In other words, the realm of ‘the political’ is restricted to those state actors who are consciously motivated by ideological beliefs, and who seek to advance them through membership of a formal organization such as a political party. This is evident in the tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics. This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. In this sense, this definition of politics is a hangover from the days when the nation-state could still be regarded as an independent actor in world affairs. By the same token, to portray politics as an essentially state-bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important international or (7)_ influences upon modern life, such as the impact of transnational technology and multinational corporations. Businesses, schools and other educational institutions, community groups, families and so on are in this sense ‘nonpolitical’, because they are not engaged in ‘running the country’. This means that most people, most institutions and other educations and most social activities can be regarded as being ‘outside’ politics. Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of social organization centered upon the machinery of government departments and the like, and it is cabinet rooms, (6)_ chambers, government departments and the like, and it is engaged in by a limited and specific group of people, notably politicians, civil servants and lobbyists. However, what is striking about this definition is that it offers a highly restricted view of politics. It is also a definition which academic political science has helped to perpetuate. This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be ‘in politics’ when they hold public office, or to be ‘entering politics’ when they seek to do so. The modern form of this (5)_ is therefore ‘what concerns the state’. In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis, in effect, ‘what concerns the polis’. The largest and most influential of these city-states was Athens, often portrayed as the (4)_ of democratic government. Ancient Greek society was (3)_ into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece. The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of (1)_, the exercise of control within society through the making and (2)_ of collective decisions. Politics is not a science … but an art, Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have told the German Reichstag.
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