politics importance essay

What Is Politics and Why Is It Important? (23 Reasons)

Politics isn’t just about the headlines or election season fireworks; it’s the subtle yet significant undercurrent that determines the direction of public policy and community welfare.

From public parks to pension funds, politics touches everything that matters to us. Its importance cannot be overstated, as it crafts the narrative of our shared journey and individual stories.

As you prepare to digest the deeper significance of politics, ponder this: Might the simple act of understanding politics wield the power to alter your life’s trajectory? Read on to uncover how something so abstract becomes concrete in the choices we make and the voices we elevate.

Table of Contents

What Is Politics?

At its essence, politics is about distribution — of resources, justice, authority, and responsibility. It’s about how a society decides to allocate its collective wealth, manage its collective problems, and nurture its collective strengths. Politicians, aided by public servants and influenced by the electorate, craft the policies that serve as the invisible framework for everyday life.

From city hall to the global stage, politics is imbued in the decision-making processes that shape our environment, our economy, and our culture. It encompasses not only the actions of governments but also the participation of ordinary citizens who vote, protest, lobby, and campaign.

The vibrancy of a democracy is inextricably linked to the engagement of its constituents, making politics not just a practice of the powerful but a right and responsibility of the populace.

Politics Shapes the Laws and Regulations

Politics acts as the conductor for the orchestra of society, directing the creation and enforcement of laws and regulations that affect every aspect of our daily lives. Such rules govern our behavior, interactions, and even expectations at both the individual and community levels.

From the education we receive to the healthcare that safeguards our well-being, political decisions influence the fundamental aspects of our existence. Traffic laws, food safety regulations, and housing codes are all outcomes of political processes, showcasing the depth of politics’ reach into our daily routines.

• Personal freedoms and rights are safeguarded by laws that stem from politics, like freedom of speech and protection against discrimination.
• Consumer protection laws ensure that products meet safety standards, reflecting the political will to look after public interest.

Changes in society often trigger political responses that lead to new regulations. For instance, the rise of digital technology has put data privacy at the forefront of political debate, leading to regulations that aim to protect individuals’ online information.

Politics is the driving force behind this vast network of directives that knit the fabric of communal life, pointing to its indispensable role in shaping societal structure.

Politics Determines Healthcare System Management

Through politics, a community decides how its healthcare system will function, who will have access to medical services, and how these services will be funded and provided. The political arena is where debates about the right to healthcare, the role of government vs. private sector involvement, and the distribution of healthcare services take place.

Political decisions can lead to the implementation of nationwide healthcare programs providing essential services to the public or to the establishment of systems where healthcare is mainly a service accessed through private means.

Healthcare systems influenced by politics can take various forms:

• Universal healthcare systems that aim to provide access to all citizens.
• Systems with a mix of private and public services where insurance plays a significant role.

The effectiveness of a healthcare system during health crises, like epidemics or natural disasters, relies significantly on earlier political decisions regarding health policy and investment in public health infrastructure.

Politics Affects Educational Policies and Access

Political ideologies and priorities set the stage for what form of education is available to the public, affecting everything from early childhood education to higher education and vocational training.

The decisions made in political spheres determine how educational systems are organized and funded and what curriculum is emphasized, reflecting the values and goals a society upholds for the next generation.

In talking about educational access, consider these points:

• Politics influences the equitable distribution of educational resources across different regions and demographics.
• Political debates shape policies on teacher qualifications and student assessment methods.

Moreover, the level of investment in education, as decided by politicians, can either enhance opportunities for life-long learning or create barriers that affect future workforce prospects and societal innovation.

Access to education is, therefore, not only a matter of policy but also a reflection of the political will to invest in a nation’s most valuable asset—its people. This nexus between politics and education highlights the indelible role politics plays in framing a society’s future and citizens’ potential.

Politics Influences the Economy and Resource Distribution

The economic landscape within countries is profoundly molded by political actions and policies. Political leaders and governments make crucial decisions about fiscal policies, trade agreements, and labor laws, all of which, in turn, affect how wealth is created and allocated.

Politics determines who benefits from economic growth through tax structures and social welfare programs, illustrating the breadth of its influence on economic equality and opportunity for citizens.

Economic contexts influenced by politics:

• Economic frameworks: Capitalist, socialist, and mixed economies each embody different political philosophies.
• Subsidies and tariffs: Political tools used to support local industries or to compete in the global market.

Decisions made in the political arena can lead to the stimulation of job creation or, conversely, to periods of austerity and cutbacks. The stability and prosperity of entire industries can hang in the balance as politicians navigate the complexities of the economy through regulatory and policy decisions.

Politics Is Central to Crisis and Emergency Response

In times of crisis, whether they be natural disasters, pandemics, or financial downturns, the role of politics becomes even more visible and critical. The effectiveness of a political body’s response can greatly influence the impact of the crisis on the population, managing not only the immediate aftermath but also the longer-term recovery efforts.

A timeline often illustrates the phases of political response to a crisis:

• Immediate action & legislation in response to crisis.
• Mid-term policy adjustments based on lessons learned.
• Long-term strategic planning for future crisis preparedness and resilience.

During recent global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, political decisions directly affected the level of resources allocated for emergency aid, the speed and nature of public health responses, and the success of vaccine distribution programs.

Politics determines how swiftly and effectively a community responds to crises and how public trust is managed during such times, underlining the importance of prepared political leadership for disaster preparedness and management.

Politics Drives National and International Policy Agendas

At the helm of a nation’s course, politics sets the priorities and agendas both domestically and on the global stage. The issues that political leaders choose to focus on can range from healthcare reform to climate change and from economic recovery to international peacekeeping. Political agendas are reflected in the legislative cycles, diplomatic initiatives, and the platforms on which political representatives are elected.

Highlighting political agendas:

• National: Infrastructure projects, education reform, and healthcare expansion can dominate the national conversation.
• International: Commitments to global agreements, such as climate accords, reflect the positioning of a country on the world stage.

Through international relations, politics drives the nature of treaties, alliances, and dialogues between countries. It shapes a nation’s footprint in global affairs, including aid, trade, and defense commitments.

The strategic direction given by political leadership at the national and international levels illustrates the profound influence that politics holds in charting the course for our collective future.

Politics Manages a Nation’s Defense and Security

Political leaders have the authority to shape defense policies, dedicate resources to military and law enforcement, and decide how to confront threats. These crucial choices impact not only the levels of national security but also international peace, as tactics for dealing with conflicts, terrorism, and cyber threats are determined.

Aspects of defense and security shaped by politics:

• National defense budgets reflect the prioritization of military readiness.
• Intelligence-gathering policies balance the need for security and individual privacy rights.

Decisions about engaging in military action or diplomatic negotiations are inherently political and carry profound implications for international stability. The strategies and alliances cultivated through political channels define a nation’s approach to defense, emphasizing politics as an indispensable force in maintaining national security.

Politics Impacts Global Relationships and Diplomacy

Political leadership directly affects how nations interact with each other, wielding diplomacy as a tool for building relationships, resolving conflicts, and promoting mutual interests. Political actions at this stage can have far-reaching consequences, determining trade patterns, forging alliances, and setting the tone for international cooperation.

In examining the role of politics in global relationships, consider the following:

• Trade: Agreements between countries can either strengthen ties or lead to tension.
• Peacekeeping: Political commitments to international peacekeeping missions promote global stability.

The political arena is where decisions on foreign aid and international treaties are made, reflecting a nation’s stance towards global issues such as human rights, environmental concerns, and world health. The interconnectedness of countries today makes politics a crucial actor in the delicate balance of global diplomacy.

Politics Plays a Role in Social Justice and Human Rights

Politics serves as a battleground where issues of equality, representation, and fairness are fiercely debated and addressed. Public policies that emerge from political processes reflect societal commitments to protecting the rights and dignity of all individuals, regardless of background or status.

Central themes of social justice touched by politics:

• Equality and anti-discrimination laws
• Access to justice and legal representation for marginalized groups
• Protection of rights for vulnerable populations

Through advocacy, legislation, and policy-making, politics is instrumental in shaping a more equitable society. Stirred by social movements and public sentiment, political will is the driving force behind meaningful change in the areas of social equity and human rights.

The politics of social justice aims to rectify systemic inequalities and uphold the intrinsic rights of every person, underlining politics as a force for societal progress and moral accountability.

Politics Allows for Citizen Participation and Democratic Change

Democracy thrives on the active participation of its citizens, facilitated by political processes. Politicians and elected officials represent the people’s voice, making engagement in electoral processes and policy-making part of the backbone of democratic societies. Citizen participation extends beyond voting to include activities such as advocacy, protest, community organizing, and serving on public committees or boards.

Ways politics empowers citizen involvement:

• Voting in elections to choose representatives
• Public consultations on significant community projects or laws
• Grassroots movements influencing policy changes

Through these mechanisms, people exercise their power to influence government actions, contributing to the shaping and reshaping of societies in alignment with the public will.

Politics Is Key to Societal Values and Priorities

The values and priorities that are held up by a society are often crystallized through the political process. Politics reflect cultural beliefs, moral principles, and collective aspirations articulated through laws and policies.

The political dialogue, whether conducted on the floors of legislative buildings or in town hall meetings, captures the pulse of a society’s values—from humanitarian efforts and peace-building to economic advancement and innovation.

Elements illustrating societal values in politics:

• Social welfare and support systems
• Environmental conservation and sustainability actions
• Promotion of arts, heritage, and cultural programs

These elements represent just a slice of the broader spectrum of values that are debated and decided in the political realm. As politics responds to the changing tides of societal opinions and beliefs, it also serves as a catalyst for triggering the reevaluation and evolution of these values, highlighting its integral role in the development and expression of societal identity.

Politics Sets Labor Rights and Working Conditions

Labor legislation, safety standards, and worker compensation policies are just a few aspects of employment that are dictated by political will. These policies not only safeguard workers but also set the stage for labor relations and define the social contract between employers and employees.

Key aspects of labor influenced by politics:

• Minimum wage levels and overtime rules
• Health and safety regulations in the workplace
• Rights to collective bargaining and unionization

These critical elements of labor rights demonstrate how politics intersects with the everyday realities of workers, advocating for fair treatment and ensuring that labor markets operate with respect for human dignity and equitable practices.

Politics Impacts Infrastructure and Public Services

Infrastructure — the physical framework of society, including transportation systems like roads and bridges, public buildings, water supply, and power networks — is a prime example of politics in action.

Political leaders allocate budgets for infrastructure projects, which not only drive economic growth but also directly affect the quality of life for citizens. The availability and condition of public services such as schools, hospitals, and law enforcement are also tied to political agendas and policies.

A glance at key infrastructure components and services:

• Transport:  Roads, rail networks, public transit systems
• Utilities:  Water treatment, electricity grids, internet access
• Social:  Schools, hospitals, police and fire services

The decision-making process about which projects are prioritized, how funds are distributed across regions, and what standards are set for maintenance and safety is inherently political. Such decisions often reflect the broader priorities and values of the elected government, demonstrating the intersection of political will and public welfare.

Politics Determines Power Dynamics within Society

The distribution and exercise of power within a society are profoundly shaped by political structures and policies. Politics decides who gets a voice in the public sphere and how different interests are balanced against each other. The power dynamics within a nation can drive change or maintain the status quo, affecting everything from economic disparity to access to resources.

Consider these facets of power dynamics:

• Political mechanisms:  Voting systems, representation, checks and balances
• Socioeconomic status:  Wealth disparity, class divisions, and social mobility
• Access to resources:  Availability of quality education, healthcare, and housing

Such dynamics are not static but flow and shift as political decisions reshape the landscape of opportunity and control. The recognition of the essential role of politics in crafting these dynamics underscores its importance as a tool for either liberating or constraining societal progress.

Politics Enables Minority Representation and Advocacy

Representing the interests of minority groups is a crucial function of politics, affording those who might otherwise be marginalized the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.

Political systems that encourage diverse representation and provide channels for advocacy enable these groups to play an active role in shaping policy and bringing attention to their unique challenges and perspectives.

The influence of politics on minority representation:

• Legislative seats:  Quotas or affirmative action to ensure diversity
• Policy focus:  Addressing issues specific to minority groups
• Advocacy:  Support for organizations or movements representing minority rights

The fostering of an inclusive political landscape, where all communities can have their voices heard, is vital for the health of democratic societies. Political advocacy and representation serve as conduits for respect, recognition, and the pursuit of justice for all members of society, regardless of their minority or majority status.

Politics Affects Environmental Sustainability Efforts

Environmental sustainability has become a cornerstone issue in politics as society grapples with climate change, habitat destruction, and resource depletion . Political decisions are integral to the implementation of policies and practices that promote ecological balance and long-term environmental health.

Through laws and regulations, politics can drive conservation efforts, renewable energy adoption, and the responsible management of natural resources.

Reflecting on environmental politics:

• The introduction of emissions standards helps mitigate pollution.
• Support or opposition to green energy projects impacts the speed of transition away from fossil fuels.
• International agreements, such as those targeting climate change, rely on political diplomacy and commitment.

Environmental sustainability positions not only reflect a government’s commitment to conserving resources for future generations but also speak to the global cooperation required to address challenges that transcend borders.

Politics Influences Technological Innovation Policies

Political leaders and lawmakers are responsible for crafting policies that promote technological advances while considering ethical implications, privacy concerns, and social impact. Political decisions play a crucial role in steering research funding, patent laws, and the overall direction of technological development.

Key impact points on technology due to political intervention:

• Incubation of innovation through grants and subsidies
• Data protection and privacy laws
• Balancing technological progression with job market implications

Policies set the stage for how technology is integrated into society and commerce, and thus, political foresight and governance are indispensable in shaping a future where technological benefits are maximized and the risks are mitigated.

Politics Affects International Trade and Economic Relations

The arena of international trade is shaped by political decisions that influence tariffs, trade agreements, and diplomatic relations. While politics defines the rules for how countries engage commercially, it also has the broader task of ensuring that such engagement benefits the national economy and aligns with domestic policy goals.

Illustrating trade and economic relations in politics:

• Trade Agreements:  Deals like NAFTA or the European Union ‘s Single Market define trade relationships and set economic policies.
• Trade Disputes:  Political negotiations are tools for resolving conflicts and removing barriers to commerce.
• Economic Sanctions:  Used as a political tool for applying pressure in international disputes or to promote human rights.

The shaping of trade policies and agreements by political bodies reflects the strategic interests of nations and the interdependency of the global economy. Political decisions here are crucial in forging paths toward shared prosperity and managing the complex web of international economic relations.

Politics Sets Immigration Laws and Policies

Immigration laws and policies are a clear reflection of a nation’s political climate and societal values. These laws determine who is allowed to enter a country, under what conditions, and how immigrants are integrated into society.

Aspects such as border control, asylum procedures, and pathways to citizenship are all shaped by the ruling political ethos, reflecting a nation’s stance on multiculturalism, security, and humanitarian obligations.

Immigration policy areas affected by political decisions:

• Visa Regulations : Who gets to visit, work, or study.
• Refugee Treatment : The response to humanitarian crises.
• Integration Policies : Measures that facilitate or hinder the integration of immigrants into society.

The complexities of immigration issues require a nuanced political approach, balancing the economic, cultural, and humanitarian aspects to carve out policies that are fair, enforceable, and aligned with a country’s broader goals.

Politics Dictates Tax Laws and Public Funding

Taxation is a critical component of public policy, directly influenced by political ideologies and decisions. The structure of tax systems — who gets taxed, how much, and on what — is shaped by political authority.

Taxation directly relates to the government’s ability to fund public services such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure development. The decisions on public funding allocations reflect society’s priorities and the government’s role in redistributing wealth and economic opportunities.

Tax laws enacted through political processes play a central role in the economic health of a nation and the well-being of its citizens, resonating with the overall spirit of governance and equity.

Politics Shapes Public Opinion and Social Norms

Though less direct in its impact, politics also plays a profound role in shaping public opinion and social norms. Through rhetoric, policy initiatives, and public discourse, political figures and institutions influence societal attitudes and beliefs. Political dialogue can validate or challenge existing norms, thus steering the cultural direction of society.

Key ways politics shapes public discourse:

• Debate and Legislation : Public issues debated politically often lead to shifts in social norms.
• Media : Political messaging and alignment on media platforms can greatly influence public opinion.
• Education : What is prioritized in educational curricula can reflect and guide societal values.

The interplay between politics and societal values highlights the importance of having diverse, inclusive political debates that reflect the range of perspectives within the community. This discourse not only reflects current societal norms but also has the power to transform them over time, attesting to the powerful role of politics in cultural evolution.

Politics Facilitates or Impedes International Trade and Economics

Trade and economic policy are at the heart of international politics. These policies define how countries interact on an economic level, establishing the rules and standards for trade, investments, and economic cooperation.

International trade agreements, such as free trade areas or customs unions, are the product of complex political negotiations that have wide-reaching implications for economies around the globe.

• Trade barriers and tariffs can either protect domestic industries or promote international competition.
• Foreign investment policies can attract global capital or protect homegrown businesses.
• Currency valuation and monetary policies affect a country’s international economic competitiveness.

The degree to which politics either facilitates or hampers economic growth through these mechanisms often reflects a nation’s broader political objectives and economic strategies.

Politics Impacts Cultural Funding, Heritage, and the Arts

Political entities recognize the role of arts and culture in fostering a cohesive and vibrant society; hence, they make strategic decisions about supporting museums, theaters, historical preservation, and educational programs in the arts.

Cultural aspects influenced by politics:

• Subsidies and grants for cultural institutions signal political acknowledgment of the arts’ societal value.
• Decisions on what aspects of heritage to preserve speak to a society’s historical consciousness.
• Initiatives to make arts accessible to all parts of society reflect a political commitment to cultural inclusivity.

The interconnection of politics with cultural life underscores the role political decisions play in the survival and accessibility of cultural expressions, impacting everything from communal identity to international cultural exchanges.

Final Thoughts

Recognizing the importance of politics is recognizing a part of our identity – as members of a community, as participants in democracy, and as stewards of change. Let’s not underestimate the power of an informed citizenry; for it is through our collective understanding and action that the wheels of progress turn.

