Politics in United States
Politics Definition
The science and art of government; the science dealing with the organization, regulation and administration of a state in both its internal and external affairs. 264 111. 313.
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The science and art of government; the science dealing with the organization, regulation and administration of a state in both its internal and external affairs. 264 111. 313.
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Politics
United States Constitution
According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled POLITICSConstitutions are fundamentally linked to the character of politics. At the most obvious level constitutions structure the political process. The United States Constitution defines who may serve in various elected offices, the terms of office (the frequency of election) , the number of
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Politics in 1899 (United States)
The following information about Politics is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.
POLITICS, Nature and Character of. I. Politics as the Art of the State and as a Science of the State. The conscious life of the state, the guidance of the state and the influencing of the affairs of the state, that is, conscious, political practice, is what we call politics. Men who by their office or their calling take a prominent part in this practice and in the influencing of the affairs of the state, as for instance, government officials, representatives in legislative assemblies, journalists, etc., we may designate as political men. The honorable and dignified name of statesman is given only to those rare men who distinguish themselves as guides and leaders among politicians. The science of this political practice we also characterize as politics. The representatives of politics as a science, may be called political scientists and political philosophers.
-Politics as political practice, and politics as the doctrine or science of the state, stand in a natural reciprocal relation to each other. In the beginning, and in the lower stages of the development of nations, the former precedes the latter; and the latter follows in the wake of the former timidly and late. But, in proportion as the political spirit awakens in a nation, and becomes self-conscious, the importance of politics as the science of the state increases also; it begins to keep pace with the progress of the practical art of the state or political practice. At times it outruns its more powerful companion, and guides the tendencies and movements of the latter, by illuminating with its torch some new, untrodden road.
-Aristotle came only after the life of the great Hellenic republics was closed; but, as a teacher, he preceded Alexander. Cicero wrote his scientific political works at the close of the Roman republic, but before Cæsar and Augustus had appeared upon the scene. Machiavelli had the pattern of the Italian princes of the renaissance before his eyes; he wrote after the time of Louis XI. of France, but became the teacher of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon III. Rousseau was the prophet of the French revolution. Frederick the Great of Prussia and Alexander Hamilton were contemporaneously the founders of a new doctrine of the state, and of a new political practice. Montesquieu appeared after the English revolution, and after the full development of constitutional monarchy in England, which he recommended to the rest of continental Europe, and became the teacher of the people of the United States and of the French restoration.- [269] The two things which we designate by one and the same term, politics, are radically different.
-1. Politics, as the art of the state, has certain definite external aims, which differ according to the wants of the moment. It seeks to reach a
certain external result, for instance, to establish better institutions for the people or for society, to overcome an enemy, to secure or extend the power of the state, etc. Political practice manifests itself in deeds, and success is the aim and the test of the art of the state. A successful policy constitutes the fame of the statesman; and an unsuccessful policy is the sign of a defective and frequently of a bad and unfit policy. On the other hand, politics, as the science of the state, does not pursue any external aim, and is not estimated by external success. It has no aim but the knowledge of truth. Its glory consists in the destruction of an error, in the discovery of a permanent and fruitful law, in the clear exposition of a correct and opportune rule for guidance.
-2. As the aims of the art of the state and of the science of the state are different, so also are the means they employ. It is not enough for the statesman that he thinks correctly. He wishes, also, to realize his thoughts in deeds, and to this end he requires power. He must overcome or evade the obstacles that oppose him, and he requires the actual transformation of the stubborn matter which he has to give shape to. He must strain the authority of the state, which, in case of need, can enforce a following; or he must invoke the support of public opinion. According to circumstances, he must have money, or even troops, at his disposal.
-Politics as a science can dispense with all these external means of power. It does not trust in violence, but in logic. When it observes carefully and thinks correctly, it is certain of its progress, and does not need the authority of the law, nor the applause of the multitude. With all the treasures of the land at one’s command, it would be as impossible to lift an error into a truth, as, with the aid of all the armed power of the state, to lower a truth into an error.
-3. Politics, as political practice, can not dispense with external struggles if it will accomplish anything. The statesman must take into account both the hostile and friendly passions. He is very frequently compelled to take some side. He can not avoid the excitement which accompanies the struggle with frequently bitter fees. He must preserve his courage in the midst of danger, his presence of mind in the hour of battle, and his will power in action. Without a manly character, there can be no genuine statesman. The political scientist, on the contrary, examines the object of his investigation in peace. He can consider that object from different points of view, without prejudice or partiality, undisturbed by the noises of war of opponents. He enjoys that perfect peace of mind which belongs to scientific thought, and draws his conclusions dispassionately.
