Q.Read the newspaper. What are the issues dominating the headlines? Do you think they have any relevance for you?

"Politics" is a word that carries very different meanings for different people. In its narrowest, most everyday sense, it is treated as whatever politicians do -- and because politicians are often seen manipulating people, defecting between parties, making promises they don't keep, or pursuing personal and group interests ruthlessly, the word "politics" itself has picked up a negative flavour, so that any self-interested manoeuvring anywhere -- a cricketer angling to keep a place on the team, an employee flattering a boss -- gets labelled "playing politics." This disillusionment runs deep: even people who benefit directly from political processes, such as businessmen who fund parties, or film stars who go on to become politicians, often complain about "politics" as though it were something separate from themselves.

But this narrow, negative sense misses what politics actually is. No society -- however small or large -- can exist without some form of political organisation and some way of making collective decisions, because every society has to balance the different needs and interests of its members. Because governments make decisions -- on the economy, on foreign affairs, on education -- that affect people's daily lives directly (their jobs, their schools, their safety), people naturally get involved: they form associations, run campaigns, negotiate, protest and debate. Political theory therefore defines politics far more broadly than "what politicians do": politics is the sum of the many negotiations through which a society reaches collective decisions. At one level this is about what governments do and how responsive they are to people's aspirations; at another level, it is about how ordinary people struggle to shape and influence those very decisions. On this understanding, anyone who negotiates with others and takes part in collective activity aimed at social development or at resolving a shared problem is, in a real sense, engaging in politics -- whether that happens in Parliament, in a workplace, in a classroom, or in a family.