As you sip your coffee or scroll through the news, remember that the ripples of politics are touching the shores of your life. Don’t shy away from the ebb and flow.

Dive in, engage, and let your actions, conversations, and votes be the droplets that help shape the mighty river of society. It’s in these subtle contributions that the significance of politics truly comes to

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Essay on Politics for Students and Children

500+ words essay on politics.

When we hear the term politics, we usually think of the government, politicians and political parties. For a country to have an organized government and work as per specific guidelines, we require a certain organization. This is where politics comes in, as it essentially forms the government. Every country, group and organization use politics to instrument various ways to organize their events, prospects and more.

Politics does not limit to those in power in the government. It is also about the ones who are in the run to achieve the same power. The candidates of the opposition party question the party on power during political debates . They intend to inform people and make them aware of their agenda and what the present government is doing. All this is done with the help of politics only.

Dirty Politics

Dirty politics refers to the kind of politics in which moves are made for the personal interest of a person or party. It ignores the overall development of a nation and hurts the essence of the country. If we look at it closely, there are various constituents of dirty politics.

The ministers of various political parties, in order to defame the opposition, spread fake news and give provocative speeches against them. This hampers with the harmony of the country and also degrades the essence of politics . They pass sexist remarks and instill hate in the hearts of people to watch their party win with a majority of seats.

Read 500 Words Essay on Corruption Here

Furthermore, the majority of politicians are corrupt. They abuse their power to advance their personal interests rather than that of the country. We see the news flooded with articles like ministers and their families involving in scams and illegal practices. The power they have makes them feel invincible which is why they get away with any crime.

Before coming into power, the government makes numerous promises to the public. They influence and manipulate them into thinking all their promises will be fulfilled. However, as soon as they gain power, they turn their back on the public. They work for their selfish motives and keep fooling people in every election. Out of all this, only the common suffers at the hands of lying and corrupt politicians.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Lack of Educated Ministers

If we look at the scenario of Indian elections, any random person with enough power and money can contest the elections. They just need to be a citizen of the country and be at least 25 years old. There are a few clauses too which are very easy.

The strangest thing is that contesting for elections does not require any minimum education qualification. Thus, we see how so many uneducated and non-deserving candidates get into power and then misuse it endlessly. A country with uneducated ministers cannot develop or even be on the right path.

We need educated ministers badly in the government. They are the ones who can make the country progress as they will handle things better than the illiterate ones. The candidates must be well-qualified in order to take on a big responsibility as running an entire nation. In short, we need to save our country from corrupt and uneducated politicians who are no less than parasites eating away the development growth of the country and its resources. All of us must unite to break the wheel and work for the prosperous future of our country.

FAQs on Politics

Q.1 Why is the political system corrupt?

A.1 Political system is corrupt because the ministers in power exercise their authority to get away with all their crimes. They bribe everyone into working for their selfish motives making the whole system corrupt.

Q.2 Why does India need educated ministers?

A.2 India does not have a minimum educational qualification requirement for ministers. This is why the uneducated lot is corrupting the system and pushing the country to doom. We need educated ministers so they can help the country develop with their progressive thinking.

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Essay on Politics: Topics, Tips, and Examples for Students

Defining What is Politics Essay

The process of decision-making that applies to members of a group or society is called politics. Arguably, political activities are the backbone of human society, and everything in our daily life is a form of it.

Understanding the essence of politics, reflecting on its internal elements, and critically analyzing them make society more politically aware and let them make more educated decisions. Constantly thinking and analyzing politics is critical for societal evolution.

Political thinkers often write academic papers that explore different political concepts, policies, and events. The essay about politics may examine a wide range of topics such as government systems, political ideologies, social justice, public policies, international relations, etc.

After selecting a specific research topic, a writer should conduct extensive research, gather relevant information, and prepare a logical and well-supported argument. The paper should be clear and organized, complying with academic language and standards. A writer should demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject, an ability to evaluate and remain non-biased to different viewpoints, and a capacity to draw conclusions.

Now that we are on the same page about the question 'what is politics essay' and understand its importance, let's take a deeper dive into how to build a compelling political essay, explore the most relevant political argumentative essay topics, and finally, examine the political essay examples written by the best essay writing service team.

Politics Essay Example for Students

If you are still unsure how to structure your essay or how to present your statement, don't worry. Our team of experts has prepared an excellent essay example for you. Feel free to explore and examine it. Use it to guide you through the writing process and help you understand what a successful essay looks like.

How to Write a Political Essay: Tips + Guide

A well-written essay is easy to read and digest. You probably remember reading papers full of big words and complex ideas that no one bothered to explain. We all agree that such essays are easily forgotten and not influential, even though they might contain a very important message.

If you are writing an essay on politics, acknowledge that you are on a critical mission to easily convey complicated concepts. Hence, what you are trying to say should be your main goal. Our guide on how to write a political essay will help you succeed.

Conduct Research for Your Politics Essay

After choosing a topic for the essay, take enough time for preparation. Even if you are familiar with the matter, conducting thorough research is wiser. Political issues are complex and multifaceted; comprehensive research will help you understand the topic better and offer a more nuanced analysis.

Research can help you identify different viewpoints and arguments around the topic, which can be beneficial for building more impartial and persuasive essays on politics. Sometimes in the hit of the moment, opposing sides are not able to see the common ground; your goal is to remain rational, speak to diverse audiences, and help them see the core of the problem and the ways to solve it.

In political papers, accuracy and credibility are vital. Researching the topic deeply will help you avoid factual errors or misrepresentations from any standpoint. It will allow you to gather reliable sources of information and create a trustworthy foundation for the entire paper.

If you want to stand out from the other students, get inspired by the list of hottest essay ideas and check out our political essay examples.

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Brainstorm Political Essay Topics

The next step to writing a compelling politics essay is to polish your thoughts and find the right angle to the chosen topic.

Before you start writing, generate fresh ideas and organize your thoughts. There are different techniques to systematize the mess going on in your head, such as freewriting, mind mapping, or even as simple as listing ideas. This will open the doors to new angles and approaches to the topic.

When writing an essay about politics, ensure the topic is not too general. It's always better to narrow it down. It will simplify your job and help the audience better understand the core of the problem. Brainstorming can help you identify key points and arguments, which you can use to find a specific angle on the topic.

Brainstorming can also help you detect informational gaps that must be covered before the writing process. Ultimately, the brainstorming phase can bring a lot more clarity and structure to your essay.

We know how exhausting it is to come up with comparative politics essay topics. Let our research paper writing service team do all the hard work for you.

Create Your Politics Essay Thesis Statement

Thesis statements, in general, serve as a starting point of the roadmap for the reader. A political essay thesis statement outlines the main ideas and arguments presented in the body paragraphs and creates a general sense of the content of the paper.

Creating a thesis statement for essays about politics in the initial stages of writing can help you stay focused and on track throughout the working process. You can use it as an aim and constantly check your arguments and evidence against it. The question is whether they are relevant and supportive of the statement.

Get creative when creating a statement. This is the first sentence readers will see, and it should be compelling and clear.

The following is a great example of a clear and persuasive thesis statement:

 'The lack of transparency and accountability has made the World Trade Organization one of the most controversial economic entities. Despite the influence, its effectiveness in promoting free trade and economic growth in developing countries has decreased.'

Provide Facts in Your Essay about Politic

It's a no-brainer that everything you will write in your essay should be supported by strong evidence. The credibility of your argument will be questioned every step of the way, especially when you are writing about sensitive subjects such as essays on government influence on economic troubles. 

Provide facts and use them as supporting evidence in your politics essay. They will help you establish credibility and accuracy and take your paper out of the realm of speculation and mere opinions.

Facts will make your essay on political parties more persuasive, unbiased, and targeted to larger audiences. Remember, the goal is to bring the light to the core of the issue and find a solution, not to bring people even farther apart.

Speaking of facts, many students claim that when they say ' write my essay for me ' out loud, our writing team is the fastest to respond and deliver high-quality essays meeting their trickiest requirements.

Structure Your Political Essay

Your main goal is to communicate your ideas to many people. To succeed, you need to write an essay that is easy to read and understand. Creating a structure will help you present your ideas logically and lead the readers in the right direction.

Sometimes when writing about political essay topics, we get carried away. These issues can be very emotional and sensitive, and writers are not protected from becoming victims of their own writings. Having a structure will keep you on track, only focusing on providing supported arguments and relevant information.

Start with introducing the thesis statement and provide background information. Followed by the body paragraphs and discuss all the relevant facts and standpoints. Finish it up with a comprehensive conclusion, and state the main points of your essay once again.

The structure will also save you time. In the beginning, creating an outline for essays on politics will give you a general idea of what should be written, and you can track your progress against it.

Revise and Proofread Your Final Politics Essay

Once every opinion is on the paper and every argument is well-constructed, one final step should be taken. Revision!

We know nothing is better than finishing the homework and quickly submitting it, but we aim for an A+. Our political essay must be reviewed. You need to check if there is any error such as grammatical, spelling, or contextual.

Take some time off, relax, and start proofreading after a few minutes or hours. Having a fresh mind will help you review not only grammar but also the arguments. Check if something is missing from your essays about politics, and if you find gaps, provide additional information.

You had to spend a lot of time on them, don't give up now. Make sure they are in perfect condition.

Effective Political Essay Topics

We would be happy if our guide on how to write political essays helped you, but we are not stopping there. Below you will find a list of advanced and relevant political essay topics. Whether you are interested in global political topics or political science essay topics, we got you covered.

Once you select a topic, don't forget to check out our politics essay example! It will bring even more clarity, and you will be all ready to start writing your own paper.

Political Argumentative Essay Topics

Now that we know how to write a political analysis essay let's explore political argumentative essay topics:

• Should a political party take a stance on food politics and support policies promoting sustainable food systems?
• Should we label Winston Churchill as the most influential political figure of World War II?
• Does the focus on GDP growth in the political economy hinder the human development index?
• Is foreign influence a threat to national security?
• Is foreign aid the best practice for political campaigning?
• Does the electoral college work for an ideal political system?
• Are social movements making a real difference, or are they politically active for temporary change?
• Can global politics effectively address political conflicts in the modern world?
• Are opposing political parties playing positive roles in US international relations?
• To what extent should political influence be allowed in addressing economic concerns?
• Can representative democracy prevent civil wars in ethnically diverse countries?
• Should nuclear weapons be abolished for the sake of global relations?
• Is economic development more important than ethical issues for Caribbean politics?
• What role should neighboring nations play in preventing human rights abuse in totalitarian regimes?
• Should political decisions guide the resolution of conflicts in the South China Sea?

Political Socialization Essay Topics

Knowing how to write a political issue essay is one thing, but have you explored our list of political socialization essay topics?

• To what extent does a political party or an influential political figure shape the beliefs of young people?
• Does political influence shape attitudes toward environmental politics?
• How can individuals use their own learning process to navigate political conflicts in a polarized society?
• How do political strategies shape cultural globalization?
• Is gender bias used as a political instrument in political socialization?
• How can paying attention to rural communities improve political engagement?
• What is the role of Amnesty International in preventing the death penalty?
• What is the role of politically involved citizens in shaping minimum wage policies?
• How does a political party shape attitudes toward global warming?
• How does the federal system influence urban planning and attitudes toward urban development?
• What is the role of public opinion in shaping foreign policy, and how does it affect political decision making
• Did other countries' experiences affect policies on restricting immigration in the US?
• How can note-taking skills and practice tests improve political engagement? 
• How do the cultural values of an independent country shape the attitudes toward national security?
• Does public opinion influence international intervention in helping countries reconcile after conflicts?

Political Science Essay Topics

If you are searching for political science essay topics, check our list below and write the most compelling essay about politic:

• Is environmental education a powerful political instrument? 
• Can anarchist societies provide a viable alternative to traditional forms of governance?
• Pros and cons of deterrence theory in contemporary international relations
• Comparing the impact of the French Revolution and World War II on the political landscape of Europe
• The role of the ruling political party in shaping national policies on nuclear weapons
• Exploring the roots of where politics originate
• The impact of civil wars on the processes of democratization of the third-world countries
• The role of international organizations in promoting global health
• Does using the death penalty in the justice system affect international relations?
• Assessing the role of the World Trade Organization in shaping global trade policies
• The political and environmental implications of conventional agriculture
• The impact of the international court on political decision making
• Is philosophical anarchism relevant to contemporary political discourse?
• The emergence of global citizenship and its relationship with social movements
• The impact of other countries on international relations between the US and China

Final Words

See? Writing an essay about politic seems like a super challenging job, but in reality, all it takes is excellent guidance, a well-structured outline, and an eye for credible information.

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• Essay on Politics

Essay on Politics for Students in English

Politics is a hugely important domain in the world and it has a profound impact on the functioning as well as the policies of the governments. Politics has an effect on all types of government including democratic, autocratic, monarchical, theocratic and others. The government is responsible for making decisions on different matters of public interest, issuing orders for the public health, directing the citizens towards development and growth, and performing a wide range of other related functions.

There are numerous definitions of what politics means. Politics can be described as the disagreement between the various groups on what they like. One of the broad definitions of politics, which is widely agreed, is the art of governance. The government is the entity having the legal authority of regulating people’s actions. The word politics is usually used for defining how the countries are governed and how the governments make the rules and the laws. 

Defining laws and regulations that tell people what they can or cannot do is one of the ways in which the government leads the people. These regulations and laws are enacted by the government for ensuring order and protection in the society. Beyond the laws, the government might also regulate the citizens and the functioning of the country in other ways. Most of the countries have specific groups or political parties for expressing their views and policies. 

The political parties form a consensus on the common policies or path that they should take in communicating their ideas or policies to the people. These parties support legislative bills or reforms and the candidates based on the agenda agreed upon by the members. The election is usually contested or fought between the opposite political parties of different spectrum. 

One of the conventional explanations of politics refers to politics being conducted within the system of checks and balances for avoiding misuse of political power. The several institutions that exist within the governing system include the legislative body that is responsible for making laws, executive body that imposes them, and judiciary that interprets them thus providing a powerful and well-rounded political spectrum.

If you want to study in detail about politics and its various concepts of applications for your essay in English then you can refer to it on the Vedantu website or app. Vedantu is a leading learning platform with a wide range of learning resources, tutorials, solutions, reference notes, and sample questions papers with solutions for students of different branches.

Short Politics Essay in English

Politics, in general, is the platform by which people create, maintain, and change the laws that govern their lives. As a result, conflict and collaboration are inextricably connected in politics. On the one hand, the presence of conflicting views, competing expectations, competing needs, and competing interests is expected to result in conflict over the rules under which people live.

Politics is fascinating because everyone has a different perspective on life and its rules. They have differing opinions about how they should live. What money should go to whom? What is the best way to disperse power to help the powerless? Is it better for society to be built on collaboration or conflict? And so forth. They also talk about how such disputes can be resolved. What is the best way to make decisions as a group? In what conditions does who have a say? How much say should each person have in decisions? The list goes on.

This, according to Aristotle, made politics the "master science," which he described as "the action by which human beings strive to better their lives and build and contribute to a Good Society." Politics is, first and foremost, a social practice. It's still a conversation, but the parties have reduced it to a monologue.

Any effort to grasp the sense of the word "politics" must always grapple with two major issues. The first is the different connotations that this word has in everyday speech. Unlike economics, geography, history, and biology, which most people think of as academic subjects, few people approach politics without preconceptions. The second, more complicated issue is that even well-respected authorities cannot agree about what politics is all about. It has infiltrated nearly every aspect of society.

Hence, we can say that the exercise of authority, the sacred science of governance, the making of unified decisions, the distribution of limited resources, the art of deceit and exploitation, and so on are all terms used to describe politics.

FAQs on Essay on Politics

1. How do we define politics?

Politics is the collection of activities connected with community decision-making or other types of power relations between individuals, such as resource allocation or status.

2. Name the Various national-level political parties in india.

There are several national-level political parties in India. The major ones include:

All India Trinamool Congress(AITC)

Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP)

Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)

Communist Party of India(CPI)

Communist Party of India(Marxist)

Indian National Congress(INC)

National People’s Party(NPP)

Nationalist Congress Party(NCP)

3. What is the definition of politics?

Politics has numerous definitions and explanations. In the basic broad term politics can be defined as the art of governance through a collection of activities that are associated with society, decision-making, and power relations between the individuals, like status or resource allocation. The concept of politics is very important in the governance of a country and it is an important topic related to public life that the students must learn about.

4.  Which are the different major political parties in India?

There are several major political parties in India. Some of these political parties include All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC), Indian National Congress (INC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), and National People’s Party (NPP) amongst a host of others. Each of these political parties have their own political manifesto based on which they conduct their operations.

5. Why is politics an important subject for students to learn?

Politics is related to day-to-day functioning of a country or a society and thus it is important for students to learn and be well informed about it. Politics includes vital policies and decisions that have a direct impact on people and as a responsible citizen it is crucial for students to have a basic grasp of developments in the country that charts out the future path of the nation.

6. How can I prepare for an essay on politics?

If you want to write an essay on politics then you would need to prepare well by understanding the definitions and various other aspects related to politics. One of the ways you can do this is by learning and reading about politics on the internet. You can also find a detailed essay on politics for students in English at Vedantu. This essay incorporates all the important points and provides an excellent guide on how the essay should be done.

7. How can I download the English essay on politics from Vedantu?

If you want to download the English essay on Politics provided by Vedantu then you can do it from either the website or the app. All you need to do is go to the English section and browse to the essay on politics. Here you will have the “Download PDF” option and you just need to click on that button to download the English essay by Vedantu on your device for free. Once you downloaded the PDF file you can access it offline any time you want.

Essays About Politics: Top 5 Examples and 7 Writing Prompts

Essays about politics address delicate and intriguing matters. See our top essay examples and prompts you can incorporate into your writing.

Politics encompasses movements and ideas that aim to control and encourage progress. It attempts to run a country through relevant developments and efficient governance. Though it started in the 19th century , it’s also the root of many disputes. Because of its complexity, politics is a famous essay topic coaxing writers to be open-minded and wise. It’s also an extensive subject to tackle.