-4. Even the statesman’s way of thinking is different from that of the political scientist. The statesman is excited to action by the wants of the particular case, and when he weighs principles he does so on the supposition of their serviceableness and applicability in the case he has to deal with. Very frequently, if he wishes to attain his purpose, he is compelled to bend the straight lines of principles out of shape, and, at the sacrifice of strictness of principle, to effect compromises even with opposing principles and party tendencies. The result of his thoughts is conditioned by the success which he is striving to achieve.
-The political scientist who only labors for the acquisition of knowledge, seeks to develop principles in their pure form, and may proceed logically and undisturbed. He is not compelled to make any compromises.
More about Politics in the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States
-The psychology of the statesman is mainly penetration in judging and making use of actual men; that of the political philosopher is chiefly insight into the general laws of human nature.
-The men who are at the same time renowned as statesmen and political philosophers are rather few. The two greatest political philosophers of Hellenic antiquity, Aristotle and Plato, were but poorly qualified for political practice, or practical statesmanship. There are many notable diplomates, generals and ministers, who have distinguished themselves as statesmen, but who have achieved nothing for the science of the state. Nevertheless, the greatest statesmen of history were, if not political philosophers or political savants, at least political thinkers of a high order; for instance, Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Washington, Hamilton, and Napoleon I.
-In our own times, every practical politician is compelled more deeply to reflect on the ideas that at present enlighten and move the nations, and to render to himself a full account of the principles which determine his own action. In his practical calling, therefore, he can not dispense with scientific labor. On the other hand, the science of the state, in order to be applicable in actual life, must understand the conditions of the real life of the state, and correctly appreciate its interests. In this manner practical statesmanship and the science of the state reach each other a helping hand, and each may look to the other for support.
-There certainly is in some men a natural talent for politics, that may be developed through practice alone, without the aid of science, as there have at all times been great captains and leaders in war who never frequented a military school, but developed their talent on the field of battle. Yet, with equal natural talents, and under equal circumstances in all else, the scientifically trained politician will be greatly superior to the rude practitioner. In our times the combination of practical statesmanship and political science has become indispensable to politicians, and if not absolutely necessary, it is at least highly useful to the political scientist. The science of the state not only enlightens political practice or practical politics, but purifies and ennobles it. (Compare de Parieu, Principes de la science politique, Paris, 1870, p. 9.) [270] But then, political practice quickens the glance of the political scientist, and protects him from a childish trifling with the imaginings of empty speculation.
-In the search after truth each of the different sciences has its own method, and frequently calls into activity different mental powers, and some one mental power more than it does the others. Thus, natural scientific thought depends chiefly on the exact observation of facts perceptible by the senses, and usually from visible effects infers the invisible cause. Its method is induction, and its proofs are mostly borrowed from analogy. The speculative philosopher denies the sensually perceptible phenomenon, and endeavors to discover or reach the infinite idea, the absolute, through the self-conscious human mind. Beginning here, he then draws his conclusions by the way of logical deduction. Legal thought is generally the subordination of a concrete fact under a general legal principle. Its method is, in the first place, judgment by means of subsumption, and the inference from the general legal principle to the consequence of its violation: restitution or compensation or punishment. Political thought is directed particularly to organic distinction, to the estimation of forces, the calculation of means, the psychological study and influencing of men, and, lastly, to the development and improvement of human affairs in conformity to nature.
-II. The Relation of Politics to Morals. Machiavelli was the first to separate politics from morals, and to proclaim political practice independent of moral prescriptions. The adaptability of the means to the ends of the state was, with Machiavelli, the only allowable measure or criterion in politics. To him it was a matter of indifference whether the statesman acted morally or immorally. Machiavelli only demanded of him that his action should be useful to the state. When a crime
is of advantage to the state, he recommends crime; when noble-mindedness becomes injurious to the state, he condemns it. He expressly remarks, that the appearance of virtue is frequently more useful to the prince than real virtue, and, when it is so, he gives the former the preference over the latter. Since his time the name of Machiavellism in politics has been given to that kind of immoral, conscienceless, though certainly bold, politics, which is profitable to the state, or only to the head of the state. Frederick the Great, in his Anti-Machiavel, when a young man, gave vent, in eloquent language, to his indignation at this doctrine. When king, however, be too distinguished between politics and morals, and made the good of the state the supreme law in all political action. But he was still full of the conviction that politics was intrinsically and indissolubly connected with the moral government of the world, and that it was exceedingly injurious to separate the one from the other.
