing (being in charge) and the questions that arise from these. Not much has changed since. Today we use the word politics to refer to the people and processes involved in making decisions about how we live our lives, and how people try to achieve that power, such as running for election, making political friends (and enemies) who will help them on their path to power, and coming up with ideas for what they would do if they actually ever achieve this.

In Greek, demos means 'people' and kratos means 'rule', so democracy means ruled by the people. Direct democracy means all citizens (people who are allowed to vote) have a say on every issue, voting on each one. However, most democracies are representative democracies, which means that citizens vote for representatives who then vote on legislation on their behalf. Then these laws apply to all people equally. Democracy includes the acceptance that the winners of elections, whichever system is used, are allowed to get on with governing. People then accept the winners' decisions even if they did not vote for them.

A politician is someone who tries to seek power so that they can have a say in how things are run. This could be at a local level, running a town or a village, or at a national level running a whole country. Politicians create laws that the people living in that area have to follow, and decide how to run things according to the laws made by other politicians. For example, politicians running the country may decide to give money to a city for its schools, and the politicians in the city will decide how schools can use it.

Authority is the idea that the people in power have the right to be there. This might be because they have won an election, or because they have popular support, or in some countries it comes from the belief that they have been given authority by God or by other religious beings. Authority suggests that the people who are being told what to do accept that this is okay a teacher, for example, only has authority over their class if the students accept that they should do what the teacher says. The authorities refer to organisations with power over people.