5 Best Essay Examples

1. the impact of media on teens’ views on politics by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 2. the problem of gun politics in the united states by anonymous on papersowl.com, 3. education: controversial issue in florida politics by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 4. the politics of modern day abortion in jamaica by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. the importance of public awareness in politics by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. the role of a politician, 2. why do we need political parties, 3. qualifications of a good politician, 4. the effect of having uneducated politicians , 5. social media and political campaigns, 6. politics and corruption, 7. if i were a politician….

“With the spike in internet usage and the rapid spread of thoughts and ideas, the effect on the human psyche comes into question. Applications like Instagram and Twitter have a “Like-Button” that acts as a representation for interest and has created an uproar on the need for attention amongst teens.”

The author examines the different media released online that are easily accessible to young people and how these contents receive engagement through likes and comments. The essay talks about government officials with social media accounts and how their simple posts can instantly change a teen’s view about politics. The piece also includes statistics on teens’ participation in these networking sites, the elections, and the effects of teens on politics.

“Every day 39 children and teens are shot and survive, 31 injured in an attack, 1 survives a suicide attempt and 7 shot unintentionally. Not only is the 2nd amendment giving access to guns to protect ourselves, it is giving others access to commit violent crimes that involve a firearm. Guns are not just used to have protection against harm, but it is also used to create dangerous scenarios out in the public.”

The essay delves into gun politics problems for US citizens. It mentions how bearing guns give people easy access to heinous acts such as mass shootings and suicides. The writer offers relevant statistics to demonstrate how severe the situation is, citing people who die or get injured from gun violence. At the end of the piece, the author says that they believe the 2nd amendment isn’t for protection but for crimes and violence.

“Some schools are already implementing full-time education, while others are not ready to accept students in person. Undoubtedly, this can still be dangerous for all stakeholders, but the state does not have a definite policy in this regard. Nevertheless, online education also comes with some challenges. It is difficult for teachers to maintain the required level of quality of distance learning.”

The essay focuses on Florida’s politics and how it affects the state’s educational system. Even after the pandemic’s peak, some Florida schools still struggle to implement policies that may help their schooling structure. The author also mentions that these institutions do not prioritize students’ mental health and don’t take racism seriously, which leads to high suicide rates and violence.

“Currently Jamaica maintains one of the most unique positions, with abortion being illegal officially, but still performed as part of the status quo in particular situations. The discussion around abortion in Jamaica is inherently complex, stemming from colonial influences on modern sociopolitical and religious perspectives.

The author shares their opinion about Jamaica’s political view on abortion and the protection of women. Abortion is illegal in Jamaica. However, some still do it by paying medical professionals handsomely. Abortion is a complex issue in Jamaica, as there are many things politicians need to consider before coming up with a solution. Although this topic still needs a lengthy discussion, the author believes there is a massive opportunity for change as people gradually forget the traditional beliefs about abortion.

“It’s imperative to get involved with politics so people can get educated and grasp their own opinion instead of listening to others. These aspects are vital to the understanding of how the government works and how a citizen of America will shape the country.”

The writer explains that being aware of politics is key to voting correctly during elections. Moreover, they say that involving young people in politics will help with the structure of the laws in the country. This is because understanding politics and governance yourself is better than believing others’ opinions, mainly when the country’s future depends on this framework.

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead. 

7 Prompts on Essays About Politics

List the duties and responsibilities of a politician running the country. Then, add your opinion on whether your country’s politicians are successfully fulfilling their duties. You can also discuss whether politicians are necessary for a country to thrive.

Political parties are groups of people sharing the same political ideas. They usually band together and support each other in hopes of earning the public’s trust. They also help shape the opinions and decision-making of the citizens on who to vote for. Use this prompt to discuss why political parties are essential in a government, give examples, and add some of their principles. You might also be interested in our guide on the best books about American politics .

Everyone can be a politician. But to be good at their job, they must have an excellent educational background and character to manage the country’s issues and its citizens. Identify and explain each qualification. You can also add events or names of politicians considered good at their jobs. 

Education is a right for everyone in most countries, and so does having educated politicians. An uneducated politician can’t successfully run a nation because they lack the knowledge to discern what’s best for different segments of the economy, etc. As a result, they tend to make wrong decisions and affect citizens’ political behavior. Discuss the risks of giving uneducated politicians government positions and add previous incidents to support your claims.

Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are utilized to spread information, including political campaigns. A single post from a knowledgeable person across these three platforms can change a silent reader’s mindset about a particular political party. This prompt explains how politicians use social media in today’s political campaigning. You can also add the dangers of immediately believing viral posts online. 

Politics is also concerned with managing budgets to improve infrastructures and institutions. However, because it involves large sums of money, corruption is also rampant. Use this prompt to explain how corruption happens within the government, including the measures used to stop it. You can add statistics about the most and least corrupt countries. Then, add examples or scenarios to make your essay more interesting.

Being a politician is not easy because you’ll have to consider not only yourself and your family but the welfare of many in every decision you make. Use this prompt to share what you want to focus on if you are a politician. For example, you’ll pay more attention to education so the youth can have a better future.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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How to Write the Political and Global Issues College Essay

Essays are one of the best parts of the college application process. With your grades in, your test scores decided, and your extracurriculars developed over your years in high school, your essays are the last piece of your college application that you have immediate control over. With them, you get to add a voice to your other stats, a “face” to the name, so to speak. They’re an opportunity to reveal what’s important to you and what sets you apart from other applicants and tell the admissions committee why you’d be an excellent addition to their incoming student class.

Throughout your college applications process, there are many different types of essays you’ll be asked to write. Some of the most popular essay questions you’ll see might include writing about an extracurricular, why you want to matriculate at a school, and what you want to study.

Increasingly, you might also see a supplemental college essay asking you to discuss a political or global issue that you’re passionate about. Asking this type of question helps colleges understand what you care about outside of your personal life and how you will be an active global citizen.

Some examples from the 2019-2020 cycle include:

Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service : Briefly discuss a current global issue, indicating why you consider it important and what you suggest should be done to deal with it.

Yeshiva University Honors Programs : What is one issue about which you are passionate?

Pitzer College : Pitzer College is known for our students’ intellectual and creative activism. If you could work on a cause that is meaningful to you through a project, artistic, academic, or otherwise, what would you do?

Your GPA and SAT don’t tell the full admissions story

Our chancing engine factors in extracurricular activities, demographics, and other holistic details. We’ll let you know what your chances are at your dream schools — and how to improve your chances!

Our chancing engine factors in extracurricular activities, demographic, and other holistic details.

Our chancing engine factors in extracurricular activities, demographic, and other holistic details. We’ll let you know what your chances are at your dream schools — and how to improve your chances!

Tips for Writing the Political and Global Issues College Essay

Pick an issue close to your life.

When you first see a political and global issues prompt, your gut reaction might be to go with a big-picture topic that’s all over the news, like poverty or racism. The problem with these topics is that you usually have a page or less to talk about the issue and why it matters to you. Students also might not have a direct personal connection to such a broad topic. The goal of this essay is to reveal your critical thinking skills, but the higher-level goal of every college essay is to learn more about who you are.

Rather than go with a broad issue that you’re not personally connected to, see if there’s just one facet of it that you  can  contend with. This is especially important if the prompt simply asks for “an issue,” and not necessarily a “global issue.” While some essay prompts will specifically ask that you address a  global  issue (like Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service), there are still ways to approach it from a more focused perspective.

For example, if you were to talk about world hunger, you could start with the hunger you see in your community, which is a food desert. For your solution, you can discuss your plan to build a community garden, so the town is able to access fresh produce. Food deserts, of course, aren’t the only reason world hunger exists; so, you should also explore some other reasons, and other solutions. Maybe there is a better way to prevent and recuperate produce currently being wasted, for instance. If the prompt doesn’t specifically ask for a global issue, however, you could simply focus on food deserts.

For another example, maybe you want to talk about climate change. A more personal and focused approach would deal with happenings in your community, or a community you’ve had contact with. For instance, perhaps your local river was polluted because of textile industry waste; in this case, it would be fitting to address fast fashion specifically (which is still a global issue).

Remember your audience

As you’re approaching this essay, take care to understand the political ramifications of what you’re suggesting and how the school you’re addressing might react to it. Make sure you understand the school’s political viewpoints, and keep in mind that schools are hoping to see how you might fit on their campus based on your response.

So, if you’re applying to a school known for being progressive, like Oberlin or Amherst, you might not want to write an essay arguing that religious freedom is under threat in America. Or, if you’re applying to Liberty University, you should probably avoid writing an essay with a strong pro-LGBTQ stance. You don’t have to take the opposite position, but try picking a different issue that won’t raise the same concerns.

If you have no political alignment, choose economics

If you find yourself applying to a school with which you share no political viewpoints, you might want to consider if the school would even be a good fit for you. Why do you really want to go there? Are those reasons worth it? If you think so, consider writing about an economic issue, which tend to be less contentious than social issues.

For instance, you could write about the impact of monopolies because your parents own an independent bookstore that has been affected by Amazon. Or you could discuss tax breaks for companies that keep or move their production domestically, after seeing how your town changed when factories were moved abroad. Maybe tax filing is a cause you’re really passionate about, and you think the government should institute a free electronic system for all. No matter what you write about here, the key is to keep it close to home however you can.

Pick the best possible framing

When you’re writing an essay that doesn’t fully align with the political views of the school you’re applying to, you’ll want to minimize the gap between your viewpoint and that of the school. While they still might disagree with your views, this will give your essay (and therefore you) the best possible chance. Let’s say you’re applying to a school with progressive economic views, while you firmly believe in free markets. Consider these two essay options:

Option 1:  You believe in free markets because they have pulled billions out of terrible poverty in the developing world.

Option 2:  “Greed is good,” baby! Nothing wrong with the rich getting richer.

Even if you believe equally in the two reasons above personally, essay option 1 would be more likely to resonate with an admissions committee at a progressive school.

Let’s look at another, more subtle example:

Option 1:  Adding 500 police officers to the New York City public transit system to catch fare evaders allows officers to unfairly and systematically profile individuals based on their race.

Option 2:  The cost of hiring 500 additional police officers in the New York City public transit system is higher than the money that would be recouped by fare evasion.

While you might believe both of these things, a school that places a lower priority on race issues may respond better to the second option’s focus on the fallible economics of the issue.

Structuring the Essay

Depending on how long the essay prompt is, you’ll want to use your time and word count slightly differently. For shorter essays (under 250 words), focus on your personal connection rather than the issue itself. You don’t have much space and you need to make it count. For standard essays (250-500 words), you can spend about half the time on the issue and half the time on your personal connection. This should allow you to get more into the nuance. For longer essays, you can write more on the issue itself. But remember, no matter how long the essay is, they ultimately want to learn about you–don’t spend so much time on the issue that you don’t bring it back to yourself.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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Essay on Politics

Students are often asked to write an essay on Politics in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Politics

What is politics.

Politics is about making decisions for a group of people. It is the way groups choose leaders and make rules for everyone to live by. It’s not just about politicians, but also about everyday choices like school rules.

Types of Political Systems

Different countries have different political systems. Some are democracies where people vote for their leaders. Others are ruled by one person or a small group. Each system has its own way of working.

The Importance of Voting

Voting is a powerful tool in politics. It lets people choose their leaders and have a say in what happens. When people vote, they help shape the future.

Political Parties

Political parties are groups with similar ideas about how to run a country. They compete in elections to win power. Parties help organize thoughts and actions in politics.

Politics in Daily Life

Politics isn’t just about elections; it’s part of daily life. From the classroom to the playground, any time people make decisions together, that’s politics. It’s about cooperation and sometimes compromise.

Also check:

• Speech on Politics

250 Words Essay on Politics

Politics is like the rules of a game that decides who gets what in a country. It involves people making decisions that apply to everyone. For example, in a school, the principal and teachers decide the rules. In politics, leaders and lawmakers decide on laws and policies.

Why Politics Matters

Politics is important because it affects our daily lives. The leaders we choose make decisions about schools, hospitals, roads, and even the food we eat. Good politics can lead to a happy and healthy life for all, while bad politics can cause problems and unfairness.

In many countries, groups called political parties compete to win power. Each party has its own ideas about how to run the country. Think of it like a school election where different students have different plans for what they would do if they were elected.

Voting is one way people can have a say in politics. When people are old enough, they can vote for the leaders they like best. This is like having a say in which movie to watch or what game to play with friends.

The Role of Citizens

Everyone, even kids, is part of politics. By following the news and talking about it with family and friends, people can understand more about politics. When people grow up, they can vote, but even now, they can share their opinions and learn about how to make fair decisions for everyone.

In conclusion, politics is about making decisions that affect everyone’s life. It’s important to pay attention to politics because it can change how we live, learn, and play.

500 Words Essay on Politics

Politics is like the set of rules for a big game where the players are the leaders who make decisions for a country or a community. Imagine your school where you have rules, teachers, and a principal who decide what happens. Politics is similar, but it involves mayors, presidents, and many other leaders who decide how to run towns, cities, and countries.

Why is Politics Important?

Politics matters because it affects everything from the playground in your neighborhood to the books you read at school. It decides how money is spent to make your life and the lives of others better. Good politics can lead to peace, safety, and happiness. But if politics goes wrong, it can cause unfairness, fights, and even wars.

The People in Politics

In politics, you have leaders and voters. Leaders are like the captains of a team, and voters are like the fans who choose their captains. Voters are regular people like your parents, teachers, and even students in some places. They vote to choose their leaders, hoping they will make good choices for everyone.

Leaders often belong to groups called political parties. These parties have different ideas about how to make things better. It’s like having different teams in sports, each with its own colors and plans to win the game. But instead of sports games, these parties try to win elections so they can be in charge.

Rules and Laws

Once leaders are chosen, they help make rules and laws. These are like the instructions you follow in school. Laws help people know what is okay to do and what is not. They are made to keep everyone safe and to make sure people are treated fairly.

Discussion and Debate

Politics involves a lot of talking. Leaders and people discuss and argue about the best ways to solve problems. It’s like having a class debate where everyone shares their ideas and tries to convince others. This talking can help come up with better ways to do things.

Politics Around the World

Every country has its own way of doing politics. Some places have a king or queen, while others have a president or prime minister. There are also different rules on who can vote and how often. It’s like different games with their own sets of rules and ways to play.

Politics is a big part of our lives, even if we don’t always see it. It’s how groups of people make decisions about what to do together. Good politics can make our lives and the world a better place. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to it and understand how it works, even for students like you. By knowing about politics, you can help choose the leaders who will make the best decisions for everyone.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Kuwait
• Essay on Lawyer
• Essay on Laziness

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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1.1 Defining Politics: Who Gets What, When, Where, How, and Why?

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define and describe politics from various perspectives.
• Identify what makes a behavior political.
• Identify and discuss the three core elements of any political event: rules, reality, and choices.
• Define and discuss varieties of constitutions.

Politics has existed as long as humans have faced scarcity, have had different beliefs and preferences, and have had to resolve these differences while allocating scarce resources. It will continue to exist so long as these human conditions persist—that is, forever. Politics are fundamental to the human condition.

Politics means different things to different people. Politics , and related terms like political and politician , can have both positive and negative connotations. The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that humans were “political animals” in that only by engaging in politics could humans reach their highest potential. 5 Yet often, the terms political and politician can be used in disparaging ways to refer to individuals using trickery or manipulation to obtain or preserve their status or authority. More formally, a politician is someone running for elective office or serving in it or as a person who is using the skills of a politician in other social interaction. A political actor is anyone who is engaged in political activity. Politics involves all the actions of government and all the people who work for, serve, or challenge it.

This book takes the broadest view, adopting the guidance of political scientist Harold Lasswell , who defined politics as “who gets what, when, how.” 6 Politics exists wherever people interact with one another to make decisions that affect them collectively. Politics exists within families. When parents decide where the family will live: politics. The family (who) gets a place to live (what) at the point of decision (when) based on the parents’ choice (how). When your school decides what tuition to charge: politics. When the government imposes taxes or funds education: politics. Most generally, politics is any interaction among individuals, groups, or institutions that seek to arrive at a decision about how to make a collective choice, or to solve some collective problem. Political science focuses primarily on these interactions as they involve governments. 7

Every political event is different. The mass protests in Hong Kong in 2020, inspired by those seeking to protect their political rights, were not exactly the same as the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States or the climate change actions animated by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg . Yet as varied as political situations can be, there are commonalities across these events and over all political activities. Whenever you seek to understand a political event—whether an election in Tanzania, a protest in Estonia, or a public health program in Indonesia—it is useful to focus on the following:

What are the most important rules ? What is the reality of the existing event or environment? What choices do the participants make? Political outcomes—for example, which candidate wins an election—are based on the interaction of these rules, realities, and choices.

The importance of rules in politics or in life cannot be overstated. In virtually every human endeavor, the most successful individuals are likely to have a keen knowledge of the rules and how to use (or break) the rules to the advantage of their cause. Ignorance of the rules makes accomplishing your goals more difficult.

Rules can be highly precise or open to interpretation. In chess, for example, the rules are completely known to all players: each piece can move in certain directions but in no other ones. Each player takes a turn; that’s the rule. Although chess is highly complex, each player’s options at any given time are known. Chess champions—in fact, all champions—know how to use the rules to their advantage.

College campuses have their own sets of formal and informal rules, and not all of them are as precise as those in chess. The de jure rules are the rules as they are written, the formal rules. The de facto rules are the ones actually practiced or enforced, the informal rules. For example: a sign might state that the ( de jure ) speed limit is 55 miles per hour, but if police do not give tickets to drivers unless they are driving 65 miles per hour, then that is the de facto rule. To thrive at college, it is useful to understand not only the formal rules but also the informal rules, which have been called “the hidden curriculum.” 8

The rules in any political environment affect who has power and how they can use it. Consider the rules that determine who can vote and how. These rules can be permissive or strict, making voting either easier or harder to do. The harder it is to vote, the fewer people will actually cast their ballots and vice versa. Voting rules influence who shows up to vote. Politicians who believe they have a better chance of success under permissive voting rules are likely to advocate for such rules, while politicians who believe they are more likely to prevail under restrictive voting rules will advocate for them instead.

