Approaches

Extensive and limited

Adrian Leftwich has differentiated views of politics based on how extensive or limited their perception of what accounts as 'political' is.The extensive view sees politics as present across the sphere of human social relations, while the limited view restricts it to certain contexts. For example, in a more restrictive way, politics may be viewed as primarily about governance,while a feminist perspective could argue that sites which have been viewed traditionally as non-political, should indeed be viewed as political as well.This latter position is encapsulated in the slogan the personal is political, which disputes the distinction between private and public issues. Instead, politics may be defined by the use of power, as has been argued by Robert A. Dahl.

Moralism and realism

Some perspectives on politics view it empirically as an exercise of power, while other see it as a social function with a normative basis.This distinction has been called the difference between political moralism and political realism.For moralists, politics is closely linked to ethics, and is at its extreme in utopian thinking.For example, according to Hannah Arendt, the view of Aristotle was that "to be political…meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through violence;"while according to Bernard Crick "[p]olitics is the way in which free societies are governed. Politics is politics and other forms of rule are something else." In contrast, for realists, represented by those such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Harold Lasswell, politics is based on the use of power, irrespective of the ends being pursued.

Conflict and co-operation

Agonism argues that politics essentially comes down to conflict between conflicting interests. Political scientist Elmer Schattschneider argued that "at the root of all politics is the universal language of conflict,"while for Carl Schmitt the essence of politics is the distinction of 'friend' from foe'.This is in direct contrast to the more co-operative views of politics by Aristotle and Crick. However, a more mixed view between these extremes is provided by Irish author Michael Laver, who noted that:Politics is about the characteristic blend of conflict and co-operation that can be found so often in human interactions. Pure conflict is war. Pure co-operation is true love. Politics is a mixture of both.