Portal:Politics

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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 resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science.

It 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 also often 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 nation 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

The Second Malaysia Plan was an economic development plan set out by the government of Malaysia, with the goal of implementing the aims of the New Economic Policy. It aimed to "restructure" Malaysian society and overturn Chinese Malaysian and foreign hegemony in the economy of Malaysia so that the Malays would not be disadvantaged economically. Although the First Malaysia Plan had also set out to tackle the problem of poverty, especially among the Malays, it had not been very successful, and may have been a factor in the May 13 Incident when racial rioting broke out in Kuala Lumpur. The Second Malaysia Plan was regarded by some as excessive in its zeal to increase Malay participation in the economy, and the government accordingly scaled back the emphasis on restructuring the economy when the plan ended.

edit

Featured picture

A campaign poster from the National Union Party during the US election of 1864, showing presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln (left) and his running-mate Andrew Johnson. The Republican Party changed its name and selected Johnson, a former Democrat, to draw support from War Democrats during the Civil War.

Featured lists - load new batch

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

Image 1
Map of Maryland (highlighted in red) within the United States

The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. State of Maryland. Three delegates are elected from each district, though some districts are divided into sub-districts. In the original state constitution, four delegates were elected from each county to one-year terms, and two were elected from each of the major early cities of Baltimore and Annapolis. Reforms in the 1830s, however, led to the apportionment of delegates by population rather than geography, and by 1922, delegates served four year terms. The modern system of apportionment of seats began in 1972, when 47 districts of roughly equal population were identified, although sub-districts were created to ensure local representation for areas with too little population to warrant an entire district.

Delegates are elected in even years when the President of the United States is not being elected, similar to most other state offices in Maryland. The most recent election was in November 2022. Delegates are not term-limited. (Full article...)
Image 2

According to the Organic Law of Regional Governments, the regions (Spanish: regiones) are, with the departments, the first-level administrative subdivisions of Peru. Since its 1821 independence, Peru had been divided into departments (departamentos) but faced the problem of increasing centralization of political and economic power in its capital, Lima.

After several unsuccessful regionalization attempts, the national government decided to temporarily provide the departments (including the Constitutional Province of Callao) with regional governments until the conformation of regions according to the Organic Law of Regional Governments which says that two or more departments should merge to conform a region. This situation turned the departments into de facto regional government circumscriptions. The first regional governments were elected on November 20, 2002. (Full article...)
Image 3

Seal of the Executive Office

The governor of Colorado is the head of government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Colorado General Assembly, to convene the legislature, and to grant pardons, except in cases of treason or impeachment. The governor is also the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces.

Seven people served as governor of Colorado Territory over eight terms, appointed by the president of the United States. Since statehood, there have been 38 governors, serving 43 distinct terms. One governor Alva Adams served three non-consecutive terms, while John Long Routt, James Hamilton Peabody, and Edwin C. Johnson each served during two non-consecutive periods. The longest-serving governors were Richard "Dick" Lamm (1975–1987) and Roy Romer (1987–1999), who each served 12 years over three terms. The shortest term occurred on March 16 and 17, 1905, when the state had three governors in the span of 24 hours: Alva Adams won the election, but soon after he took office, the legislature declared his opponent, James Hamilton Peabody, governor, but on the condition that he immediately resign, so that his lieutenant governor, Jesse McDonald, could be governor. Thus, Peabody served less than a day as governor. (Full article...)
Image 4
Location of Lithuania in the European Union

Lithuania is divided into three layers of administrative divisions. The first-level division consists of 10 counties (Lithuanian: singular – apskritis, plural – apskritys). These are sub-divided into 60 municipalities (Lithuanian: plural – savivaldybės, singular – savivaldybė), which in turn are further sub-divided into over 500 smaller groups, known as elderships (Lithuanian: plural – seniūnijos, singular – seniūnija).

At the end of its tenure as a Soviet Socialist Republic, Lithuania's administrative divisions consisted of 44 regions, 12 cities, 80 towns, 19 settlements, and 426 rural districts. The reform of this system was an immediate concern for the new government. The Constitution of Lithuania, ratified in 1992, delegated the power of establishing future administrative units to the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas). Accordingly, the Seimas passed two fundamental laws: a 1993 law on government representation and a 1994 law specifying the territorial-administrative units and their boundaries. The current system of a set of municipalities under 10 counties was codified by 1995. Several changes were made in 2000, resulting in 60 municipalities. (Full article...)
Image 5
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 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who assumed office on November 4, 2015; the newest first minister is R.J. Simpson of the Northwest Territories, who assumed office on December 8, 2023. The oldest first minister, Blaine Higgs of New Brunswick, is 70; the youngest first minister, P.J. Akeeagok of Nunavut, is 39. Of the current first ministers, one (Danielle Smith of Alberta) is a woman and three (P.J. Akeeagok of Nunavut, Wab Kinew of Manitoba, and R.J. Simpson of the Northwest Territories) are Indigenous. (Full article...)
Image 6
During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a de facto leader who would not necessarily be head of state or even head of government but would lead while holding an office such as Communist Party General Secretary. Under the 1977 Constitution, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, or premier, was the head of government and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the head of state. The office of the chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World whereas the office of the chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president. In the ideology of Vladimir Lenin, the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party (as described in What Is to Be Done?).