Rules might appear to be neutral—that is, they may seem fair and not designed to favor one group over another—but this is not entirely true. Until recently, to become a pilot in the US Air Force, a person had to be no shorter than 5 feet 4 inches and no taller than 6 feet 5 inches: the short and the tall were excluded from this opportunity. The rule might be in place for a good reason—in this case, to ensure that pilots can fit properly into their seats—but rules like these allocate opportunities and resources to some while withholding them from others. Because this rule excluded over 40 percent of American women from becoming pilots, it has been modified. 9

Rules are everywhere in politics. Your family has rules—even if the main rule is “no rules”—as does your school. Rules, such as Robert’s Rules of Order , 10 govern legislatures, and the criminal justice system, the tax system, and the national immigration systems are all based, at least in principle, on rules.

Rules and institutions are closely related. The institution of marriage or the institution of the family, for example, are the sets of rules (rights, roles, and responsibilities) by which those within the marriage or family live. Alternatively, institutions can be organizations, which are groups of people working together for a common purpose whose actions are governed by rules.

Perhaps the most important set of rules for any institution or organization is its constitution . The constitution affirms the most basic legal principles of a country or a state. These principles typically include the structure of the government, its duties, and the rights of the people. Constitutions can be quite general or extremely detailed. The Constitution of Monaco has fewer than 4,000 words, while the Constitution of India has nearly 150,000 words. 11 Unlike the United States, some countries, including Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, do not have a single document they call the constitution but instead rely on other written and even unwritten sources. In most countries the constitution is called just that—the constitution—although Germany, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and a few other countries call their constitutions the basic law. 12

What Is a Constitution?

Constitutions define the relationship between people and their government. They give powers to and place limits upon the government and serve as the basis for any other laws or government activities.

Constitutions are perhaps the most important set of rules in a country because, after all, they are just pieces of paper. The true importance of a country’s constitution depends on the politics of that country. In the United States, the Constitution is venerated almost as if it were a religious document. Most of the biggest conflicts throughout US history have involved disputes over what the Constitution requires, allows, or prohibits. When the US Supreme Court rules that a political action is unconstitutional, the violator—whether it be the president, the Congress, or any other group or individual in society—is expected to comply with the ruling and stop the action. 13 But this is not always the case everywhere. Politicians in any country may be tempted to ignore their constitutions, especially when it comes to the rights they ostensibly guarantee, and whether those politicians prevail depends on whether other political actors are willing and able to uphold the constitution.

Because rules affect the allocation of power and other scarce resources, political actors spend substantial time and effort fighting over them. In general, political actors seek to establish rules that benefit them and their allies.

Rules guide and constrain behavior, but the reality on the ground at any specific time also impacts political outcomes. Reality —facts—is not a matter of opinion, although people can dispute the nature of reality. Something is a fact , for example, when there is compelling evidence that an event has happened or a condition exists. The sun rises in the East: reality. The United Nations is an international organization: fact (reality). 14 Has the United Nations made the world a better place? That is a matter of opinion, although those who say “yes” or “no” can provide facts that support their views about reality. 15

How candidates can raise and spend money on their electoral campaigns may be limited by campaign finance laws, but if one candidate raises twice as much money as the other candidate, that is an important fact. If one candidate is the incumbent —a politician already serving in office and running for reelection—and the other is not, that is an important fact. These are important facts because whether or not a candidate is an incumbent and how much campaign money they raise may affect their chances of winning the election. In US elections, for example, incumbents generally have a better chance of being elected (although the strength of this relationship has varied over time), while the impact of fundraising on electoral success is open to question. 16

In chess, the rules are constant, never changing during the game. The reality changes as play proceeds—at any moment each player has a specific number of pieces in particular places on the board. What happens then depends on the choices the players make. This is as true for politics as for any other game. A key difference between chess and politics is that, in politics, the players themselves can change the rules of the game while they are playing.

Politics can be thought of as having the characteristics of a game. The players—anyone involved in political action—make strategic choices, given the rules and the current conditions, in an attempt to “win” the game by obtaining their goals.

Rules provide constraints and opportunities. Reality presents resources and challenges. The choices participants make in the face of rules and reality determine political outcomes. Choice exists whenever political actors face options, which they always do. If there are two candidates in an election for a single position, the voter has to choose between them, not being able to vote for both. Even if there is only one candidate, the voter still has an option: to vote for the candidate or to abstain.

In a democracy , the winning candidate wins because more voters chose to vote, and vote for that candidate, than for other options. The very definition of democracy is that it is a form of government in which the people have the ability to choose their leaders or, in some cases, the policies that they will adopt. 17

Political outcomes are always contingent; they cannot be predicted with certainty in advance. That does not mean, however, that outcomes are completely unpredictable. By accounting for the rules, how human behavior works, and existing realities, it is possible to reasonably predict what is likely to happen and explain what does happen.

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• Authors: Mark Carl Rom, Masaki Hidaka, Rachel Bzostek Walker
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Political Science
• Publication date: May 18, 2022
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/1-1-defining-politics-who-gets-what-when-where-how-and-why

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Cyber-Influence and Power, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Each and every one of us has a vital part to play in building the kind of world in which government and technology serve the world’s people and not the other way around. Rebecca MacKinnon

Over the past 20 years, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have transformed the globe, facilitating the international economic, political, and cultural connections and exchanges that are at the heart of contemporary globalization processes. The term ICT is broad in scope, encompassing both the technological infrastructure and products that facilitate the collection, storage, manipulation, and distribution of information in a variety of formats.

While there are many definitions of globalization, most would agree that the term refers to a variety of complex social processes that facilitate worldwide economic, cultural, and political connections and exchanges. The kinds of global connections ICTs give rise to mark a dramatic departure from the face-to-face, time and place dependent interactions that characterized communication throughout most of human history. ICTs have extended human interaction and increased our interconnectedness, making it possible for geographically dispersed people not only to share information at an ever-faster rate but also to organize and to take action in response to events occurring in places far from where they are physically situated.

While these complex webs of connections can facilitate positive collective action, they can also put us at risk. As TED speaker Ian Goldin observes, the complexity of our global connections creates a built-in fragility: What happens in one part of the world can very quickly affect everyone, everywhere.

The proliferation of ICTs and the new webs of social connections they engender have had profound political implications for governments, citizens, and non-state actors alike. Each of the TEDTalks featured in this course explore some of these implications, highlighting the connections and tensions between technology and politics. Some speakers focus primarily on how anti-authoritarian protesters use technology to convene and organize supporters, while others expose how authoritarian governments use technology to manipulate and control individuals and groups. When viewed together as a unit, the contrasting voices reveal that technology is a contested site through which political power is both exercised and resisted.

Technology as liberator

The liberating potential of technology is a powerful theme taken up by several TED speakers in Cyber-Influence and Power . Journalist and Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon, for example, begins her talk by playing the famous Orwell-inspired Apple advertisement from 1984. Apple created the ad to introduce Macintosh computers, but MacKinnon describes Apple's underlying narrative as follows: "technology created by innovative companies will set us all free." While MacKinnon examines this narrative with a critical eye, other TED speakers focus on the ways that ICTs can and do function positively as tools of social change, enabling citizens to challenge oppressive governments.

In a 2011 CNN interview, Egyptian protest leader, Google executive, and TED speaker Wael Ghonim claimed "if you want to free a society, just give them internet access. The young crowds are going to all go out and see and hear the unbiased media, see the truth about other nations and their own nation, and they are going to be able to communicate and collaborate together." (i). In this framework, the opportunities for global information sharing, borderless communication, and collaboration that ICTs make possible encourage the spread of democracy. As Ghonim argues, when citizens go online, they are likely to discover that their particular government's perspective is only one among many. Activists like Ghonim maintain that exposure to this online free exchange of ideas will make people less likely to accept government propaganda and more likely to challenge oppressive regimes.

A case in point is the controversy that erupted around Khaled Said, a young Egyptian man who died after being arrested by Egyptian police. The police claimed that Said suffocated when he attempted to swallow a bag of hashish; witnesses, however, reported that he was beaten to death by the police. Stories about the beating and photos of Said's disfigured body circulated widely in online communities, and Ghonim's Facebook group, titled "We are all Khaled Said," is widely credited with bringing attention to Said's death and fomenting the discontent that ultimately erupted in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, or what Ghonim refers to as "revolution 2.0."

Ghonim's Facebook group also illustrates how ICTs enable citizens to produce and broadcast information themselves. Many people already take for granted the ability to capture images and video via handheld devices and then upload that footage to platforms like YouTube. As TED speaker Clay Shirky points out, our ability to produce and widely distribute information constitutes a revolutionary change in media production and consumption patterns. The production of media has typically been very expensive and thus out of reach for most individuals; the average person was therefore primarily a consumer of media, reading books, listening to the radio, watching TV, going to movies, etc. Very few could independently publish their own books or create and distribute their own radio programs, television shows, or movies. ICTs have disrupted this configuration, putting media production in the hands of individual amateurs on a budget — or what Shirky refers to as members of "the former audience" — alongside the professionals backed by multi-billion dollar corporations. This "democratization of media" allows individuals to create massive amounts of information in a variety of formats and to distribute it almost instantly to a potentially global audience.

Shirky is especially interested in the Internet as "the first medium in history that has native support for groups and conversations at the same time." This shift has important political implications. For example, in 2008 many Obama followers used Obama's own social networking site to express their unhappiness when the presidential candidate changed his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The outcry of his supporters did not force Obama to revert to his original position, but it did help him realize that he needed to address his supporters directly, acknowledging their disagreement on the issue and explaining his position. Shirky observes that this scenario was also notable because the Obama organization realized that "their role was to convene their supporters but not to control their supporters." This tension between the use of technology in the service of the democratic impulse to convene citizens vs. the authoritarian impulse to control them runs throughout many of the TEDTalks in Cyber-Influence and Power.

A number of TED speakers explicitly examine the ways that ICTs give individual citizens the ability to document governmental abuses they witness and to upload this information to the Internet for a global audience. Thus, ICTs can empower citizens by giving them tools that can help keep their governments accountable. The former head of Al Jazeera and TED speaker Wadah Khanfar provides some very clear examples of the political power of technology in the hands of citizens. He describes how the revolution in Tunisia was delivered to the world via cell phones, cameras, and social media outlets, with the mainstream media relying on "citizen reporters" for details.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown's TEDTalk also highlights some of the ways citizens have used ICTs to keep their governments accountable. For example, Brown recounts how citizens in Zimbabwe used the cameras on their phones at polling places in order to discourage the Mugabe regime from engaging in electoral fraud. Similarly, Clay Shirky begins his TEDTalk with a discussion of how cameras on phones were used to combat voter suppression in the 2008 presidential election in the U.S. ICTs allowed citizens to be protectors of the democratic process, casting their individual votes but also, as Shirky observes, helping to "ensure the sanctity of the vote overall."

Technology as oppressor

While smart phones and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have arguably facilitated the overthrow of dictatorships in places like Tunisia and Egypt, lending credence to Gordon Brown's vision of technology as an engine of liberalism and pluralism, not everyone shares this view. As TED speaker and former religious extremist Maajid Nawaz points out, there is nothing inherently liberating about ICTs, given that they frequently are deployed to great effect by extremist organizations seeking social changes that are often inconsistent with democracy and human rights. Where once individual extremists might have felt isolated and alone, disconnected from like-minded people and thus unable to act in concert with others to pursue their agendas, ICTs allow them to connect with other extremists and to form communities around their ideas, narratives, and symbols.

Ian Goldin shares this concern, warning listeners about what he calls the "two Achilles heels of globalization": growing inequality and the fragility that is inherent in a complex integrated system. He points out that those who do not experience the benefits of globalization, who feel like they've been left out in one way or another, can potentially become incredibly dangerous. In a world where what happens in one place very quickly affects everyone else — and where technologies are getting ever smaller and more powerful — a single angry individual with access to technological resources has the potential to do more damage than ever before. The question becomes then, how do we manage the systemic risk inherent in today's technology-infused globalized world? According to Goldin, our current governance structures are "fossilized" and ill-equipped to deal with these issues.

Other critics of the notion that ICTs are inherently liberating point out that ICTs have been leveraged effectively by oppressive governments to solidify their own power and to manipulate, spy upon, and censor their citizens. Journalist and TED speaker Evgeny Morozov expresses scepticism about what he calls "iPod liberalism," or the belief that technology will necessarily lead to the fall of dictatorships and the emergence of democratic governments. Morozov uses the term "spinternet" to describe authoritarian governments' use of the Internet to provide their own "spin" on issues and events. Russia, China, and Iran, he argues, have all trained and paid bloggers to promote their ideological agendas in the online environment and/or or to attack people writing posts the government doesn't like in an effort to discredit them as spies or criminals who should not be trusted.

Morozov also points out that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are tools not only of revolutionaries but also of authoritarian governments who use them to gather open-source intelligence. "In the past," Morozov maintains, "it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. KGB...used to torture in order to get this data." Instead of focusing primarily on bringing Internet access and devices to the people in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, Morozov argues that we need to abandon our cyber-utopian assumptions and do more to actually empower intellectuals, dissidents, NGOs and other members of society, making sure that the "spinternet" does not prevent their voices from being heard.

The ICT Empowered Individual vs. The Nation State

In her TEDTalk "Let's Take Back the Internet," Rebecca MacKinnon argues that "the only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and…the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us." It is clearly not a given, however, that governments, organizations, and individuals will use technology benevolently. Part of the responsibility of citizenship in the globalized information age then is to work to ensure that both governments and technologies "serve the world's peoples." However, there is considerable disagreement about what that might look like.

WikiLeaks spokesperson and TED speaker Julian Assange, for example, argues that government secrecy is inconsistent with democratic values and is ultimately about deceiving and manipulating rather than serving the world's people. Others maintain that governments need to be able to keep secrets about some topics in order to protect their citizens or to act effectively in response to crises, oppressive regimes, terrorist organizations, etc. While some view Assange's use of technology as a way to hold governments accountable and to increase transparency, others see this use of technology as a criminal act with the potential to both undermine stable democracies and put innocent lives in danger.

ICTs and global citizenship

While there are no easy answers to the global political questions raised by the proliferation of ICTs, there are relatively new approaches to the questions that look promising, including the emergence of individuals who see themselves as global citizens — people who participate in a global civil society that transcends national boundaries. Technology facilitates global citizens' ability to learn about global issues, to connect with others who care about similar issues, and to organize and act meaningfully in response. However, global citizens are also aware that technology in and of itself is no panacea, and that it can be used to manipulate and oppress.

Global citizens fight against oppressive uses of technology, often with technology. Technology helps them not only to participate in global conversations that affect us all but also to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized or altogether missing from such conversations. Moreover, global citizens are those who are willing to grapple with large and complex issues that are truly global in scope and who attempt to chart a course forward that benefits all people, regardless of their locations around the globe.

Gordon Brown implicitly alludes to the importance of global citizenship when he states that we need a global ethic of fairness and responsibility to inform global problem-solving. Human rights, disease, development, security, terrorism, climate change, and poverty are among the issues that cannot be addressed successfully by any one nation alone. Individual actors (nation states, NGOs, etc.) can help, but a collective of actors, both state and non-state, is required. Brown suggests that we must combine the power of a global ethic with the power to communicate and organize globally in order for us to address effectively the world's most pressing issues.

Individuals and groups today are able to exert influence that is disproportionate to their numbers and the size of their arsenals through their use of "soft power" techniques, as TED speakers Joseph Nye and Shashi Tharoor observe. This is consistent with Maajid Nawaz's discussion of the power of symbols and narratives. Small groups can develop powerful narratives that help shape the views and actions of people around the world. While governments are far more accustomed to exerting power through military force, they might achieve their interests more effectively by implementing soft power strategies designed to convince others that they want the same things. According to Nye, replacing a "zero-sum" approach (you must lose in order for me to win) with a "positive-sum" one (we can both win) creates opportunities for collaboration, which is necessary if we are to begin to deal with problems that are global in scope.

Let's get started

Collectively, the TEDTalks in this course explore how ICTs are used by and against governments, citizens, activists, revolutionaries, extremists, and other political actors in efforts both to preserve and disrupt the status quo. They highlight the ways that ICTs have opened up new forms of communication and activism as well as how the much-hailed revolutionary power of ICTs can and has been co-opted by oppressive regimes to reassert their control.

By listening to the contrasting voices of this diverse group of TED speakers, which includes activists, journalists, professors, politicians, and a former member of an extremist organization, we can begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ways that technology can be used both to facilitate and contest a wide variety of political movements. Global citizens who champion democracy would do well to explore these intersections among politics and technology, as understanding these connections is a necessary first step toward MacKinnon's laudable goal of building a world in which "government and technology serve the world's people and not the other way around."

Let's begin our exploration of the intersections among politics and technology in today's globalized world with a TEDTalk from Ian Goldin, the first Director of the 21st Century School, Oxford University's think tank/research center. Goldin's talk will set the stage for us, exploring the integrated, complex, and technology rich global landscape upon which the political struggles for power examined by other TED speakers play out.

Navigating our global future

i. "Welcome to Revolution 2.0, Ghonim Says," CNN, February 9, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/02/09/wael.ghonim.interview.cnn .

Relevant talks

Gordon Brown

Wiring a web for global good.

Clay Shirky

How social media can make history.

Wael Ghonim

Inside the egyptian revolution.

Wadah Khanfar

A historic moment in the arab world.

Evgeny Morozov

How the net aids dictatorships.

Maajid Nawaz

A global culture to fight extremism.

Rebecca MacKinnon

Let's take back the internet.

Julian Assange

Why the world needs wikileaks.

Global power shifts

Shashi Tharoor

Why nations should pursue soft power.

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National Policy

Youth in Politics: Why it’s Important and Why You Should Get Involved

The contemporary political climate in America holds immense tension, yielded by Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Common discussion in the day-to-day lives of citizens includes Black Lives Matter, climate change, racism, and a multitude of other deep-rooted issues. Despite the current relevance of these topics, each issue is rooted within the foundations of American government- an aspect we are all affected by.

Published by ‍

Jenna Rowen-Delson

June 21, 2021

Inquiry-driven, this article reflects personal views, aiming to enrich problem-related discourse.

