Portal:Politics

The Politics portal

Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science.

Politics may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and non-violent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but the word often also carries a negative connotation. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or in a limited way, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it.

A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including warfare against adversaries. Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.

In modern states, people often form political parties to represent their ideas. Members of a party often agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. An election is usually a competition between different parties.

A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a society. The history of political thought can be traced back to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, Confucius's political manuscripts and Chanakya's Arthashastra. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A Feminist is "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women". Feminist theory, which emerged from these feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender. Some of the earlier forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives. This led to the creation of ethnically specific or multiculturalist forms of feminism. Feminist activists campaign for women's rights – such as in contract law, property, and voting – while also promoting bodily integrity, autonomy, and reproductive rights for women. Feminist campaigns have changed societies, particularly in the West, by achieving women's suffrage, gender neutrality in English, equal pay for women, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Feminists have worked to protect women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. They have also advocated for workplace rights, including maternity leave, and against forms of discrimination against women. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism seeks gender equality, some feminists argue that men's liberation is a necessary part of feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.

More selected articles

Read more

edit

Featured picture

Credit: Roberto Stuckert Filho/Presidência da República

Dilma Rousseff served as the 36th President of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment in 2016. This is her official photograph on taking up the presidency.

More featured pictures

Read more

Featured lists - load new batch

Featured lists have been determined by the Wikipedia community to be the best lists on English Wikipedia.

Image 1

The first lady of the United States is the hostess of the White House. The position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, but, on occasion, the title has been applied to women who were not presidents' wives, such as when the president was a bachelor or widower, or when the wife of the president was unable to fulfill the duties of the first lady. The first lady is not an elected position; it carries no official duties and receives no salary. Nonetheless, she attends many official ceremonies and functions of state either along with or in place of the president. Traditionally, the first lady does not hold outside employment while occupying the office, although Eleanor Roosevelt earned money writing and giving lectures, but gave most of it to charity, and Jill Biden maintained her regular job as an educator during her time in the role. The first lady has her own staff, including the White House social secretary, the chief of staff, the press secretary, the chief floral designer, and the executive chef. The Office of the First Lady is also in charge of all social and ceremonial events of the White House, and is a branch of the Executive Office of the President.

There have been total of 55 first ladies including 44 official and 11 acting, within 47 first ladyships. This discrepancy exists because some presidents had multiple first ladies. Following Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025, his wife, Melania Trump, became the 44th official first lady. (Full article...)
Image 2
Ron DeSantis has been governor since January 8, 2019.

The governor of Florida is the head of government of the U.S. state of Florida. The governor is the head of the executive branch of the government of Florida and is the commander-in-chief of the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard.

The current officeholder is Ron DeSantis, a member of the Republican Party who took office on January 8, 2019. (Full article...)
Image 3
There are 114 counties and one independent city in the U.S. State of Missouri. Following the Louisiana Purchase and the admittance of Louisiana into the United States in 1812, five counties were formed out of the Missouri Territory at the first general assembly: Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, Saint Charles, Saint Louis, and Ste. Genevieve. Most subsequent counties were apportioned from these five original counties. Six more counties were added through the 1836 Platte Purchase, the acquired lands of which formed the northwest tip of the state and consisted of Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Holt, Nodaway, and Platte counties.

In Missouri, the county level of government comes between those of the city and the state. Its primary responsibilities include maintaining roads, providing security, prosecuting criminals, and collecting taxes. Elected officials at this level include a sheriff, prosecuting attorney, and assessor. (Full article...)
Image 4
Bombay Presidency in 1906

Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians trace back urban settlement to the late 17th century after the British secured the seven islands from the Portuguese to establish a secure base in the region. The islands provided the British with a sheltered harbour for trade, in addition to a relatively sequestered location that reduced the chances of land-based attacks. Over the next two centuries, the British dominated the region, first securing the archipelago from the Portuguese, and later defeating the Marathas to secure the hinterland.

