Politics / Week 5 / Kiara Juliane Annisa

1.     Summary :

Every country have their own version of politics and people who are involved in it, but what is the definition of politics? Based on the Merriam Webster dictionary the word politics means the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy. Wikipedia sources refers politics to achieving and exercising positions of governance organized control over a human community particularly a state. So from the description of what is politics we can get an idea that politics have a meaning of something that revolving ones government situation and role. When we talk about politics there are also a few things that we can’t separated, which is power, authority, and violence . Political power is the ability to do something or act in a particular way. Meanwhile authority is the power or right to give orders, makes decisions, and enforce obedience. Many people might get confused by this two terms as they hold a similar meaning but also different in some aspect. And the last term is violence, violence might sounds really negative but this is actually something that exist in politics. Because the government has the authority they can use political violence to gain more power in the society.

2.     What was interesting/what did you learn :

While reading the subject I find that the term of political violence is real and it’s okay to be used in the political action especially government. I find it really confusing because government is supposed to be the  institution that manage the society and be neutral, but with this term it’s gives me a different perspective of what position they actually held.

3.     Discussion Point :

As I mention in the second part, I find that the term political violence sounds like justifying the violence that the government do, and for me I personally didn’t support that. I might not understand the term that much but is that any positive side from that? Or is it purely negative? Also is there any realistic example on the modern day of political violence? As I feel that though it might be something that real in the daily life, it’s still not a right thing to do.