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Article content

We may not be physically present at protests nor directly affected by a new bill, but each decision within politics acts as the first part of a chain reaction. Each decision trickles down into daily life- perhaps in the taxes of your school that changes procedures; your favorite restaurant that closes earlier; and numerous other lifestyle changes.

Given the current polarity of American politics, these issues and decisions are often overlooked by teenagers. The threat of being deemed ignorant or unintelligent by peers weighs heavily on us all, with the notion that our voices are irrelevant. This could not be further from the truth, in the most literal sense. In some states, you can pre-register to vote at 16 years old. This ability was studied by Anthony Fowler at the University of Chicago, who found that allowing future voters to pre-register increases both registration and turnout by 2.1 percentage points. Waiting to care for politics until you turn 18 means a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, and subsequently a lack of ability to make political choices that are important to you.

 By informing yourself early on, you can be better prepared to vote for candidates who have the same priorities as you, whether that be climate change, gun control, or abortion, etc. You can encourage others around you to do the same. Use your voice by casting your vote. 

An article by Lexi Anderson of Pratt Institute encompasses this notion quite well. Understanding politics is, “a definitive way to navigate your own moral and ideological compass.” Informing yourself can only act to your benefit.

This year, the national turnout for young voters was estimated to be 52-55%. This is compared to the 2016 presidential election, where there was a 42-44% estimate.

So in 2016, less than half of citizens ages 18 to 29 voted in 2016’s presidential election. That’s compared to 71% of those 65+. How sad is it that the very generation whose future will be affected by those being elected into office, isn’t even voting? We are letting a generation that won’t have to deal with the effects of their actions make decisions that will affect our generation’s futures. 

Many times, young people complain about how policies don’t represent what they want. Is that really a surprise? Not only do young people have a lower voter turnout and lower political participation, but the average age of House Members at the beginning of the 116th Congress was 57.6years, and that number increases to 62.9 years for Senators. 

You can’t expect older politicians to be able to address and fulfill all young people’s needs. But by participating in politics at a young age, you have the opportunity to make a change.

One of the most important things young voters should know before getting involved in politics is that your voice matters. Even if you can’t vote, there are many things you can do. These include signing petitions, registering others to vote, and contacting those representing you. Start a political club in your community, help inform others, or help a local campaign. The possibilities are endless.

I had the amazing opportunity to talk to former presidential candidate Andrew Yang about his thoughts a few weeks ago on a Zoom call Q&A session with some other young people interested in politics.

My question: “How can we encourage more young people to get interested in politics or at least be willing to learn?”

Yang: “That’s a great point and this is something I’m passionate about. That’s one of the reasons I got a Tiktok.” (You can follow Andrew Yang on Tiktok @officialandrewyang).

 “We have to make politics interesting for young people because if you’re 15, 16, and I just talk to you about something future-oriented and boring then it’s like, ‘well that sucks.’ So I think we should meet people where they are honest. You have to try and make politics fun and alive. And our politicians are bad at that. So I don’t blame young people. I blame our politicians, frankly.”

Yang then went on to say, “I would love to lower the voting age to 16, myself. Because then every American high school becomes like voter central. And then instead of saying ‘hey it’s in the abstract…’ There are so many good reasons to lower the voting age to 16.”

 “One, everyone registers, because you’re in high school, and, you know, it’s pretty easy to find you. You’re all in the same place. The younger you are the first time you vote, the more likely you are to vote the entire time. Policies would skew towards young people more because right now old people vote and young people less so. You can pay taxes starting at 16 so why can you not know where your taxes go. You can start driving at 16 so how can you be trusted with a car and not a vote? So there are all these great reasons to lower the voting age to 16.”

“In the meantime, I would try to get people interested by saying, ‘look, there’s something that’s going to be very pressing for you eventually so might as well get started on it.’ The other thing I say is you might not be able to vote, but you can bug a voter. You can get one person to vote and then it’s like you voted!”

Andrew Yang brought up several great points in his response, all of which I agree with. Politics, a lot of the time, can seem uninteresting to our generation. With the rise of social media, many politicians have used platforms like Instagram and Tiktok to engage with young voters.

Some of these include Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Instagram, with 8.2 million followers. Jon Ossoff, candidate for the US Senate has recently been using Tiktok to win over young voters down in Georgia, and get them to vote in the runoff election on January 5th.

With an abundance of politics-oriented social media accounts and the flow of information so readily available through social media, it is extremely easy for youth to inform themselves. If you want to learn about a particular issue but don’t want to read an entire lengthy article, there are various videos online that break each issue down. 

There isn’t just one way to get involved in politics, there are so many different ways to acquire information and get involved. Our democracy was created to give the people what they want. For our government to best reflect the needs and wants of citizens, it is up to us to get involved and make a change. Young people hold valuable information and the knowledge to make the changes that previous generations have not.

Works Cited

https://www.usa.gov/voter-registration-age-requirements

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020#youth-voter-turnout-increased-in-2020

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-10-13-young-people-care-about-elections-they-just-don-t-always-show-up-to-vote-here-s-how-education-can-help

https://www.bridgealliance.us/7_ways_for_teens_to_get_involved_in_politics

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/upshot/youth-voting-2020-election.html

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/political-participation-importance/participating-will-expand-your-knowledge-and-relationships

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45583.pdf

https://studybreaks.com/thoughts/5-reasons-political-aware/

Filed Under:

Jenna Rowen-Delson is a high school sophomore with a strong interest in politics and a passion for youth involvement in politics.

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10 Reasons Why Politics Are Important

Politics is the art of societal decision making and the distribution of power in a society. Permeating throughout all aspects of life, no human is exempt from political processes. Politics are crucial for societal, economic and political progress and development. Here are 10 reasons why politics is important and how they influence human life in all shapes and forms.

#1. Helps people to understand their rights

Politics acts as the foundation for the rights of humans and sets the groundwork for ethics and morality. Without politics, humans would not have a tangible benchmark and understanding of what they are entitled to as citizens of a country or society and would lead to human rights violations . By having legal documents and political customs that delineate the rights of humans, people can become aware of what they are entitled to in the political and social landscape.

#2. Affects every aspect of daily lives

From paying GST during grocery shopping to driving a car to work, politics permeates in every aspect of human life. As governments and political entities hold the power to create laws and customs that govern our daily lives, it is important for people to understand that politics is the central figure in determining societal and political processes. Knowing this can help people determine what the best course of action to take when problems arise.

#3. Helps people to become informed voters

Voting plays an important role in politics, as citizens hold the power to change the organizational structure of governments and the direction society moves forward towards. To understand what benefits and disadvantages each political party brings to their campaign, citizens have to do individual research and become informed of basic political processes before casting their ballot.

#4. Provides a voice and platform to people

Politics provides a direct platform for people to voice their societal concerns and priorities. While some citizens may be content with the political order of a society, some may feel marginalized and disadvantaged in a society and may begin to protest for greater and radical change. This ability to be able to freely voice opinions is a crucial aspect of politics and highlights the power of politics in mobilizing people to create meaningful change.

#5. Determines laws and decisions

Governmental and political institutions are the primary decision-makers when determining societal laws and ordinances. These decisions can range from major international issues we face today, such as climate change and social inequality, to smaller and domestic rules such as the types of books students are assigned to read in public schools or the number of bike lanes in a neighborhood.

#6. Governs society (constitution)

Political institutions hold the highest level of legitimate power when governing a society. As governments are responsible for laying the groundwork for all political, economic and social activities, they have the ability to govern society in a way that suits the political and social context of a society. Constitutions of a country are often deemed as the founding document of a country’s political landscape, as such legal documents govern the activities of governmental institutions and keep their power in check.

#7. Enacts change in society

Although politics is grounded in tradition and orthodox thought, politics is an ever-changing entity that adapts to different political, cultural and economic contexts. As politics acts as a societal key to unlock new ideas and change for a society, it is crucial for policy makers and governments alike to adapt to the political landscape and enact meaningful and effective change that serves the best interests of the community.

#8. Establishes how power is controlled

Politics is often cited as an all-encompassing mechanism that controls the behaviour of people and influence the outcomes of events. The distribution and the extent of political power is often determined by governments and political institutions alike and equips certain groups of people to control policies, cultures and customs of a society. Oftentimes, governments have a complex system of rules that constrain this power to ensure that political power is not abused and used for the sole interest of one actor.

#9. Creates a sense of identity

As politics covers every aspect of human life, humans are likely to resonate with certain political issues more than others. By fostering a sense of identity with a particular political issue, this creates a greater sense of civic responsibility and engagement, which in turn helps to voice underrepresented groups within society. This sense of identity also plays into creating communities where people can express their opinions and share their ideas of what governments should do to better accommodate their citizens.

#10. Influences the way people think and behave

Human attitudes and behaviors are influenced by politics as people are constantly interacting with politics on a daily basis. The way a government distributes funds or deal with proposed laws affect the day to day lives of people, which ultimately influences the attitudes and actions of people. Consequently, politics holds the power to change public sentiment and attitudes towards political phenomena, and this must be taken into consideration during political decision making.

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Guest Essay

The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus

By Frank Bruni

Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of the forthcoming book “The Age of Grievance,” from which this essay is adapted.

I warn my students. At the start of every semester, on the first day of every course, I confess to certain passions and quirks and tell them to be ready: I’m a stickler for correct grammar, spelling and the like, so if they don’t have it in them to care about and patrol for such errors, they probably won’t end up with the grade they’re after. I want to hear everyone’s voice — I tell them that, too — but I don’t want to hear anybody’s voice so often and so loudly that the other voices don’t have a chance.

And I’m going to repeat one phrase more often than any other: “It’s complicated.” They’ll become familiar with that. They may even become bored with it. I’ll sometimes say it when we’re discussing the roots and branches of a social ill, the motivations of public (and private) actors and a whole lot else, and that’s because I’m standing before them not as an ambassador of certainty or a font of unassailable verities but as an emissary of doubt. I want to give them intelligent questions, not final answers. I want to teach them how much they have to learn — and how much they will always have to learn.

I’d been on the faculty of Duke University and delivering that spiel for more than two years before I realized that each component of it was about the same quality: humility. The grammar-and-spelling bit was about surrendering to an established and easily understood way of doing things that eschewed wild individualism in favor of a common mode of communication. It showed respect for tradition, which is a force that binds us, a folding of the self into a greater whole. The voices bit — well, that’s obvious. It’s a reminder that we share the stages of our communities, our countries, our worlds, with many other actors and should conduct ourselves in a manner that recognizes this fact. And “it’s complicated” is a bulwark against arrogance, absolutism, purity, zeal.

I’d also been delivering that spiel for more than two years before I realized that humility is the antidote to grievance.

We live in an era defined and overwhelmed by grievance — by too many Americans’ obsession with how they’ve been wronged and their insistence on wallowing in ire. This anger reflects a pessimism that previous generations didn’t feel. The ascent of identity politics and the influence of social media, it turned out, were better at inflaming us than uniting us. They promote a self-obsession at odds with community, civility, comity and compromise. It’s a problem of humility.

The Jan. 6 insurrectionists were delusional, frenzied, savage. But above all, they were unhumble. They decided that they held the truth, no matter all the evidence to the contrary. They couldn’t accept that their preference for one presidential candidate over another could possibly put them in the minority — or perhaps a few of them just reasoned that if it did, then everybody else was too misguided to matter. They elevated how they viewed the world and what they wanted over tradition, institutional stability, law, order.

It’s no accident that they were acting in the service of Donald Trump, whose pitch to Americans from the very start was a strikingly — even shockingly — unhumble one. “I alone can fix it,” he proclaimed in his 2016 speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president; and at his inauguration in January of the following year, the word “humbled,” which had been present in the first inaugural remarks of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, was nowhere to be found. Nor were any of its variants. That whole sentiment and politesse were missing, as they had been during a campaign centered on his supposed omniscience.

There are now mini-Trumps aplenty in American politics, but anti-Trumps will be our salvation, and I say that not along partisan or ideological lines. I’m talking about character and how a society holds itself together. It does that with concern for the common good, with respect for the institutions and procedures that protect that and with political leaders who ideally embody those traits or at least promote them.

Those leaders exist. When Charlie Baker, a former Massachusetts governor, was enjoying enormous favor and lofty approval ratings as a Republican in a predominantly Democratic state, he was also stressing the importance of humility. He was fond of quoting Philippians 2:3, which he invoked as a lodestar for his administration. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,” it says. “Rather, in humility value others above yourself.”

That’s great practical advice for anyone in government, where most meaningful success hinges on teamwork and significant progress requires consensus. Governing, as opposed to demagoguery, is about earning others’ trust and cooperation. Exhibiting a willingness to listen to and to hear them goes a long way toward that.

“Insight and knowledge come from curiosity and humility,” Mr. Baker wrote in a 2022 book, “Results,” coauthored with his chief of staff, Steve Kadish, a Democrat. “Snap judgments — about people or ideas — are fueled by arrogance and conceit. They create blind spots and missed opportunities. Good ideas and interesting ways to accomplish goals in public life exist all over the place if you have the will, the curiosity, and the humility to find them.”

Humble politicians don’t insist on one-size-fits-all answers when those aren’t necessary as a matter of basic rights and fundamental justice. Humble activists don’t either. The campaign for same-sex marriage — one of the most successful social movements of recent decades — showed that progress can be made not by shaming people, not by telling them how awful they are, but by suggesting how much better they could be. Marriage-equality advocates emphasized a brighter future that they wanted to create, not an ugly past that they wanted to litigate. They also wisely assured Americans that gay and lesbian people weren’t trying to explode a cherished institution and upend a system of values, but instead wanted in.

“I don’t want to disparage shouting and demands — everything has its place,” Evan Wolfson, the founder of the pivotal advocacy group Freedom to Marry, told me when we revisited the movement’s philosophy and tactics. At times, he acknowledged, champions of a cause “need to break the silence, we need to push, we need to force.”

“But I used to say, ‘Yes, there’s demanding, but there’s also asking,’” he recalled. “And one is not the enemy of the other. People don’t like being accused, people don’t like being condemned, people don’t like being alienated. It’s a matter of conversation and persuasion.”

That’s consistent with the message delivered by Loretta Ross, a longtime racial justice and human rights advocate, through her teaching, public speaking and writing. Troubled by the frequent targeting and pillorying of people on social media, she urged the practice of calling in rather than calling out those who’ve upset you. “Call-outs make people fearful of being targeted,” she wrote in a guest essay for Times Opinion . “People avoid meaningful conversations when hypervigilant perfectionists point out apparent mistakes, feeding the cannibalistic maw of the cancel culture.” Instead, she advised, engage them. If you believe they need enlightenment, try that route, “without the self-indulgence of drama,” she wrote.

She was preaching humility.

She was also recognizing other people’s right to disagree — to live differently, to talk differently. Pluralism is as much about that as it is about a multiracial, multifaith, multigender splendor. That doesn’t mean a surrender or even a compromise of principles; a person can hold on to those while practicing tolerance, which has been supplanted by grievance. Tolerance shares DNA with respect. It recognizes that other people have rights and inherent value even when we disagree vehemently with them.

We all carry wounds, and some of us carry wounds much graver than others. We confront obstacles, including unjust and senseless ones. We must tend to those wounds. We must push hard at those obstacles. But we mustn’t treat every wound, every obstacle, as some cosmic outrage or mortal danger. We mustn’t lose sight of the struggle, imperfection and randomness of life. We mustn’t overstate our vulnerability and exaggerate our due.

While grievance blows our concerns out of proportion, humility puts them in perspective. While grievance reduces the people with whom we disagree to caricature, humility acknowledges that they’re every bit as complex as we are — with as much of a stake in creating a more perfect union.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book "The Age of Grievance" and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter .   Instagram   Threads   @ FrankBruni • Facebook

Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Voting — The Importance of Public Awareness in Politics

The Importance of Public Awareness in Politics

• Categories: Barry Goldwater Voting

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Words: 1956 |

10 min read

Published: Aug 1, 2022

Words: 1956 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Table of contents

Becoming an informed voter, my congressional district and u.s. representative, political background of my state, arizona’s senator.

• “Arizona.” Conservapedia, www.conservapedia.com/Arizona.
• “Arizona.” GovTrack.us, www.govtrack.us/congress/members/AZ.
• “Barry Goldwater of Arizona.” U.S. Senate: Barry Goldwater of Arizona, 24 Jan. 2019, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/barry_goldwater_of_arizona.htm.
• “Biography.” Congressman Andy Biggs, 18 Mar. 2019, biggs.house.gov/biography.
• Blufish. “10 Top Political Events in Arizona's History.” AZ Big Media, 20 Aug. 2017, azbigmedia.com/business/politics/top-10-political-events-arizonas-history/.
• “Home.” Sinema for Arizona, 6 Nov. 2018, kyrstensinema.com/home/.
• “Issues.” Biggs for Congress, biggsforcongress.com/issues/.
• “John Sidney McCain III - 1936-2018.” John Sidney McCain III | JohnMcCain.com, www.johnmccain.com/.
• “The Voter's Self Defense System.” Vote Smart, votesmart.org/candidate/biography/28088/andy-biggs#.XT5Ix-hKhPY.
• “The Voter's Self Defense System.” Vote Smart, votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/28338/kyrsten-sinema/31#.XT91B-hKhPY.
• “The Voter's Self Defense System.” Vote Smart, votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/28088/andy-biggs/11#.XT5Nb-hKh

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Importance of politics

We do not really think of politics in our normal, daily lives. However, come election season, and we can barely talk about anything else; the closer the election, the more we have to discuss. However, there are many who fail to understand all the hullaballoo about politics; after all, we do see the corruption in the system and the helplessness of the people portrayed in the media each day, and we cannot help but think that politics is the root of all evil.

There are also many who do not really have a very clear idea of the political situation in their region, and may or may not comment on the situation without being fully informed about it. Whatever the case, there seems to be a unanimous agreement that political awareness is necessary. In this article, we will discuss why it is so.

Affects every aspect of our lives

Political awareness is essential because it is extremely important for us to know about what is happening around us. Not only that, it is also important to have a fully informed opinion on what is happening around us. Politics is not something far removed from our lives; political leaders make decisions that affect our lives directly. Being politically aware helps you have a say in the decisions the government will make, and even in the formation of the government that will govern your nation.

