1. Introduction to Political Science

“Man is, by nature, a political animal.” Aristotle

Recorded human history goes back approximately five thousand years, to the earliest city-states of Mesopotamia. Among these earliest written records from humanity’s origins are texts which deal with religion, law, and politics. For the philosophers of Ancient Greece, it was these three phenomena that distinguish humans from animals, and politics is a part of the human experience. There have always been politics and there will always be politics, and our engagement in politics defines us. Politics is part of everyday life, from a couple discussing what to have for dinner, to a parliament debating whether to go to war. Throughout history countless different types of groups have existed – tribes, city-states, republics, empires – but all of them share a common theme of politics, a system by which decisions are made for everyone. Taking another of Aristotle’s assertions, humans are social animals. Humans have become the dominant species on Earth through group activity, but groups do not always agree on the best course of action. Thus, at the simplest definition, politics is the art of making decisions that affect the group. Inextricable from politics is power – the ability to persuade or force people to do something that they would not do by choice. And power is wielded only because of legitimacy, whereby people accept the decisions that are made for them, even if they do not agree. Remember this basic structure as you play the game:

Politics is the art of making decisions for the whole group.

Power is the ability of decision-makers to convince or compel the group to obey.

Legitimacy is the principle that the group will accept the choices of the de- cision-makers because the group thinks that they are rightfully in charge.

The latter changes across time and space, with different societies having very dif- ferent concepts of what makes their leaders legitimate. But the existence of these three is more or less universal throughout human societies. People in the twenty-first century have more access to politics, through accessible media, widespread educa- tion and literacy, and a planetary network of instant communications than any soci- ety in human history. Mankind is a political animal, and we are no exception.