-In the scientific distinction between politics and morals, we recognize a great and lasting progress, a distinction which alone has rendered possible an independent science of politics. To think, in a political sense, is to think from the point of view of the state; to judge morally is to consider human actions from the point of view of the moral order of the universe, conformably to the category, good and bad.
But Machiavelli, who certainly can not be denied the credit of this distinction, by his reckless exaggeration of it even to the point of complete separation of politics from morals, weakened the power of the good among men, greatly stimulated the ambition of princes, and thoroughly corrupted political practice. We accordingly hold firmly to the relative independence of political science, but we at the same time recognize that political practice must not place itself in contradiction with the laws of the moral order of the world.
-We do not speak here of the moral law, which religious revelation proclaims as the command of the Deity. Such a moral law is religion, which influences only believers in it. We here allude rather to the moral law derived from human nature, and understood by human reason, as the intrinsically well-grounded ordering of all human life. It is unthinkable that politics, as the rule of external life in common of man in the state, can be absolutely separated from, and completely independent of, the moral law, considered as the rule of proper human conduct in general. It is just as unthinkable, as in the economy of the state it is impossible, to ignore the laws of physics or mathematics. As politics, moreover, should advance the prosperity of society, and endeavor to promote the improvement of the community, the determination of these tasks can not safely be undertaken without, at the same time, paying due regard to the moral duties of human life in general, and to the destinies of humanity, pointed out by the moral law. Thus, not the complete separation of politics and morals, still less the hostile opposition of the two, but the preservation of the intimate relationship between them, is the correct view in this matter. Both in the determination of political ends and aims, and in the choice of political means, moral considerations must not be lost sight of.
-1. Ends and Aims. The ends and aims of politics may, indeed, be morally indifferent, but they should not be immoral. Many political reforms are effected from juridico-technical, or from military or politico-economical motives; thus, public monuments owe their form to the enthusiasm of the artist for the beautiful. When a new mode of procedure is introduced, or when the army is organized and exercised; when a new system of duties is adopted, or a new style of architecture employed: in all cases of this kind, moral considerations have no share, or only a very subordinate one. But, since statesmen are human beings, they should not exempt themselves from the general duties of men, and in their political calling they should not act contrary to the moral destiny of mankind; that is, they should not pursue political ends which morality condemns.
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-This truth was by no means hidden from the nations of antiquity. It was emphatically proclaimed in the sacred books of the Hindoos, Jews and Chinese, and greatly [271] strengthened by their religious reverence for the authority of God or of the gods. But ancient practice was, notwithstanding, exceedingly lax in this respect. The ambition of nations, and the selfishness of rulers helped them, for the most part, to an easy settlement with conscience. The extension of power and the exploitation of subjects were but seldom moderated or limited by moral considerations.
-In the politics of the last centuries, likewise, the moral criterion was but seldom applied. The law of morals forbids man to exploit his fellow-man, as the mere object of his pleasure and his rule, and requires every one to honor his fellow-man as a being of the same species endowed with reason. Yet how frequently has the capricious authority of rulers and their favorites been immoderately extended, and improperly used, contrary to this moral law, to indulge the evil inclinations of the human heart. But by degrees public opinion develops into a public conscience, and more clearly enunciates its admonitions and warnings, and bestows praise or blame according as it perceives a contradiction or harmony between political ends and the moral duties of life.
-The liberation of an oppressed nation from a foreign yoke, the insurance of peace, the spread and improvement of civilization, the education of citizens to freedom, the ennobling of culture, and the encouragement of humane institutions, are all, at the same time, moral and political duties of life, and honored as such. Yet sophists here find a convenient field. Only too easily do they succeed in cloaking selfish passions in the mantle of moral endeavor, by representing tyranny as order, conquest as the spread of civilization, and revolt against political authority as freedom.
-2. Means. It is much more difficult to determine the relation of moral demands to the means of politics. Moralists are inclined to apply the same rule to political means that we have here recognized as applicable to political ends. They grant that means morally indifferent may be employed in political practice, but they do not allow that morally impure means should at any time be used. Moral feeling and logical consistency seem to declare this to be wholly incontestable.