Bombay Presidency was one of the three Presidencies of British India; the other two being Madras Presidency, and Bengal Presidency. It was in the centre-west of the Indian subcontinent on the Arabian Sea. It was bordered to the north-west, north, and north-east by Baluchistan province, Punjab province, and Rajputana Agency; to the east by Central India Agency, the Central Provinces and Berar and Hyderabad State; and to the south by Madras Presidency and Mysore State. The Presidency was established in the late 17th century and named after Bombay, the capital city and the island on which it was built. By 1906, the area under the jurisdiction of Bombay Presidency stretched from North Canara in the south to Sindh in the north, encompassing the now-Pakistani province of Sindh, some parts of the present-day state of Gujarat, northwestern part of Karnataka state, the British Aden protectorate in Yemen, and the western two-thirds of modern-day Maharashtra. (Full article...)
Image 5
The territory of Lithuania is divided into 10 counties (Lithuanian: singular apskritis, plural apskritys), all named after their capitals. The counties are divided into 60 municipalities (Lithuanian: singular savivaldybė, plural savivaldybės): 9 city municipalities, 43 district municipalities and 8 municipalities. Each municipality is then divided into elderates (Lithuanian: singular seniūnija, plural seniūnijos). This division was created in 1994 and slightly modified in 2000.

Until 2010, the counties were administered by county governors (Lithuanian: singular – apskrities viršininkas, plural – apskrities viršininkai) appointed by the central government in Vilnius. Their primary duty was to ensure that the municipalities obey the laws and the Constitution of Lithuania. They did not have great powers vested in them, and so it was suggested that 10 counties are too much for Lithuania as the two smallest counties administer only four municipalities. Therefore, on 1 July 2010, the county administrations were abolished, but the counties themselves are retained for statistical and reporting purposes. (Full article...)
Image 6

Emblem of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the country's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognized leader of the Soviet Union. Prior to Joseph Stalin's accession, the position was not viewed as an important role in Vladimir Lenin's government and previous occupants had been responsible for technical rather than political decisions.

Officially, the General Secretary solely controlled the Communist Party directly.^{[dubious – discuss]} However, since the party had a monopoly on political power, the General Secretary de facto had executive control of the Soviet government. Because of the office's ability to direct both the foreign and domestic policies of the state and preeminence over the Soviet Communist Party, it was the de facto highest office of the Soviet Union. (Full article...)
Image 7
The seven members of the Swiss Federal Council (German: Schweizerischer Bundesrat; French: Conseil fédéral suisse; Italian: Consiglio federale svizzero; Romansh: Cussegl federal svizzer) constitute the federal government of Switzerland and collectively serve as the country's head of state. Each of the seven Federal Councillors heads a department of the Swiss federal administration.

The current Swiss Federal Councillors are: Guy Parmelin (first elected in 2015), Ignazio Cassis (first elected in 2017), Karin Keller-Sutter (first elected in 2018), Albert Rösti (first elected in 2022), Élisabeth Baume-Schneider (first elected in 2022), Beat Jans (first elected in 2023), and Martin Pfister (first elected in 2025). (Full article...)
Image 8
Location of New Brunswick in Canada

New Brunswick is the eighth-most populous province in Canada, with 775,610 residents as of the 2021 census, and the third-smallest province by land area, at 71,248.50 km² (27,509.20 sq mi). New Brunswick's 104 municipalities, as of 2021, covered only 10.9% of the province's land mass but were home to 69.5% of its population.

Local governments in New Brunswick may be incorporated under the Local Governance Act of 2017. Local governments include municipalities – cities, towns, and villages – as well as rural communities and regional municipalities. Municipal governments are led by elected councils and are responsible for the delivery of services such as civic administration, land use planning, emergency measures, policing, road, and garbage collection. (Full article...)
Image 9

A hanging-scroll portrait painting of Emperor Taizong of Song (r. 976–997), painted by an anonymous Song artist

The Song dynasty (960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that succeeded the period referred to as Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960) and preceded the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), which conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The conventional division into the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) and Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) is created by the conquest of northern China by the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in 1127 and the consequent shift of the capital from Bianjing (present-day Kaifeng) in the north to Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou) in the south.