Promotes better citizenship

Being politically aware enables you to be a better citizen. If you are aware of the political situation in your country and you do not like it, you can take an active part in changing it by becoming a part of the political system and fighting the corruption. Besides, being politically aware, you will be abreast of the new laws that are being put in effect, and this will make you a law-abiding, responsible citizen. If the law feels unfair, a politically educated person will be in a position to stand up against it by taking steps within legal boundaries.

Brings about change

It is important to be politically aware in order to have a better government. It would be impossible for a country to function smoothly if a political system was not in place to run it. Without politics, there would be no leaders, and without leaders, the country would definitely descend into totalitarianism or else anarchy. It is important for both the leaders and the people to be politically aware for the country to function smoothly. Without political awareness, there would not be any instrument of change, neither in the political system nor in the society at large. It is important to be politically aware to be able to voice opinions that matter and that have the propensity to bring about significant and required change to the system.

Helps to make the right choice

In any governmental system, it is necessary for the people to be politically aware for their own good. In a democracy , you need to go to the polling booths armed with facts and ample political awareness. And this awareness is not just about which candidate is making the maximum promises, but also about how many of the said promises are likely to come true. This will require you to be really aware of the political history and general information about your nation. If you don’t have all the facts, you will most likely end up making the wrong choice. In a totalitarian government, being politically aware will enable you to see what is wrong with the system, and take steps to overthrow said system or at least make it better.

Goes beyond the government

Irrespective of the time we live in, politics remains relevant because it is the principal determinant of what governance is. And that is not just limited to the role that the government plays in our lives; it extends to the way we manage, or govern, our lives and the world that we live in. It is impossible and quite imprudent to live with no other concern than ourselves, because everything that happens around us directly or indirectly affects our own lives. Ignoring this fundamental fact can be disastrous.

Also read: Importance of voting

In the current climate, it is easy to see why many people turn their faces away from politics. The media is filled with a bunch of negative campaigning; you would especially be tired of the mud-slinging that the various political parties take part in. But it is important to understand that this is the very reason you should be interested in politics; if you don’t look beyond the sensational campaigns, you will easily be misled about what is actually good for your country, and in extension, for yourself.

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A Brief History of the Political Essay

From swift to woolf, david bromwich considers an evolving genre.

The political essay has never been a clearly defined genre. David Hume may have legitimated it in 1758 when he classified under a collective rubric his own Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. “Political,” however, should have come last in order, since Hume took a speculative and detached view of politics, and seems to have been incapable of feeling passion for a political cause. We commonly associate political thought with full-scale treatises by philosophers of a different sort, whose understanding of politics was central to their account of human nature. Hobbes’s Leviathan , Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws , Rousseau’s Social Contract , Mill’s Representative Government , and, closer to our time, Rawls’s Theory of Justice , all satisfy that expectation. What, then, is a political essay? By the late 18th century, the periodical writings of Steele, Swift, Goldsmith, and Johnson had broadened the scope of the English essay for serious purposes. The field of politics, as much as culture, appeared to their successors well suited to arguments on society and government.

A public act of praise, dissent, or original description may take on permanent value when it implicates concerns beyond the present moment. Where the issue is momentous, the commitment stirred by passion, and the writing strong enough, an essay may sink deep roots in the language of politics. An essay is an attempt , as the word implies—a trial of sense and persuasion, which any citizen may hazard in a society where people are free to speak their minds. A more restrictive idea of political argument—one that would confer special legitimacy on an elite caste of managers, consultants, and symbolic analysts—presumes an environment in which state papers justify decisions arrived at from a region above politics. By contrast, the absence of formal constraints or a settled audience for the essay means that the daily experience of the writer counts as evidence. A season of crisis tempts people to think politically; in the process, they sometimes discover reasons to back their convictions.

The experience of civic freedom and its discontents may lead the essayist to think beyond politics. In 1940, Virginia Woolf recalled the sound of German bombers circling overhead the night before; the insect-like irritant, with its promise of aggression, frightened her into thought: “It is a queer experience, lying in the dark and listening to the zoom of a hornet which may at any moment sting you to death.” The ugly noise, for Woolf, signaled the prerogative of the fighting half of the species: Englishwomen “must lie weaponless tonight.” Yet Englishmen would be called upon to destroy the menace; and she was not sorry for their help. The mood of the writer is poised between gratitude and a bewildered frustration. Woolf ’s essay, “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,” declines to exhibit the patriotic sentiment by which most reporters in her position would have felt drawn. At the same time, its personal emphasis keeps the author honest through the awareness of her own dependency.

Begin with an incident— I could have been killed last night —and you may end with speculations on human nature. Start with a national policy that you deplore, and it may take you back to the question, “Who are my neighbors?” In 1846, Henry David Thoreau was arrested for having refused to pay a poll tax; he made a lesson of his resistance two years later, when he saw the greed and dishonesty of the Mexican War: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” But to Thoreau’s surprise, the window of the prison had opened onto the life of the town he lived in, with its everyday errands and duties, its compromises and arrangements, and for him that glimpse was a revelation:

They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn,—a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I had never seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about.

Slavery, at that time, was nicknamed “the peculiar institution,” and by calling the prison itself a peculiar institution, and maybe having in mind the adjacent inn as well, Thoreau prods his reader to think about the constraints that are a tacit condition of social life.

The risk of political writing may lure the citizen to write—a fact Hazlitt seems to acknowledge in his essay “On the Regal Character,” where his second sentence wonders if the essay will expose him to prosecution: “In writing a criticism, we hope we shall not be accused of intending a libel.” (His friend Leigh Hunt had recently served two years in prison for “seditious libel” of the Prince Regent—having characterized him as a dandy notorious for his ostentation and obesity.) The writer’s consciousness of provocative intent may indeed be inseparable from the wish to persuade; though the tone of commitment will vary with the zeal and composition of the audience, whether that means a political party, a movement, a vanguard of the enlightened, or “the people” at large.

Edmund Burke, for example, writes to the sheriffs of Bristol (and through them to the city’s electors) in order to warn against the suspension of habeas corpus by the British war ministry in 1777. The sudden introduction of the repressive act, he tells the electors, has imperiled their liberty even if they are for the moment individually exempt. In response to the charge that the Americans fighting for independence are an unrepresentative minority, he warns: “ General rebellions and revolts of an whole people never were encouraged , now or at any time. They are always provoked. ” So too, Mahatma Gandhi addresses his movement of resistance against British rule, as well as others who can be attracted to the cause, when he explains why nonviolent protest requires courage of a higher degree than the warrior’s: “Non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.” In both cases, the writer treats the immediate injustice as an occasion for broader strictures on the nature of justice. There are certain duties that governors owe to the governed, and duties hardly less compulsory that the people owe to themselves.

Apparently diverse topics connect the essays in Writing Politics ; but, taken loosely to illustrate a historical continuity, they show the changing face of oppression and violence, and the invention of new paths for improving justice. Arbitrary power is the enemy throughout—power that, by the nature of its asserted scope and authority, makes itself the judge of its own cause. King George III, whose reign spanned sixty years beginning in 1760, from the first was thought to have overextended monarchical power and prerogative, and by doing so to have reversed an understanding of parliamentary sovereignty that was tacitly recognized by his predecessors. Writing against the king, “Junius” (the pen name of Philip Francis) traced the monarch’s errors to a poor education; and he gave an edge of deliberate effrontery to the attack on arbitrary power by addressing the king as you. “It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress, which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth, until you heard it in the complaints of your people.”

A similar frankness, without the ad hominem spur, can be felt in Burke’s attack on the monarchical distrust of liberty at home as well as abroad: “If any ask me what a free Government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so; and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.” Writing in the same key from America, Thomas Paine, in his seventh number of The Crisis , gave a new description to the British attempt to preserve the unity of the empire by force of arms. He called it a war of conquest; and by addressing his warning directly “to the people of England,” he reminded the king’s subjects that war is always a social evil, for it sponsors a violence that does not terminate in itself. War enlarges every opportunity of vainglory—a malady familiar to monarchies.

The coming of democracy marks a turning point in modern discussions of sovereignty and the necessary protections of liberty. Confronted by the American annexation of parts of Mexico, in 1846–48, Thoreau saw to his disgust that a war of conquest could also be a popular war, the will of the people directed to the oppression of persons. It follows that the state apparatus built by democracy is at best an equivocal ally of individual rights. Yet as Emerson would recognize in his lecture “The Fugitive Slave Law,” and Frederick Douglass would confirm in “The Mission of the War,” the massed power of the state is likewise the only vehicle powerful enough to destroy a system of oppression as inveterate as American slavery had become by the 1850s.

Acceptance of political evil—a moral inertia that can corrupt the ablest of lawmakers—goes easily with the comforts of a society at peace where many are satisfied. “Here was the question,” writes Emerson: “Are you for man and for the good of man; or are you for the hurt and harm of man? It was question whether man shall be treated as leather? whether the Negroes shall be as the Indians were in Spanish America, a piece of money?” Emerson wondered at the apostasy of Daniel Webster, How came he there? The answer was that Webster had deluded himself by projecting a possible right from serial compromise with wrong.

Two ways lie open to correct the popular will without a relapse into docile assent and the rule of oligarchy. You may widen the terms of discourse and action by enlarging the community of participants. Alternatively, you may strengthen the opportunities of dissent through acts of exemplary protest—protest in speech, in action, or both. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. remain the commanding instances in this regard. Both led movements that demanded of every adherent that the protest serve as an express image of the society it means to bring about. Nonviolent resistance accordingly involves a public disclosure of the work of conscience—a demonstrated willingness to make oneself an exemplary warrior without war. Because they were practical reformers, Gandhi and King, within the societies they sought to reform, were engaged in what Michael Oakeshott calls “the pursuit of intimations.” They did not start from a model of the good society generated from outside. They built on existing practices of toleration, friendship, neighborly care, and respect for the dignity of strangers.

Nonviolent resistance, as a tactic of persuasion, aims to arouse an audience of the uncommitted by its show of discipline and civic responsibility. Well, but why not simply resist? Why show respect for the laws of a government you mean to change radically? Nonviolence, for Gandhi and King, was never merely a tactic, and there were moral as well as rhetorical reasons for their ethic of communal self-respect and self-command. Gandhi looked on the British empire as a commonwealth that had proved its ability to reform. King spoke with the authority of a native American, claiming the rights due to all Americans, and he evoked the ideals his countrymen often said they wished to live by. The stories the nation loved to tell of itself took pride in emancipation much more than pride in conquest and domination. “So,” wrote King from the Birmingham City Jail, “I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.”

A subtler enemy of liberty than outright prejudice and violent oppression is the psychological push toward conformity. This internalized docility inhabits and may be said to dictate the costume of manners in a democracy. Because the rule of mass opinion serves as a practical substitute for the absolute authority that is no longer available, it exerts an enormous and hidden pressure. This dangerous “omnipotence of the majority,” as Tocqueville called it, knows no power greater than itself; it resembles an absolute monarch in possessing neither the equipment nor the motive to render a judgment against itself. Toleration thus becomes a political value that requires as vigilant a defense as liberty. Minorities are marked not only by race, religion, and habits of association, but also by opinion.

“It is easy to see,” writes Walter Bagehot in “The Metaphysical Basis of Toleration,” “that very many believers would persecute sceptics” if they were given the means, “and that very many sceptics would persecute believers.” Bagehot has in mind religious belief, in particular, but the same intolerance operates when it is a question of penalizing a word, a gesture, a wrongly sympathetic or unsympathetic show of feeling by which a fellow citizen might claim to be offended. The more divided the society, the more it will crave implicit assurances of unity; the more unified it is, the more it wants an even greater show of unity—an unmistakable signal of membership and belonging that can be read as proof of collective solidarity. The “guilty fear of criticism,” Mary McCarthy remarked of the domestic fear of Communism in the 1950s, “the sense of being surrounded by an unappreciative world,” brought to American life a regimen of tests, codes, and loyalty oaths that were calculated to confirm rather than subdue the anxiety.

Proscribed and persecuted groups naturally seek a fortified community of their own, which should be proof against insult; and by 1870 or so, the sure method of creating such a community was to found a new nation. George Eliot took this remedy to be prudent and inevitable, in her sympathetic early account of the Zionist quest for a Jewish state, yet her unsparing portrait of English anti-Semitism seems to recognize the nation-remedy as a carrier of the same exclusion it hopes to abolish. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to a widened sense of community is the apparently intuitive—but in fact regularly inculcated—intellectual habit by which we divide people into racial, religious, and ethnic identities. The idea of an international confederation for peace was tried twice, without success, in the 20th century, with the League of Nations and the United Nations; but some such goal, first formulated in the political writings of Kant, has found memorable popular expression again and again.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s essay “Of the Ruling of Men” affords a prospect of international liberty that seems to the author simply the next necessary advance of common sense in the cause of humanity. Du Bois noticed in 1920 how late the expansion of rights had arrived at the rights of women. Always, the last hiding places of arbitrary power are the trusted arenas of privilege a society has come to accept as customary, and to which it has accorded the spurious honor of supposing it part of the natural order: men over women; the strong nations over the weak; corporate heads over employees. The pattern had come under scrutiny already in Harriet Taylor Mill’s “Enfranchisement of Women,” and its application to the hierarchies of ownership and labor would be affirmed in William Morris’s lecture “Useful Work Versus Useless Toil.” The commercial and manufacturing class, wrote Morris, “ force the genuine workers to provide for them”; no better (only more recondite in their procedures) are “the parasites” whose function is to defend the cause of property, “sometimes, as in the case of lawyers, undisguisedly so.” The socialists Morris and Du Bois regard the ultimate aim of a democratic world as the replacement of useless by useful work. With that change must also come the invention of a shared experience of leisure that is neither wasteful nor thoughtless.

A necessary bulwark of personal freedom is property, and in the commercial democracies for the past three centuries a usual means of agreement for the defense of property has been the contract. In challenging the sacredness of contract, in certain cases of conflict with a common good, T. H. Green moved the idea of “freedom of contract” from the domain of nature to that of social arrangements that are settled by convention and therefore subject to revision. The freedom of contract must be susceptible of modification when it fails to meet a standard of public well-being. The right of a factory owner, for example, to employ child labor if the child agrees, should not be protected. “No contract,” Green argues, “is valid in which human persons, willingly or unwillingly, are dealt with as commodities”; for when we speak of freedom, “we mean a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying.” And again:

When we measure the progress of a society by its growth in freedom, we measure it by the increasing development and exercise on the whole of those powers of contributing to social good with which we believe the members of the society to be endowed; in short, by the greater power on the part of the citizens as a body to make the most and best of themselves.

Legislation in the public interest may still be consistent with the principles of free society when it parts from a leading maxim of contractual individualism.

The very idea of a social contract has usually been taken to imply an obligation to die for the state. Though Hobbes and Locke offered reservations on this point, the classical theorists agree that the state yields the prospect of “commodious living” without which human life would be unsocial and greatly impoverished; and there are times when the state can survive only through the sacrifice of citizens. May there also be a duty of self-sacrifice against a state whose whole direction and momentum has bent it toward injustice? Hannah Arendt, in “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” asked that question regarding the conduct of state officials as well as ordinary people under the encroaching tyranny of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Citizens then, Arendt observes, had live options of political conduct besides passive obedience and open revolt. Conscientious opposition could show itself in public indications of nonsupport . This is a fact that the pervasiveness of conformism and careerism in mass societies makes harder to see than it should be.

Jonathan Swift, a writer as temperamentally diverse from Arendt as possible, shows in “A Modest Proposal” how the human creature goes about rationalizing any act or any policy, however atrocious. Our propensity to make-normal, to approve whatever renders life more orderly, can lead by the lightest of expedient steps to a plan for marketing the babies of the Irish poor as flesh suitable for eating. It is, after all—so Swift’s fictional narrator argues—a plausible design to alleviate poverty and distress among a large sector of the population, and to eliminate the filth and crowding that disgusts persons of a more elevated sort. The justification is purely utilitarian, and the proposer cites the most disinterested of motives: he has no financial or personal stake in the design. Civility has often been praised as a necessity of political argument, but Swift’s proposal is at once civil and, in itself, atrocious.

An absorbing concern of Arendt’s, as of several of the other essay writers gathered here, was the difficulty of thinking. We measure, we compute, we calculate, we weigh advantages and disadvantages—that much is only sensible, only logical—but we give reasons that are often blind to our motives, we rationalize and we normalize in order to justify ourselves. It is supremely difficult to use the equipment we learn from parents and teachers, which instructs us how to deal fairly with persons, and apply it to the relationship between persons and society, and between the manners of society and the laws of a nation. The 21st century has saddled persons of all nations with a catastrophic possibility, the destruction of a planetary environment for organized human life; and in facing the predicament directly, and formulating answers to the question it poses, the political thinkers of the past may help us chiefly by intimations. The idea of a good or tolerable society now encompasses relations between people at the widest imaginable distance apart. It must also cover a new relation of stewardship between humankind and nature.

Having made the present selection with the abovementioned topics in view—the republican defense against arbitrary power; the progress of liberty; the coming of mass-suffrage democracy and its peculiar dangers; justifications for political dissent and disobedience; war, as chosen for the purpose of domination or as necessary to destroy a greater evil; the responsibilities of the citizen; the political meaning of work and the conditions of work—an anthology of writings all in English seemed warranted by the subject matter. For in the past three centuries, these issues have been discussed most searchingly by political critics and theorists in Britain and the United States.

The span covers the Glorious Revolution and its achievement of parliamentary sovereignty; the American Revolution, and the civil war that has rightly been called the second American revolution; the expansion of the franchise under the two great reform bills in England and the 15th amendment to the US constitution; the two world wars and the Holocaust; and the mass movements of nonviolent resistance that brought national independence to India and broadened the terms of citizenship of black Americans. The sequence gives adequate evidence of thinkers engaged in a single conversation. Many of these authors were reading the essayists who came before them; and in many cases (Burke and Paine, Lincoln and Douglass, Churchill and Orwell), they were reading each other.