-And yet a glance at history, or into the practical political life of the present time, shows that there are great difficulties in the way of the strict application of this rule, and that, as a matter of fact, such application is scarcely possible. We can not ignore this: that it is better for the state that it should be saved from some great danger by an energetic man, led by an inordinate love of power, than weakened by a timid but personally virtuous ruler. Nor can we ignore that it is of greater advantage to national well-being when aroused vanity helps build works of common utility, than when pious humility does nothing. Many politicians have, therefore, entirely denied the applicability of the above-mentioned rule to political means, and maintained that the principle, The end sanctifies the means, may be wrong in private morals, but can not be dispensed with as a political maxim. But a closer examination at once reveals how very dangerous this opinion is to the whole moral condition of things. When the state excuses the immorality of the political means employed, by the morality of the end to be attained, what prevents individuals from imitating the example of the state? There is a natural inclination in men, when they commit a wrong, to excuse it to themselves and to others, by the allegation that it was a means to a good end. If the maxim that the end justifies the means thus became general, the authority of the moral law would be completely pa
ralyzed, and the wild chase of sinful desires after satisfaction would not be stopped by any cunning allusion to laudable aims, but continued with increased ardor. The harmony of the moral order of the world would be destroyed if the open rupture between moral ends and immoral means was recognized, and if the moral law only retained a certain authority in respect of the ends, but was entirely powerless as to the choice of the means to be employed in politics.
-It is not easy to find an exit from this labyrinth. The inconsiderate demands of moralists seem altogether impracticable, while the opinion of political sophists is ruinous to the moral order. We can gain safe ground only after we shall have more closely examined the nature of the state, and more deeply investigated the relation of evil to the moral order of the world.
-1. The state, as a man-like, composite person, produced by the union of men, is not merely a civil person, but a moral civil person. As the moral law embraces all mankind, and is valid as to all, the state can neither release itself from its moral duties to humanity, to other nations, to its subjects, to those who live under its protection, but should heed those duties and fulfill them. The duties of the state bind the representatives of the power of the state and the organs of the authority of the state, as well as the ruled and parties. Patriotism, fidelity, justice, bravery, the diligent and careful fulfillment of official duty, are especially the virtues of political life. Civilization as it advances develops this sense of moral duty, and enhances its demands.
-The moral law does not limit itself to political aims. It is binding on the whole state, in all its doings, and in all its life.
-2. But the state is the ordering of the external life of men in common. The moral demands addressed to the politician lie in a direction and have a criterion different from the moral demands that religion makes on men. The latter are addressed to the inner life of the soul, the former to the external organization of the community, of the people, using the word people in its political sense. The saint may consider suffering as the highest perfection; but the statesman’s duty is action. The preponderantly religious man may seclude himself from the world, and like the hermit withdraw into his innermost soul. The political man must remain in human society, and through men influence other men. The church may give the conscience of the individual [272] the highest commands of ideal perfection, as the duty of his life; the state must moderate its requirements with a due regard for the actual capacity and deficiencies of the many. Religion lifts its expectations even to the height of divine perfection; the state can not strain its coercive laws beyond what the average nature of the majority can bear. The priest may tell the believer how and what he should be; the statesman must take men as they are.
More about Politics in the Cyclopaedia
-In judging political conduct, therefore, we must apply only the relative standard of moral demands which corresponds with the stage of moral culture that a nation or a society has, for the time being, attained, so far as that culture is represented in its better average constituent parts. This standard is the standard of the good citizen and of the dutiful official, as both are at the time understood by the people.
-When we consult history, it affords us some satisfaction to observe that humanity, in this respect, has incontestably made notable progress. From age to age moral demands have risen, and the moral standard or criterion has become more refined. The ancient Greeks and Romans considered almost everything permissible against an enemy with which the state was engaged in war. They felt no moral repugnance to kill defenseless foes, to sell the wives and children of the conquered, as well as the conquered themselves, as slaves; to sack towns and burn villages. If a general of the present day were to treat his conquered enemy in such a brutal and cruel manner as only too often was done by even the best warriors of antiquity, as was done by the amiable Alexander the Great, and the magnanimous Julius Cæsar, such a man would be shunned as a maniac, or outlawed as a human monster from the civilized world.