Below is a complete list of Song emperors, including their temple names, posthumous names, given names, and era names. The dynasty was founded by Zhao Kuangyin, who became Emperor Taizu (r. 960–976) and concluded with the death of Zhao Bing (r. 1278–1279). The last emperor of the Northern Song was Emperor Qinzong (r. 1126–1127), while the first Southern Song emperor was Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127–1162). (Full article...)
Image 10
The premier of the Northwest Territories is a title given to the head of government in the Northwest Territories of Canada when the territory is using an elected system of responsible government. Throughout its history, the territory has been governed by various combinations of locally elected governments and administrators appointed by the government of Canada.

Upon creation, the Northwest Territories were governed by the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, a representative of the federal government and Queen Victoria, for the newly created province of Manitoba. Six years later in 1876, the territory was given its own lieutenant governor, separate from that of Manitoba. These lieutenant governors presided over an assembly with members both elected and appointed by the federal government. Before 1888, the territory required electoral districts with an area of 3,000 km² (1,200 sq mi) to contain at least 1,000 people. When this quota was met, a by-election was held to elect a member to replace an appointed one. (Full article...)
Image 11
Canada is a federation that comprises ten provinces and three territories. Its government is structured as a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as its sovereign and a Prime Minister as its head of government. Each of the country's provinces and territories also has a head of government, called premier in English. Collectively, the federal Prime Minister and provincial and territorial premiers are referred to as first ministers. In French, the term premier ministre is used in both the federal and provincial/territorial contexts.

The longest-serving current first minister is Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, who assumed office on February 2, 2018; the newest first minister is John Hogan of Newfoundland and Labrador, who assumed office on May 9, 2025. The oldest first minister, François Legault of Quebec, is 68; the youngest first minister, P.J. Akeeagok of Nunavut, is 40. Of the current first ministers, two (Danielle Smith of Alberta and Susan Holt of New Brunswick) are women and three (P.J. Akeeagok of Nunavut, Wab Kinew of Manitoba, and R.J. Simpson of the Northwest Territories) are Indigenous. (Full article...)
Image 12
Title page of Recollections of Full Years by Helen Taft

Fourteen first ladies of the United States have written a total of twenty-three memoirs. The first lady is the hostess of the White House, and the position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, with some historical exceptions. Every memoir by a first lady published in the 20th and 21st centuries has been a bestseller, at times outselling those of their presidential husbands.

In the early 1800s, Abigail Adams had her correspondence published as Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, and Louisa Adams "made several attempts at an autobiography", though she never sought to publish them. The Memoirs and Letters of Dolley Madison, Wife of James Madison, President of the United States were published in 1886 but were actually edited by Lucia Cutts and written by Dolley Madison's niece Mary Cutts. (Full article...)
Image 13
The Palace of Westminster, meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords

This is a list of people who have addressed both Houses of the United Kingdom Parliament at the same time. Although English and later British monarchs have jointly addressed the House of Commons and the House of Lords on several occasions since the 16th century, the first foreign dignitary to do so was French President Albert Lebrun in March 1939. The list excludes the speeches given by (or on behalf of) the Sovereign at the State Opening of Parliament and at the close of each parliamentary session.

Only four people besides the reigning monarch at the time have addressed both Houses together on more than one occasion. Nelson Mandela addressed Members of the Commons and the Lords in 1993 and in 1996 as President of South Africa. Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the Houses as a secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a foreign delegate of the Soviet Union in 1984 and again, in 1993, on behalf of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Shimon Peres addressed the Houses as Prime Minister of Israel in 1986 and as President in 2008. Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Houses as President of Ukraine, the first to address in the Chamber (albeit via remote video link from Ukraine), in 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Full article...)
Image 14

Kamala Harris is the highest-ranking woman to serve in a Cabinet as Vice President of the United States.

