Politics and the Political

Abstract

Aside from disciplinary interests and considerations – What is the nature and scope of political activity? How do political philosophy and political theory relate to political science? How should we best study this particular region of human practice? – contemporary discussions of the concept of politics, as well as of the more awkward and somewhat elusive locution “the political,” are associated with rival attempts to delineate a specific logic of political behavior or endeavor as against other areas of activity, such as social practices and economic processes. Like other key terms in social and political theory, “politics” and “the political” are subject to vigorous contestation, perhaps essentially so. Depending on the intellectual traditions within which they are rooted and developed, they are accorded multiple inflections and valences.