-In like manner the Christian nations of the middle ages looked upon every form of cruelty to unbelievers and heretics as perfectly just and permissible. The Roman popes, whom Christendom revered as the highest moral authority, repeatedly approved the horrible maxim, that no one was bound to keep faith with unbelievers. Even the sanctity of the oath, when it came in contact with the glowing religious fanaticism of the Roman priest, disappeared in smoke. (Instances by Laurent, Etudes sur l’histoire de l’humanité, ix, 142, x., 338.) The civilized world of the present day unanimously condemns such immorality. Our manly feelings revolt at the thought that formerly the ambassadors of European powers in Stambul were obliged to throw themselves on the ground before the Turkish sultan. We consider the incense of base flattery which, at the close of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth, was offered to Louis XIV. even by the most renowned writers of that time, both contemptible and unworthy of human beings. Even in the eighteenth century, in the English parliament, corruption was so much at home, and general to such a degree, that an English minister, to obtain a majority, could not avoid bribing individual members of parliament with money and other gifts. It did no injury to the honorable name of the renowned statesman, Pitt, that he effected the dissolution of the Irish parliament and the union of Ireland with Great Britain by bribery. A minister who should do the same thing today would be lost, in the opinion of the public.
-In the diplomatic intercourse of the eighteenth century, equivocation and intentional deception were still so much in vogue that even a sincere and truthful man was occasionally compelled to wear a mask, just as a merchant, obliged to do business with rogues, can scarcely avoid dissimulation. And even now falsehood and deception are not unheard of in international intercourse. But sincerity and truthfulness dare, at least, openly engage in war against this kind of immorality.
-3. If we can not require political leaders to pursue a course above the understanding, pliancy and tractableness of the average man with whom they have to deal, we may at least require that they should not remain below the moral height of the average culture of their time and nation; but that here also they should remain the guides and leaders of the many. Precisely because they are leaders, and shine forth as models to those who stand lower than they, or follow behind them, the moral demands that are made on them are greater. A virtuous prince produces an elevating and ennobling effect on the society which looks up to him, while a vicious ruler lowers even the moral condition of his subjects.
-Humanity’s moral duty is the fulfillment of its destiny. When men harmoniously develop their faculties, they advance morally. Nations and their leaders are responsible to humanity if they do not take part in this progress. They owe it to humanity to take such a part.
-4. The mere turning to account of immoral acts committed by others, by the statesman for the good of the state, is permissible to the statesman, in so far as such acts appear a happy accident for his purposes. But when the statesman himself causes or favors such acts he becomes a party to them, and, as such, a participant in the responsibility and guilt of their immorality.
-When King Philip II. of Spain delegated murderers to kill Queen Elizabeth of England, he became guilty of a crime, which can be excused neither by the plea of the good of Spain nor mitigated by the approval of Pope Pius V., given it on religious grounds. (Laurent, supra, ix., 190, x., 171.) It bears witness to the still unc
ertain feeling of the public opinion of that time, that it extolled the chevalier Bayard as a hero of rare virtue, because he decidedly rejected the proposal of the duke of Ferrara, to kill the pope, although the latter had conspired against his own life and that of the duke. (Laurent, supra, x., 390.) The connivance at crime, allowing it to be committed, by one in power, whose duty it is to prevent and prosecute it, should be regarded as a moral offense, even when not punishable. The mere expression of the wish to get rid of a dangerous adversary, is frequently the only thing needed to put a dagger into the hand of an assassin to kill the obnoxious [273] person. But, as the general can not be blamed who takes advantage of the reports of a traitor concerning the weakness of the enemy’s position, so neither can we blame a prince who avails himself of the murder of a pretender to the throne, which he neither provoked nor favored, for the purpose of strengthening his own authority.
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-5. Private morals and state morals rest on the same basis of the moral order of the world; and are pervaded by the same spirit of man’s destiny and duty in life. They therefore belong together as twin buds of the same parent tree, and of the same species. Nevertheless, the instinct of nations has, from time out of mind, ever felt that there existed a subtle difference between them. There are, indeed, cases in which the same action appears in a different light, and is differently judged, according as it is performed by a statesman with patriotic intention, or by a private individual from selfish interest. The reprobate principle of Machiavellian policy, The advantage of the state excuses all the crimes of the statesman,41 is only the caricatured, and therefore blameworthy, expression of a correct idea. There is in fact such a thing as a reason of state, a raison d’état, the effect of which on the public conscience and on the moral judgment is sanctioned by the history of the world. What is the reason of this difference? and how is it to be understood?