Writing Politics contains no example of the half-political, half-commercial genre of “leadership” writing. Certain other principles that guided the editor will be obvious at a glance, but may as well be stated. Only complete essays are included, no extracts. This has meant excluding great writers—Hobbes, Locke, Wollstonecraft, and John Stuart Mill, among others—whose definitive political writing came in the shape of full-length books. There are likewise no chapters of books; no party manifestos or statements of creed; nothing that was first published posthumously. All of these essays were written at the time noted, were meant for an audience of the time, and were published with an eye to their immediate effect. This is so even in cases (as with Morris and Du Bois) where the author had in view the reformation of a whole way of thinking. Some lectures have been included—the printed lecture was an indispensable medium for political ideas in the 19th century—but there are no party speeches delivered by an official to advance a cause of the moment.

Two exceptions to the principles may prove the rule. Abraham Lincoln’s letter to James C. Conkling was a public letter, written to defend the Emancipation Proclamation, in which, a few months earlier, President Lincoln had declared the freedom of all slaves in the rebelling states; he now extended the order to cover black soldiers who fought for the Union: “If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.” Lincoln was risking his presidency when he published this extraordinary appeal and admonition, and his view was shared by Frederick Douglass in “The Mission of the War”: “No war but an Abolition war, no peace but an Abolition peace.” The other exception is “The Roots of Honour,” John Ruskin’s attack on the mercenary morality of 19th-century capitalism . He called the chapter “Essay I” in Unto This Last , and his nomenclature seemed a fair excuse for reprinting an ineradicable prophecy.

__________________________________

From Writing Politics , edited by David Bromwich. Copyright © 2020 by David Bromwich; courtesy of NYRB Classics.

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Political political theory: Essays on institutions

Jeremy Waldron Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2016, 416pp., ISBN: 978-0-674-74385-4

• Published: 16 November 2016
• Volume 16 , pages 553–556, ( 2017 )

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• Jan Pieter Beetz 1  

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Recently political theorists and philosophers have taken a greater interest in theorising real-world politics. Practice-dependent methods, political realism, and non-ideal theory exemplify and contribute to this shift. In this context, Jeremy Waldron’s Political Political Theory can be considered as another move in these debates. In a similar vein to realists, Waldron argues that too much time is being devoted to theorising justice. In the everyday practice of politics, justice or any other ethical or political aim remains the object of disagreement. Consequently, Waldron argues, ‘we need to inquire into the structures that are to house and redefine our disputes and the processes that are to regulate the way we resolve them’ (p. 5). More specifically, political theorists should explore ‘the foundations’ of modern democratic institutions and constitutional principles, such as political parties and federalism. In this book, which consists of previously published essays edited for this collection and three completely new chapters, Waldron’s insightful reflections uncover many nuances in principles often taken for granted in designing political institutions.

The book consists of three parts. The first part is the introductory chapter, which sets the theoretical stage for the rest of the collection. Waldron’s point of departure is that political theory should take seriously that disagreement about many concepts, such as justice and freedom, is the reason for politics. Political institutions and constitutional principles are the real-world normative tools to address such disagreements. Because institutions are real-world constructs rather than abstract entities, this has the methodological implication that political philosophy should take into account empirical research on their real-world consequences. The work of the philosopher should not, or at least not solely, assess institutions based on a particular conception of justice, liberty, or another aim. Waldron adds that analytical political theorists ‘must reflect also on the deeper layers of dignitarian value’ (p. 9), such as respect and recognition. These values shape people’s expectations of their political institutions; hence they are intrinsic to institutions’ normative value.

These claims are not necessarily new to those familiar with recent debates on political realism, practice-dependent methods, and non-ideal theory—a body of literature with which Waldron’s engagement is rather brief and mostly limited to the work of Bernard Williams. He argues that Williams is interested in security rather than justice. Contrary to Waldron’s interpretation, there is much on which they agree. Both authors align in their conceptual claims about the nature of ‘the political’ as a realm of disagreement requiring authoritative decision-makers. Moreover, both authors agree on the need to be more relevant for the actual endeavour of politics than has been the norm in the Anglo-Saxon analytical tradition. Arguably Waldron does not intend to add to the methodological side of these debates. Nevertheless, substantively, his interest in political institutions that can funnel disagreement in practice constitutes an invaluable contribution to these debates.

A suggestion for readers is that, after reading the first chapter, they turn to the final two chapters before delving into the second part of the book. These essays analyse the work of two twentieth century political theorists: Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, respectively. Both essays address how far these influential political theorists take political institutions seriously. Chapter 11, by Waldron’s own admission (p. 289), is a polemic on the political thought of Berlin. The central substantive thrust of the chapter is that Berlin overlooks the importance of political institutions. Although agreeing with Berlin’s analysis of value pluralism, his neglect of Enlightenment constitutionalism has impoverished British political thought, so claims Waldron (pp. 288–289). In stark contrast, chapter 12 celebrates the political thought of Hannah Arendt. According to Waldron, Arendt’s insistence on ‘the metaphor of the house’ when theorising politics indicates the central importance of institutions in her thought. That claim might be controversial; Arendt has written much on extraconstitutional politics rather than ordinary everyday politics. Waldron’s focus on the place of institutions in Arendt’s political thought can account for this partial picture. The more important point of these essays is that they further explicate many of Waldron’s commitments and concerns behind reflecting on political institutions and constitutional principles of modern democracies. The chapters in the middle of the book are Waldron’s contribution to reintroducing them into contemporary political thought.

The ‘second’ part of the book—chapters 2 through 10—is a heterogeneous collection of essays on various democratic institutions. These chapters explore topics such as constitutionalism, bicameralism, accountability, and the majoritarian decision-making principle. Waldron uses different argumentative logics in his reflections. For instance, in his reflection on bicameralism (ch. 4), Waldron relies on arguments by canonical political philosophers, such as Locke and Montesquieu, to offer ‘an anatomy lesson’ (p. 91) on the different principles to decide between alternative modes of representation in the legislator. On the other hand, in chapter 9 on judicial review, Waldron explicitly avoids ‘both [judicial review’s] historical manifestations and questions about its particular effects’ (p. 197) but starts his argument from an ‘imagined society’ (p. 203) instead. He thus advances a normative argument against judicial review. This diversity in topics and approaches results in a lack of consistency; but this is after all a collection of essays. One could also interpret the diversity as a strength; a focus on institutions can accommodate diverse normative political approaches. Substantively, the essays offer rich analyses of different norms behind democratic institutions, and while they may not always offer determinate answers, they always illuminate important normative issues.

Despite the diverse topics, and methods, a normative thread runs through these chapters. Waldron defends parliament as the legislative heart of modern mass democracy. Of course, his criticism of judicial review is well-known. But also when arguing for the dignity of the executive in the separation of powers (ch. 3), another upshot is that the legislator, that is parliament, should be autonomous from government. At several points, in this chapter and others, Waldron criticises the rise of executive power in modern democracies. This branch has been able to extract effective decision-making powers from the parliaments. His normative position thus defies empirical developments. However, as Waldron puts it, ‘Even if the principle [of the separation of powers] is dying a sclerotic death, even if it misconceives the character of modern political institutions, it still points to something that was once deemed valuable … and may still be valuable’ (pp. 70–71).

From the generalizability of the substantive concern, Waldron’s primary focus on Anglo-Saxon democracies (Great Britain, the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) might be seen as a problem. The rise of executive power is not limited to these democracies. Most modern democracies face an increasingly powerful executive. However, Waldron’s Anglo-Saxon orientation effectively excludes interesting normative questions. For instance, how do and should multi-party systems on the European continent institutionalise the principle of loyal opposition? Or does this system (rightfully) prioritise another democratic principle? Waldron sometimes touches upon these differences but does not delve into them in a systematic way.

A central contribution of this book is its orientation toward a set of highly relevant questions of practical consequence for modern democracies. Although questions of justice and freedom raise important policy questions, such as about the need for a basic income or about privacy rights in a digital age, these questions tend to remain the object of on-going debate in deeply pluralistic societies. Authoritative democratic institutions needed to decide peacefully on these issues, however, can no longer be taken for granted. Notwithstanding Waldron’s statist focus, we face immediate questions about how to legitimately institutionalise democratic politics in our age of globalisation. The recent Brexit illustrates that a legitimacy deficit can undermine the political institutions—in this case the European Union—needed for authoritative concerted action on such issues, even if the real-world solutions are often non-ideal compromises. These institutions are relevant because, in an age of mass migration, global capitalism, and transnational governance, concerns about justice and freedom are not contained within the boundaries of nation-states. The reorientation to political institutions is thus not merely valuable as a counterbalance to the contemporary preoccupation with conceptions of justice or other political aims. This reorientation also results in the theorisation of important questions facing democratic politics in the real world. Waldron’s essays illustrate that these questions of institutional design are not normatively barren soil. Instead, his book shows that institutions can provoke insightful normative reflections. In sum, Political Political Theory offers an excellent and enjoyable read for political theorists with an interest in real-world politics.

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Beetz, J.P. Political political theory: Essays on institutions. Contemp Polit Theory 16 , 553–556 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-016-0081-z

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How Films Like ‘Civil War’ Can Spark Important Conversations and Help Defeat the ‘Outrage Industrial Complex’ (Guest Column)

By Steven Olikara

Steven Olikara

When millions of Americans came together to marvel at the stunning solar eclipse, we saw a rare moment of unity amid the darkness of a country torn apart by polarization. Bookending the same week? The release of action-thriller “ Civil War ,” now the number one film in America and A24 Films’ most successful release yet. Set against the backdrop of an imagined second American Civil War, the film follows photojournalists led by Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), as they capture the horrors of a failed country.

Popular on Variety

When I consider the larger trends in our country, the film’s dystopian depiction feels alarmingly prophetic, as fear-driven rhetoric and ideological silos push us further apart. A 2022 poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 40 percent of Americans believe a new civil war is “at least somewhat likely” in the next decade, and by some measures, we may already be in a cold civil war. It was only a matter of time until a movie like “Civil War” portrayed the devastating potential of our toxic political culture.

However, entrenched systems in our entertainment, media, and politics over-amplify a culture of contempt, blocking out the genuine connections that bind Americans together. Research from More in Common shows there is a “perception gap” that proves we are not nearly as divided as we are led to believe. 79% of Americans say, given the opportunity, they would play a part in reducing social divisions.

The reality is, the proven solutions — from the personal and local level, to the national and systemic level— don’t get the screen time, and people lose hope. We need to change that. Here are three of the most important strategies to steer America clear from a second civil war:

• Bridge Building over Bomb Throwing: Building bridges across differences offers the opportunity to enrich your understanding of an issue and even rebuild relationships with friends and family members. Think about building bridges like jazz musicians create art — listen openly, assemble a diverse ensemble and riff on ideas. While riffing, ask questions with the intention to learn. As Civil War actor Wagner Moura highlighted on CBS Sunday Morning, “Now I’m really making an effort to sit down and listen to people that I disagree [with]. And I was absolutely surprised to see that if you value democracy…there’s lots of common ground.”

Our society’s bridging muscles have atrophied, but we can exercise them in the realm of cultural experiences before getting to politics. For example, Americans across our many divides helped elevate basketball star Caitlin Clark and the NCAA women’s March Madness final, breaking viewership records. Sports are a great unifier — and a starting point for re-humanizing fellow Americans who might disagree on other topics. Sharing common cultural moments builds the bonds that we need in our society for local and national progress.

• Expand Your Media Palate for Richer Stories: Garland is right to highlight journalists as essential to democracy. But how we consume that journalism — which often feeds red meat and dopamine hits to reinforce your biases — has a major impact on whether we exacerbate division in America. Just as a varied diet is essential for physical health, diversifying media consumption is vital for civic well-being.

Be mindful of social media algorithms and break out of their echo chambers. Actively seek diverse voice — left and right, establishment and independent, from our coastal cities to middle America — to foster a more nuanced understanding of our world. Explore newer platforms seeking to disrupt the polarization of media. Former CNN chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin’s News Not Noise and AllSides.com are two exciting examples.

• Reform the Outrage Industrial Complex: We must also remember that entrenched systems are profiting off of our divisions. The dirty secret is that most members of Congress are cordial and reasonable behind the scenes — only to dish up vitriol when the cameras are on. We can combat the outrage industrial complex by advocating for systemic change. Push for reforms like open, nonpartisan primaries, combined with ranked choice general elections (currently adopted in Alaska, for example), to incentivize politicians to appeal to a broader base — the “exhausted majority.” Delivering results, instead of fueling hatred, will earn people’s trust back in our institutions.

As the credits roll on Civil War, and we emerge from the darkness of the theater, we are left with an imperative choice: remain passive viewers of a potential future or take active roles in forging a new path. Whether we channel our energy towards the real solutions designed to prevent a second civil war is up to us. And leaders in entertainment, media, and politics can choose to highlight our capacity to connect across divides, rather than perpetuate the cycles of dehumanization. Together, we can choose to replace the guns of self-destruction with the open hands and minds of a strong democracy. We can create a new story of us — and of the U.S.

Steven Olikara is the president of Bridge Entertainment Labs , dedicated to harnessing the power of entertainment media and culture-change to transform the divisions in America. He is also the founder and former CEO of Future Caucus (formerly Millennial Action Project), the largest cross-partisan organization of young elected officials in the U.S.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade – the decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years – has shifted the legal battle over abortion to the states, with some prohibiting the procedure and others moving to safeguard it.

As the nation’s post-Roe chapter begins, here are key facts about Americans’ views on abortion, based on two Pew Research Center polls: one conducted from June 25-July 4 , just after this year’s high court ruling, and one conducted in March , before an earlier leaked draft of the opinion became public.

This analysis primarily draws from two Pew Research Center surveys, one surveying 10,441 U.S. adults conducted March 7-13, 2022, and another surveying 6,174 U.S. adults conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Here are the questions used for the March survey , along with responses, and the questions used for the survey from June and July , along with responses.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.  Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. About six-in-ten adults (57%) disapprove of the court’s decision that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion and that abortion laws can be set by states, including 43% who strongly disapprove, according to the summer survey. About four-in-ten (41%) approve, including 25% who strongly approve.

About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (82%) disapprove of the court’s decision, including nearly two-thirds (66%) who strongly disapprove. Most Republicans and GOP leaners (70%) approve , including 48% who strongly approve.

Most women (62%) disapprove of the decision to end the federal right to an abortion. More than twice as many women strongly disapprove of the court’s decision (47%) as strongly approve of it (21%). Opinion among men is more divided: 52% disapprove (37% strongly), while 47% approve (28% strongly).

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the summer survey – little changed since the March survey conducted just before the ruling. That includes 29% of Americans who say it should be legal in all cases and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases. About a third of U.S. adults (36%) say abortion should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases.

Generally, Americans’ views of whether abortion should be legal remained relatively unchanged in the past few years , though support fluctuated somewhat in previous decades.

Relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the legality of abortion – either supporting or opposing it at all times, regardless of circumstances. The March survey found that support or opposition to abortion varies substantially depending on such circumstances as when an abortion takes place during a pregnancy, whether the pregnancy is life-threatening or whether a baby would have severe health problems.

While Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on the legality of abortion have long differed, the 46 percentage point partisan gap today is considerably larger than it was in the recent past, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling. The wider gap has been largely driven by Democrats: Today, 84% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 72% in 2016 and 63% in 2007. Republicans’ views have shown far less change over time: Currently, 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, nearly identical to the 39% who said this in 2007.

However, the partisan divisions over whether abortion should generally be legal tell only part of the story. According to the March survey, sizable shares of Democrats favor restrictions on abortion under certain circumstances, while majorities of Republicans favor abortion being legal in some situations , such as in cases of rape or when the pregnancy is life-threatening.

There are wide religious divides in views of whether abortion should be legal , the summer survey found. An overwhelming share of religiously unaffiliated adults (83%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do six-in-ten Catholics. Protestants are divided in their views: 48% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 50% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Majorities of Black Protestants (71%) and White non-evangelical Protestants (61%) take the position that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while about three-quarters of White evangelicals (73%) say it should be illegal in all (20%) or most cases (53%).

In the March survey, 72% of White evangelicals said that the statement “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” reflected their views extremely or very well . That’s much greater than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (32%), Black Protestants (38%) and Catholics (44%) who said the same. Overall, 38% of Americans said that statement matched their views extremely or very well.

Catholics, meanwhile, are divided along religious and political lines in their attitudes about abortion, according to the same survey. Catholics who attend Mass regularly are among the country’s strongest opponents of abortion being legal, and they are also more likely than those who attend less frequently to believe that life begins at conception and that a fetus has rights. Catholic Republicans, meanwhile, are far more conservative on a range of abortion questions than are Catholic Democrats.

Women (66%) are more likely than men (57%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling.

More than half of U.S. adults – including 60% of women and 51% of men – said in March that women should have a greater say than men in setting abortion policy . Just 3% of U.S. adults said men should have more influence over abortion policy than women, with the remainder (39%) saying women and men should have equal say.

The March survey also found that by some measures, women report being closer to the abortion issue than men . For example, women were more likely than men to say they had given “a lot” of thought to issues around abortion prior to taking the survey (40% vs. 30%). They were also considerably more likely than men to say they personally knew someone (such as a close friend, family member or themselves) who had had an abortion (66% vs. 51%) – a gender gap that was evident across age groups, political parties and religious groups.

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms , the March survey found. Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say having an abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that having an abortion is morally wrong in most cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable in most cases. An additional 21% do not consider having an abortion a moral issue.

Among Republicans, most (68%) say that having an abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Only about three-in-ten Democrats (29%) hold a similar view. Instead, about four-in-ten Democrats say having an abortion is morally  acceptable  in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say it is not a moral issue. 

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say having an abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view having an abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see having an abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

• Religion & Abortion

Jane Doe is a a research analyst focusing on social and demographic research at Pew Research Center

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in europe, nearly a year after roe’s demise, americans’ views of abortion access increasingly vary by where they live, by more than two-to-one, americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state, most latinos say democrats care about them and work hard for their vote, far fewer say so of gop, most popular.

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Why Did U.S. Planes Defend Israel but Not Ukraine?