The Cabinet of the United States, which is the principal advisory body to the President of the United States, has had 72 female members altogether, with eight of them serving in multiple positions for a total of 80 cabinet appointments. Of that number, 43 different women held a total of 46 permanent cabinet posts, having served as the Vice President or heads of the federal executive departments; 34 more women held cabinet-level positions, which can differ under each president; and five officeholders served in both cabinet and cabinet-rank roles. No woman held a presidential cabinet position before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which prohibits the federal government or any state from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex.

Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a president's cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African-American woman and the first woman of color to serve in a presidential cabinet when she was named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Two years later, Carter tapped her for Secretary of Health and Human Services, therefore making her the first woman to hold two different cabinet positions. Madeleine Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia, became the first foreign-born woman to serve in a president's cabinet when she was picked by President Bill Clinton for United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a cabinet-rank position, in 1993. She was elevated to Secretary of State four years later, during Clinton's second term, thus making her, at the time, the highest-ranking woman in the history of the federal government. (Full article...)
Image 15

The national president of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India. Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members drawn from the Pradesh Congress Committees and members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). In the event of any emergency because of any cause such as the death or resignation of the president elected as above, the most senior general secretary discharges the routine functions of the president until the Working Committee appoints a provisional president pending the election of a regular president by the AICC. The president of the party has effectively been the party's national leader, head of the party's organisation, head of the Working Committee, the chief spokesman, and all chief Congress committees.

After the party's foundation in December 1885, Womesh Chandra Banerjee became its first president. From 1885 to 1933, the presidency had a term of one year only. From 1933 onwards, there was no such fixed term for the president. During Jawaharlal Nehru's premiership, he rarely held the Presidency of INC, even though he was always head of the Parliamentary Party. Despite being a party with a structure, Congress under Indira Gandhi did not hold any organisational elections after 1978. In 1978, Gandhi split from the INC and formed a new opposition party, popularly called Congress (I), which the national election commission declared to be the real Indian National Congress for the 1980 general election. Gandhi institutionalised the practice of having the same person as the Congress president and the prime minister of India after the formation of Congress (I). Her successors Rajiv Gandhi and P. V. Narasimha Rao also continued that practice. Nonetheless, in 2004, when the Congress was voted back into power, Manmohan Singh became the first and only prime minister not to be the president of the party since establishment of the practice of the president holding both positions. (Full article...)

More featured lists

edit

Selected quote

The Koran is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror.

— Geert Wilders, Dutch politician, February 2008

More selected quotes

More at Wikiquote

edit

Selected biography

Cochrane in 2013

Alasdair Cochrane (born 31 March 1978) is a British political theorist and ethicist who is currently Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He is known for his work on animal rights from the perspective of political theory, which is the subject of his two books: An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (2010, Palgrave Macmillan) and Animal Rights Without Liberation (2012, Columbia University Press). His third book, Sentientist Politics, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. He is a founding member of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a UK-based think tank focused on furthering the social and political status of nonhuman animals. He joined the Department at Sheffield in 2012, having previously been a faculty member at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics. Cochrane is a sentientist. Sentientism is a naturalistic worldview that grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.

More selected biographies

Read more

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Checheyigen's political acumen ensured that her family became one of the most powerful in the Mongol Empire?
... that the Grand Husseini Mosque has served as a gathering point for political demonstrations in Amman for nearly a century?
... that the ideas of Albert Schädler became the founding ideas of the Progressive Citizens' Party, though he himself was opposed to the formation of political parties?
... that although he was a former Indonesian prime minister, Soekiman Wirjosandjojo was not arrested during a political purge as he was considered a non-threat?
... that Americans received nearly 15 billion political text messages in 2022?
... that the Santander anarchist newspaper Adelante had to be printed in neighbouring Torrelavega, as no printing shop in the city was willing to print it due to its political orientation?

edit

More did you know...