-It seems to me that this question can be answered only by first investigating the meaning of evil in the moral order of the world. Evil appears in an entirely different light, according as it is considered as the act of an individual who despises and violates the moral order of the world, or as it is examined from a higher point of view, from a point of view over-looking the aggregate life of humanity. What in the individually guilty man appears as evil, as blameworthy and reprobate, in its connection with the all, shows itself a necessary condition precedent of the good, and, to that extent, it is good. What Mephistopheles said of himself, that he was-Ein Theil von jener Kraft,Die stets das Bôse will, und stets das Gute schafft,applies in an eminent degree to the case we are discussing. The highest virtue is attained only in the struggle with evil inclinations, whether one’s own or those of others. All progress in good is conditioned by the overcoming of evil. As human error is necessary to the knowledge of the truth, so is evil in the world of men the necessary stage preliminary to moral perfection.
-Evil has no permanency in the world. It is always combated and overcome, and finally conquered. It ceases to be evil as soon as it has really been conquered. Then it becomes clear that it has served the development of good. But so far as the aggregate is concerned, everything depends on this: that evil should be made subservient to good; that evil should be conquered by good, and that it should be, as it were, the mere background of good. To this extent we may distinguish between good aims and evil means, but this distinction is allowable only when the latter stands in a subordinate relation to the former, or has been completely conquered by it, and rendered good.
-What is thus true of the moral order of the world in general, may by analogy be applied to the state. The state also is a great whole, a world in itself. In the state also it is possible that what seems evil in a particular case may become good in its relation to the whole. The guilt of the individual, which considered apart is evil, may, when brought into connection with the progressive life of the whole people, reveal itself as an advancement of the good, and hence become good, yet only in as far as the evil in the individual has really been overcome by the improvement of the whole, only when the evil has really been made subservient to the good.
-The state, as an aggregate being, can as little dispense with human passions, to promote its progress, as can the Deity in his government of the world. If it were possible to extirpate selfishness, ambition, vanity, love of glory and love of strife from the hearts of the citizens of a state, the community would lose immensely in elastic force, and a great deal less of good and of what is useful to the common weal would be performed in the world. The manly virtue of patriotism is never entirely free from admixture with
Author of this text: J. C. Bluntschli.
Chicago-style Politics (in Politics)
Related to political science, the following is a definition of Chicago-style Politics in the U.S. practice of politics: Used to characterize a supposedly offensive tough, “take-no-prisoners” approach to politics.
Jacob Weisberg: “Chicago-style politics, in common parlance, refers to the 1950s-1970s era of the Richard J. Daley machine… The strength and durability of the Daley machine was its ethnically based patronage network, a complex system of obligations, benefits, and loyalties that didn’t depend on televised communication with a broader public. It was a noncompetitive system that in its heyday had a lock on urban power and the spoils that went with it.”
Don Rose: “Time was the term ‘Chicago politics’ or ‘Chicago-style politics’ had a special meaning based on our history from the Al Capone years through the regime (1955-76) of one Richard J. Daley, aka Da Mare. Nowadays, like our unique political lexicon, it seems to have become a generic insult for just about any politics one disagrees with.”
Politics Ain’t Beanbag (in Politics)
Related to political science, the following is a definition of Politics Ain’t Beanbag in the U.S. practice of politics: A response to politicians who complain about the rough and tumble of the campaign trail, below-the-belt shots from their opponents or unfair treatment from the media.
It was first uttered by Mr. Dooley, an Irish-American character created by writer Finley Peter Dunne in an 1895 newspaper column. The full quote: “Sure, politics ain’t bean-bag. ‘Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists ‘d do well to keep out iv it.”
Sub-National Politics: A National Political Perspective
Bertram Johnson, in the chapter “Sub-National Politics: A National Political Perspective” of the Oxford Handbook of State and Local Government, offers some insight and critically assesses the situation and current state of scholarship on the topic. The following is a summary:The U.S. system of layered governments encompasses states, cities, and other entities such as counties and special districts. Most scholars have adopted one of three major approaches to studying this complex system: a legal approach that emphasizes a lack of formal powers at lower levels; a fiscal federalism tradition that focuses on considerations of efficiency; or a focus on intergovernmental policy and public administration. Each literature has much to offer, but none provides a comprehensive political perspective on federalism. Such an approach would view the various governments in the intergovernmental system as institutional structures that have claims on each other, occupied by political entrepreneurs motivated by their own career goals that succeed or fail largely because of how they respond to constituent interests. Each component of this approach has been the subject of substantial research
that can be brought to bear on the topic of sub-national politics.
Further Reading
- “Sub-National Politics: A National Political Perspective”, The Oxford Handbook of American Politics
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