SYSTEMS
This chapter
elaborates upon a point raised in the introduction: that politics is not
an activity confined to modern liberal democratic national govern-
ments. Chapter 1 argued that politics can be seen in personal and
organisational activity – a point to be developed further in relation to
our later discussions of feminism, anarchism and ecology. This
chapter analyses the politics of societies without formal governments
and the systems of government in kingdoms and empires before
considering the focus of modern politics: the nation state. It considers
the extent to which developments at a supranational level constitute
a threat to the dominance of such states. Political ‘system’ is being
used here in a loose sense to denote a complex of interconnecting
political activities in a society or societies – it does not imply the
adoption of any particular system model.
States and societies
For a graphic illustration of the thesis that politics is not just about
how states are run, let us consider the case of societies without a state
and see if we can identify anything resembling what we would
normally think of as ‘politics’.