...that Thutmose I was the first Pharaoh to be buried in the Valley of the Kings?

...that Nazi scientists claimed to have trained a dog to call "Adolf Hitler" as "Mein Führer"?
...that for many years, the Russian Soviet Republic did not have its Communist Party?
...that the World War II idea of Polish-Czechoslovakian confederation was eventually discarded by the Czechs, whose leader chose instead to believe in the Soviet Union promises of alliance?

...that just before the invasion of Poland, members of the German minority from Deutscher Volksverband were trained in sabotage by the Abwehr agents arriving in Poland from Germany?

...that when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a "free-market think tank," criticized Al Gore's energy use, CNN mistakenly called the organization an environmental group?

More did you know facts

edit

In this month

June 28, 2004 - Canadian federal elections occur; the Liberal party loses its absolute majority.

More selected anniversaries

edit

News and Current events

Wikinews on Politics and conflicts

Topics and categories

See the portal's Topics and categories page for a comprehensive overview.

General images

The following are images from various politics-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Benjamin Constant (from History of political thought)
Image 2United Nations Convention against Corruption (from Political corruption)
Image 3Russia handing over the symbolic relay baton for the hosting rights of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar in June 2018 (from Political corruption)
Image 4Ferdinand Marcos (pictured with his daughter Imee) was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption. (from Political corruption)
Image 5Division of the world according to Haushofer's pan-regions doctrine (from Geopolitics)
Image 6The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams' "corrupt bargain" of 1824 is an example of patronage. (from Political corruption)
Image 7This is the divide of the different political parties in Estonia where in the 2013 elections, over 133,000 people (roughly 21.2% of participating voters) voted over the Internet. The 2013 elections were also the first elections to allow vote verification with mobile devices. (from Politics and technology)
Image 8US Military Police officer restraining and sedating prisoner while a soldier holds him down (from Political corruption)
Image 9Sir Halford Mackinder's Heartland concept showing the situation of the "pivot area" established in the Theory of the Heartland. He later revised it to mark Northern Eurasia as a pivot while keeping area marked above as Heartland. (from Geopolitics)
Image 10Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigning for extended US Medicare coverage in 2017. (from Health politics)
Image 11Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830, Louvre), a painting created at a time where old and modern political philosophies came into violent conflict. (from History of political thought)
Image 12John Locke (from History of political thought)
Image 13Karl Marx and his theory of Communism, developed with Friedrich Engels, proved to be one of the most influential political ideologies of the 20th century. (from History of political thought)
Image 14American lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation. (from Political corruption)
Image 15Niccolò Machiavelli (from History of political thought)
Image 16A memorial to the Great Famine (Ireland), a famine event in Ireland that faced elongated suffering from the UK's domestic policy failures at the time under the Prime Ministers Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell. (from Health politics)
Image 17Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister (from Civil and political rights)
Image 18John Stuart Mill (from History of political thought)
Image 19The logo and slogan for change.org (from Politics and technology)
Image 20Reformers like the American Joseph Keppler depicted the Senate as controlled by the giant moneybags, who represented the nation's financial trusts and monopolies. (from Political corruption)
Image 21Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. (from Political corruption)
Image 22Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović is often described as having strong links to Montenegrin mafia. (from Political corruption)
Image 23A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations (green) from unitary states (blue), a work of political science (from Political science)
Image 24World map with the concepts of Heartland and Rimland applied (from Geopolitics)
Image 25The Flag of the United Nations flying at United Nations Plaza in the Civic Center, San Francisco, California. The UN is one of the key organizations in the process of the political globalization. (from Political globalization)
Image 26Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016 (from Political corruption)
Image 27Candlelight protest against South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, 7 January 2017 (from Political corruption)
Image 28Protesters in support of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Berlin, Germany, 30 August 2014 (from Political corruption)
Image 29Malaysia's former Prime Minister Najib Razak was found guilty in the corruption trial over the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB scandal. He is currently serving his sentence in Kajang Prison. (from Political corruption)