There are lessons for other nations in the events of the past few days.

On April 13, the Islamic Republic of Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel. Also on April 13, as well as on April 12, 14, and 15, the Russian Federation launched missiles and drones at Ukraine—including some designed in Iran.

Few of the weapons launched by Iran hit their mark. Instead, American and European airplanes, alongside Israeli and even Jordanian airplanes, knocked the drones and missiles out of the sky.

By contrast, some of the attacks launched by Russia did destroy their targets. Ukraine, acting alone, and—thanks to the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives—running short on defensive ammunition, was unable to knock all of the drones and missiles out of the sky. On April 12 Russian strikes badly damaged an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk. On April 13, a 61-year-old woman and 68-year-old man were killed by a Russian strike in Kharkiv. On April 14, an aerial bomb hit an apartment building in Ocheretyne, killing one and injuring two. On April 15, a Russian guided missile hit a school and killed at least two more people in the Kharkiv region.

Eliot A. Cohen: The ‘Israel model’ won’t work for Ukraine

Why the difference in reaction? Why did American and European jets scramble to help Israel, but not Ukraine? Why doesn’t Ukraine have enough matériel to defend itself? One difference is the balance of nuclear power. Russia has nuclear weapons, and its propagandists periodically threaten to use them. That has made the U.S. and Europe reluctant to enter the skies over Ukraine. Israel also has nuclear weapons, but that affects the calculus in a different way: It means that the U.S., Europe, and even some Arab states are eager to make sure that Israel is never provoked enough to use them, or indeed to use any serious conventional weapons, against Iran.

A second difference between the two conflicts is that the Republican Party remains staunchly resistant to propaganda coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Leading Republicans do not sympathize with the mullahs, do not repeat their talking points, and do not seek to appease them when they make outrageous claims about other countries. That enables the Biden administration to rush to the aid of Israel, because no serious opposition will follow.

By contrast, a part of the Republican Party, including its presidential candidate, does sympathize with the Russian dictatorship, does repeat its talking points, and does seek to appease Russia when it invades and occupies other countries. The absence of bipartisan solidarity around Ukraine means that the Republican congressional leadership has prevented the Biden administration from sending even defensive weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. The Biden administration appears to feel constrained and unable to provide Ukraine with the spontaneous assistance that it just provided to Israel.

Open sympathy for the war aims of the Russian state is rarely stated out loud. Instead, some leading Republicans have begun, in the past few months, to argue that Ukraine should “shift to a defensive war,” to give up any hope of retaining its occupied territory, or else stop fighting altogether. Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio, in a New York Times essay written in what can only be described as extraordinary bad faith, made exactly this argument just last week. So too, for example, did Republican Representative Eli Crane of Arizona, who has said that military aid for Ukraine “should be totally off the table and replaced with a push for peace talks.”

Eliot A. Cohen: The war is not going well for Ukraine

But Ukraine is already fighting a defensive war. The matériel that the Republicans are refusing to send includes—let me repeat it again—defensive munitions. There is no evidence whatsoever that cutting off any further aid to Ukraine would end the fighting or bring peace talks. On the contrary, all of the evidence indicates that blocking aid would allow Russia to advance faster, take more territory, and eventually murder far more Ukrainians, as Vance and Crane surely know. Without wanting to put it that boldly, they seem already to see themselves in some kind of alliance with Russia, and therefore they want Ukraine to be defeated. They do not see themselves in alliance with Iran, despite the fact that Iran and Russia would regard one another as partners.

For the rest of the world, there are some lessons here. Plenty of countries, perhaps including Ukraine and Iran, will draw the first and most obvious conclusion: Nuclear weapons make you much safer. Not only can you deter attacks with a nuclear shield, and not only can you attack other countries with comparative impunity, but you can also, under certain circumstances, expect others to join in your defense.

Perhaps others will draw the other obvious conclusion: A part of the Republican Party—one large enough to matter—can be co-opted, lobbied, or purchased outright. Not only can you get it to repeat your propaganda, but you can also get it to act directly in your interests. This probably doesn’t cost even a fraction of the price of tanks and artillery, and it can be far more effective.

No doubt many will make use of both of these lessons in the future.

🗳️ The ones to watch | Morning Newsletter

And how to say “Passyunk,” correctly.

The Morning Newsletter

Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Pennsylvania’s primary election day will be a beautiful one — sunny with temps in the high 60s.

Polling sites are open today from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters who requested and haven’t yet returned mail ballots should deliver them in person to ensure they’re received in time to be counted .

You can pop over to Inquirer.com throughout the day to see the latest on what’s happening at the polls. In the meantime, scroll for a full rundown on the biggest races of this election , and on the most important political storylines we’re watching .

Plus, what’s the right way to say “Passyunk”? We rounded up the most common pronunciations for an explainer on how the uniquely Philadelphian word came to be .

— Julie Zeglen ( @juliezeglen , [email protected] )

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here .

On your mark

Happy primary election day, Philly.

The 2024 primaries determine who will be on the ballot in the fall representing the major U.S. parties. Because Pennsylvania has a closed primary, voters can vote only for candidates in the parties for which they’re registered (i.e. Democrats can vote only for Democrats, Republicans can vote only for Republicans, and independent voters will have to wait for November).

The presidential race is set, with a repeat matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump all but certain in November. That means in purple Pennsylvania, the primary races with the highest stakes are for several key state and congressional races .

U.S. Senate: This fall’s race is already determined, too, but it’s an interesting one. Pennsylvania Democrats’ pick is incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, who has spent nearly 18 years in office . Republicans have Dave McCormick, the former hedge fund CEO who narrowly lost the 2022 primary .

U.S. House of Representatives: The state has a number of competitive congressional races. On the Republican side, that includes U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick vs. anti-abortion activist Mark Houck in Bucks County , as well as three candidates vying to take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild in the Lehigh Valley . For Democrats, there’s U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans vs. former Philly Register of Wills Tracey Gordon in the city’s 3rd District , U.S. Rep Summer Lee vs. Bhavini Patel in Pittsburgh , and six candidates competing to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry in Dauphin County .

Attorney general: State AGs have played an increasingly important role in national politics in recent years. Pennsylvania has five Democrats and two Republicans running .

Also of interest: Keep an eye on the races for state auditor general , West Philly’s 10th District state House seat , and the Far Northeast’s 172nd District state House seat .

And a grab bag of explainers on election-related topics: what the single ballot question means , who The Inquirer’s editorial board is endorsing , which businesses and city services are affected today , how to become a poll worker , and how to recycle campaign lawn signs .

We’ll have a good sense of the results of most races later tonight . Now, off to the polls!

How do you say “Passyunk”?

PASS-ee-unk? PASH-unk? PASS-yunk? PASH-ee-unk?

Ask five Philadelphians and they may all say something different.

The word that describes the modern South Philly avenue and neighborhood is also the Lenape word for “in the valley (ies).” The original pronunciation was likely something like “Pah-SIGH-unk,” per one expert.

But of course, language evolves. The Inquirer’s team identified five pronunciations of the word, all of which surely have strong defenders. Check out our interactive story to hear them all.

What you should know today

The Philadelphia Police Department has withdrawn the arrest warrant issued last week for State Rep. Kevin Boyle after officials learned Monday that there is no active Protection From Abuse order that he could have violated .

A Chester County judge rejected a legal motion from local Republicans that could have blocked some mail ballots from counting in Tuesday’s primary .

Leaders of Philly’s Office of Homeless Services “knowingly” overspent millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for several years and were unable to financially keep up with their own growth, according to the city’s inspector general .

New Jersey is proposing new rules to better protect patients from sexual misconduct in doctors’ offices, such as emphasizing patients’ right to an observer during sensitive examinations .

The Greyhound bus station may be moving from its current high-traffic, unsheltered location in Northern Liberties by Labor Day. The move would be the station’s third since June .

The former mayor of Wildwood faces new criminal charges for allegedly abusing his official position while serving as the shore town’s commissioner and for failing to pay state taxes .

A 12-year-old at Pennbrook Middle School was attacked by a fellow student with a metal Stanley mug and taken to the hospital last week. Staff were allegedly warned that an attack was coming .

Agents whose job it is to sell multimillion-dollar penthouses said that after a lackluster 2023, Philadelphia’s high-end luxury market in the first few months of 2024 has been strong .

Philly-made superstar pianist Yuja Wang returns for a Kimmel Center recital next week. Arts reporter Peter Dobrin explains why she has been an almost peerless musical personality .

🧠 Trivia time

Energy prices have stabilized in Philadelphia, but routine rate adjustments are coming. How much should residents expect their utility bills — gas, water, and electric combined — to increase per month by the end of 2024?

Think you know? Check your answer.

What we're...

🥚 Thanking: The Philly Typewriter team for explaining this probably-not-an-Easter-egg found on The Tortured Poets Department .

📚 Celebrating: World Book Day at Philadelphia’s Mexican Cultural Center .

👩‍🦰 Hoping: Praying, begging for Abbott Elementary to fulfill this perfect casting dream .

🧩 Unscramble the anagram

This annual sporting event will bring some of the world’s best track and field talent to the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field this week.

ANN PRESLEY

Email us if you know the answer . We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Jen Ragen, who solved Monday’s anagram: The Starting Line . The local pop punk band got name-dropped on Berks County native Taylor Swift’s new album .

Photo of the day

An Earth Day festival in West Philly held space for a land acknowledgement and ceremonial performance by Indigenous community members. The photos are a sight to behold.

Thanks for starting your day with The Inquirer, and happy voting.

By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use , including the grant of rights in Section 10.

Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias

The public radio network is being targeted by conservative activists over the editor’s essay, which many staffers say is misleading and inaccurate.

Uri Berliner had worked at NPR for a quarter-century when he wrote the essay that would abruptly end his tenure. On April 9, the Free Press published 3,500 words from Berliner, a senior business editor, about how the public radio network is guilty of journalistic malpractice — for conforming to a politically liberal worldview at the expense of fairness and accuracy.

“It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed,” Berliner wrote. “We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. In recent years, however, that has changed.”

The essay, whose arguments were disputed by NPR management and many staffers, plunged the network into a week-long public controversy.

Last week NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, indirectly referenced Berliner’s essay in a note to staff that NPR also published online. “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions,” she wrote. “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

The drama reached a pinnacle Wednesday, when Berliner resigned while taking a shot at Maher.

In his resignation letter, Berliner called NPR “a great American institution” that should not be defunded. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote in the letter, posted on his X account. “But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner’s comments have angered many of his now-former colleagues, who dismissed as inaccurate his depiction of their workplace and who say his faulty criticisms have been weaponized against them.

Berliner’s essay is titled “ I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust .” On its face, it seemed to confirm the worst suspicions held by NPR’s critics on the right: that the legendary media organization had an ideological, progressive agenda that dictates its journalism. The Free Press is an online publication started by journalist Bari Weiss, whose own resignation from the New York Times in 2020 was used by conservative politicians as evidence that the Times stifled certain ideas and ideologies; Weiss accused the Times of catering to a rigid, politically left-leaning worldview and of refusing to defend her against online “bullies” when she expressed views to the contrary. Berliner’s essay was accompanied by several glossy portraits and a nearly hour-long podcast interview with Weiss. He also went on NewsNation, where the host Chris Cuomo — who had been cast out from CNN for crossing ethical lines to help his governor-brother — called Berliner a “whistleblower.”

Initially, Berliner was suspended for not getting approval for doing work for another publication. NPR policy requires receiving written permission from supervisors “for all outside freelance and journalistic work,” according to the employee handbook.

An NPR spokeswoman said Wednesday that the network does not comment on personnel matters. Berliner declined The Washington Post’s request for further comment.

In an interview Tuesday with NPR’s David Folkenflik — whose work is also criticized in the Free Press essay — Berliner said “we have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.”

Berliner’s future at NPR became an open question. NPR leaders were pressed by staff in meetings this week as to why he was still employed there. And some reporters made clear they didn’t want to be edited by Berliner anymore because they now questioned his journalistic judgment, said one prominent NPR journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships. “How are you supposed to have honest debates about coverage if you think it’s going to be fodder for the point he’s trying to make?” the staffer said.

Berliner had written that “there’s an unspoken consensus” about stories to pursue at NPR — “of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies” — and that the network operated without friction, “almost like an assembly line.”

Several prominent NPR journalists countered that impression. “We have strong, heated editorial debates every day to try and get the most appropriate language and nuanced reporting in a landscape that is divisive and difficult to work in as a journalist,” Leila Fadel, host of “Morning Edition,” told The Post. “Media and free independent press are often under attack for the fact-based reporting that we do.” She called Berliner’s essay “a bad-faith effort” and a “factually inaccurate take on our work that was filled with omissions to back his arguments.”

Other staffers noted that Berliner did not seek comment from NPR for his piece. No news organization is above reproach, “Weekend Edition” host Ayesha Rascoe told The Post, but someone should not “be able to tear down an entire organization’s work without any sort of response or context provided, or pushback.” There are many legitimate critiques to make of NPR’s coverage, she added, “but the way this has been done — it’s to invalidate all the work NPR does.”

NPR is known to have a very collegial culture, and the manner in which Berliner aired his criticism — perhaps even more than the substance of it — is what upset so many of his co-workers, according to one staffer.

“Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep, writing on his Substack on Tuesday , fact-checked or contextualized several of the arguments Berliner made. For instance: Berliner wrote that he once asked “why we keep using that word that many Hispanics hate — Latinx.” Inskeep said he searched 90 days of NPR’s content and found “Latinx” was used nine times — “usually by a guest” — compared to the nearly 400 times “Latina” and “Latino” were used.

“This article needed a better editor,” Inskeep wrote. “I don’t know who, if anyone, edited Uri’s story, but they let him publish an article that discredited itself. … A careful read of the article shows many sweeping statements for which the writer is unable to offer evidence.”

This week conservative activist Christopher Rufo — who rose to fame for targeting “critical race theory,” and whose scrutiny of Harvard President Claudine Gay preceded her resignation — set his sights on Maher, surfacing old social media posts she wrote before she joined the news organization. In one 2020 tweet, she referred to Trump as a “deranged racist.” Others posts show her wearing a Biden hat, or wistfully daydreaming about hanging out with Kamala D. Harris. Rufo has called for Maher’s resignation.

“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” Maher wrote in a statement to The Post, when asked about the social media posts. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public.”

Maher, who started her job as NPR CEO last month, previously was the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. An NPR spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that Maher “was not working in journalism at the time” of the social media posts; she was “exercising her first amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen,” and “the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.”

In a statement, an NPR spokesperson described the outcry over Maher’s old posts as “a bad faith attack that follows an established playbook, as online actors with explicit agendas work to discredit independent news organizations.”

Meanwhile, some NPR staffers want a more forceful defense of NPR journalism by management. An internal letter — signed by about 50 NPR staffers as of Wednesday afternoon — called on Maher and NPR editor in chief Edith Chapin to “publicly and directly” call out Berliner’s “factual inaccuracies and elisions.”

In the essay, Berliner accuses NPR of mishandling three major stories: the allegations of the 2016 Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, the origins of the coronavirus , and the authenticity and relevance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Berliner’s critics note that he didn’t oversee coverage of these stories. They also say that his essay indirectly maligns employee affinity groups — he name-checks groups for Muslim, Jewish, queer and Black employees, which he wrote “reflect broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic at birth.” (Berliner belonged to the group for Jewish employees, according to an NPR staffer with knowledge of membership.) He also writes that he found NPR’s D.C. newsroom employed 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans in editorial positions in 2021. His critics say this figure lacks proper context.

Tony Cavin, NPR’s managing editor of standards and practices, told The Post that “I have no idea where he got that number,” that NPR’s newsroom has 660 employees, and that “I know a number of our hosts and staff are registered as independents.” That includes Inskeep, who, on his Substack, backed up Cavin’s assessment.

Berliner also wrote that, during the administration of Donald Trump , NPR “hitched our wagon” to top Trump antagonist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) by interviewing him 25 times about Trump and Russia. Cavin told The Post NPR aired 900 interviews with lawmakers during the same period of time, “so that’s 3 percent. He’s a business reporter, he knows about statistics and it seems he’s selectively using statistics.”

Cavin said some inside the organization agree with points Berliner made, even if they “don’t like the way he went about it. The irony of this is it tells you how diverse as an organization we are, in ideological terms.”

“There are a few bits of truth in this,” NPR international correspondent Eyder Peralta wrote on Facebook. But he said the essay “uses a selecting reading to serve the author’s own world views” and paints with “too broad a brush.”

“I have covered wars, I have been thrown in jail for my work,” Peralta told The Post, “and for him to question part of what is in our nature, which is intellectual curiosity and that we follow our noses where they lead us, that hurts. And I think that damages NPR.”

Some staffers have also been attacked online since the essay’s publication. Rascoe, who, as a Black woman host for NPR, says she’s no stranger to online vitriol, but one message after Berliner’s essay labeled her as a “DEI hire” who has “never read a book in her life.”

“What stung about this one was it came on the basis of a supposed colleague’s op-ed,” whose words were “being used as fodder to attack me,” Rascoe said. “And my concern is not about me, but all the younger journalists who don’t have the platform I have and who will be attacked and their integrity questioned simply on the basis of who they are.”

NPR, like much of the media industry, has struggled in recent years with a declining audience and a tough ad market. NPR laid off 100 workers in 2023, one of its largest layoffs ever , citing fewer sponsorships and a projected $30 million decline in revenue.

Going forward, some staffers worry about the ramifications of Berliner’s essay and the reactions to it. The open letter to Maher and Chapin said that “sending the message that a public essay is the easiest way to make change is setting a bad precedent, regardless of the ideologies being expressed.”

An earlier version of this article included a reference to Uri Berliner's Free Press essay in which Berliner cited voter registration data for editorial employees of NPR's D.C. newsroom. The article has been updated to clarify that this data was from 2021, not the present day.

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LA Times Today: Supreme Court divided on homelessness case that will impact California encampment policy

Watch l.a. times today at 7 p.m. on spectrum news 1 on channel 1 or live stream on the spectrum news app. palos verdes peninsula and orange county viewers can watch on cox systems on channel 99..

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