Philippine politics and governance are a fascinating, and often frustrating, blend of vibrant democracy and persistent challenges. The country, a republic with a presidential system, boasts a lively multi-party system and regular elections. However, deep-seated issues continue to hinder its progress towards good governance and equitable development.
A CONCEPT is a mental representation of an idea, object, or event. It’s an abstract notion formed by generalizing from specific instances and experiences. Concepts allow us to categorize and understand the world around us. These shared characteristics are what define the concept. Concepts are fundamental to thinking, learning, and communication.
- Niccolò Machiavelli – Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli FATHER OF MODERN POLITICS
- Aristotle – Father of Political Science
Politics is exciting because people have different viewpoints.
According to Heywood (2007), people may disagree about the following concerns:
1. How people should live?
2. Who should get?
3. How should power and other resources be distributed?
4. Should society be based on cooperation or conflict? He further stressed that humans also disagree about
5. how such matters should be resolved, 6. How should collective decisions be made, who should have a say and how much influence should each person have?
Defining politics and identifying its scope of study is not easy. Although there is no agreed single meaning of politics, it is often understood as a social activity.
Andrew Heywood’s “Political Ideologies: An Introduction” is a widely-used textbook that provides an overview of various political ideologies. The fourth edition, published in 2007, covers topics such as liberalism, conservatism, socialism, fascism, anarchism, feminism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism.
Defining Politics Here are some of the definitions of politics offered by subject matter experts: Here are some of the definitions of politics offered by subject matter experts in broadest sense, politics is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. (Heywood 2007)