are both out of the control and beyond the understanding of ordinary
people.
Yet we have seen ordinary people bravely dismantling regimes
which seemed immovable, and dying for abstract ideas about politics:
thousands of Bosnians and Albanians ‘ethnically cleansed’ in the
name of Serbian national identity in the former Yugoslavia; tens of
thousands of ordinary citizens protesting in the Ukraine which led to
the Orange Revolution. It seems wrong in the face of such evidence of
the capacity of ordinary people to effect, and be affected by, political
change not to consider both the nature of political institutions and
what action we should take in relation to them.
Leaving aside the dramatic examples of political action and change
in faraway places, it is worth examining our own lives and the impact
of politics upon them.
Suppose you are an 18-year-old living in the United Kingdom,
working at a McDonald’s, and hoping for a university place in the
autumn. Waking up you may realise that the government (strictly
Parliament) has legislated to convert what was a local time of 6:33 or
so (depending on the latitude) to 7:30. Turning on the local radio
station (whose franchise was granted by a QUANGO (quasi autono-
mous national (or non-) governmental organisation) you may hear
the weather forecast from the government-financed Meteorological
Office. After hearing several CD tracks (payment of royalties to the
authors and performers must be made by law by the radio station),
you drag yourself out of bed (legally mattress materials must be non-
flammable), down to your cornflakes (ingredients listed on packet in
due form by another law). If you unwisely reach for a cigarette, the
government (/European Union) has both insisted on a health
warning on the packet and taken a large rake-off in the form of tax.
Without going through every minute of your day, it is clear that
government is likely to be affecting almost every one of them in
similar ways (air quality, traffic regulations, employment law – fill
out the story yourself).
The bigger issues are, of course, affected in the same way. Can you
afford to go to university? What bursaries and loans are available, or
fees payable, as a result of government policy? How many places has
the government financed in universities? How many other students
have been educated by the state educational system to university
entry level? If, on the other hand, you are unable to make it to2 POLITICS