Following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s, the post of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled both the Communist Party and the Soviet government both indirectly via party membership and via the tradition of a single person holding two highest posts in the party and in the government. The post of the general secretary was effectively abolished in 1934 under Stalin, though it technically continued in existence until 1952, and was later re-established by Nikita Khrushchev under the name of the first secretary. In 1966, Leonid Brezhnev reverted the office title to its former name. Being the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the office of the general secretary was the highest in the Soviet Union until 1990. The post of general secretary lacked clear guidelines of succession, so after the death or removal of a Soviet leader the successor usually needed the support of the Political Bureau (Politburo), the Central Committee, or another government or party apparatus to both take and stay in power. The President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the general secretary as the highest Soviet political office. (Full article...)
Image 7
There are 16 counties and one independent city in the U.S. state of Nevada. On November 25, 1861, the first Nevada Territorial Legislature established nine counties. Nevada was admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864, with 11 counties. In 1969, Ormsby County and Carson City were consolidated into a single municipal government known as Carson City.

The FIPS county code is the five-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code which uniquely identifies counties and county equivalents in the United States. The three-digit number is unique to each individual county within a state, but to be unique within the entire United States, it must be prefixed by the state code. This means that, for example, while Churchill County, Nevada is 001, Alameda County, California and Baker County, Oregon are also 001. To uniquely identify Churchill County, Nevada, one must use the state code of 32 plus the county code of 001; therefore, the unique nationwide identifier for Churchill County, Nevada is 32001. The links in the column FIPS County Code are to the Census Bureau Info page for that county. (Full article...)
Image 8

This is a list of the 16 counties in the U.S. state of Maine. Before statehood, Maine was officially part of the state of Massachusetts and was called the District of Maine. Maine was granted statehood on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise. Nine of the 16 counties had their borders defined while Maine was still part of Massachusetts, and hence are older than the state itself.^{[page needed]} Even after 1820, the exact location of the northern border of Maine was disputed with Britain, until the question was settled and the northern counties signed their final official form, the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed in 1842. Almost all of Aroostook County was disputed land until the treaty was signed.^{[page needed]}
The first county to be created was York County, created as York County, Massachusetts, by the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1652 to govern territories it claimed in southern Maine. No new counties have been created since 1860, when Knox County and Sagadahoc County were created. The most populous counties tend to be located in the southeastern portion of the state, along the Atlantic seaboard. The largest counties in terms of land area are inland and further north. Maine's county names come from a mix of British, American, and Native American sources, reflecting Maine's pre-colonial, colonial, and national heritage.^{[page needed]} (Full article...)
Image 9

The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the principal minister of the crown of His Majesty's Government, and the head of the British Cabinet. There is no specific date for when the office of prime minister first appeared, as the role was not created but rather evolved over a period of time through a merger of duties. The term was regularly, if informally, used of Robert Walpole by the 1730s. It was used in the House of Commons as early as 1805, and it was certainly in parliamentary use by the 1880s, although did not become the official title until 1905.

Modern historians generally consider Robert Walpole, who led the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain for over twenty years from 1721, as the first prime minister. Walpole is also the longest-serving British prime minister by this definition. By the same consideration the first prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was William Pitt the Younger at its creation on 1 January 1801. The first to use the title in an official act was Benjamin Disraeli, who, in 1878, signed the Treaty of Berlin as "Prime Minister of Her Britannic Majesty". (Full article...)
Image 10

State Emblem of the Soviet Union

The Premier of the Soviet Union (Russian: Глава Правительства СССР) was the head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Twelve individuals held the post. Among the most known are Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. (Full article...)
Image 11

Coat of arms of Prince Edward Island

The premier of Prince Edward Island is the first minister for the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. They are the province's head of government and de facto chief executive.

Prince Edward Island was a British crown colony before it joined Canadian Confederation in 1873. It has had a system of responsible government since 1851, and the province kept its own legislature to deal with provincial matters after joining Confederation. Prince Edward Island has a unicameral Westminster-style parliamentary government, in which the premier is the leader of the party that controls the most seats in the Legislative Assembly. The premier is Prince Edward Island's head of government, and the king of Canada is its head of state and is represented by the lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island. The premier picks a cabinet from the elected members to form the Executive Council of Prince Edward Island, and presides over that body. (Full article...)
Image 12

Commonwealth Coat of Arms

In Australian federal politics, the Leader of the Opposition is an elected member of parliament (MP) in the Australian House of Representatives who leads the opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, by convention, is the leader of the largest political party in the House of Representatives that is not in government.

When in parliament, the opposition leader sits on the left-hand side of the centre table, in front of the opposition and opposite the prime minister. The opposition leader is elected by his or her party according to its rules. A new leader of the opposition may be elected when the incumbent dies, resigns, or is challenged for the leadership. (Full article...)
Image 13

There are 95 counties in the U.S. State of Tennessee. As of 2023, Shelby County was both Tennessee's most populous county, with 910,042 residents, and the largest county in area, covering an area of 755 sq mi (1,955 km²). The least populous county was Pickett County (5,128) and the smallest in area was Trousdale County, covering 114 sq mi (295 km²). As of the same year, Davidson County, in which the capital Nashville is located, covers 502 sq mi (1,300 km²) with a population of 712,334. The population of the state of Tennessee as of the 2023 census estimate was 7,126,489 in an area of 42,169 sq mi (109,217 km²). The oldest county is Washington County, founded in 1777. The most recently formed county is Chester County (1879).

According to the 2020 census, the center of population for Tennessee was located at , 3.5 mi (5.6 km) southeast of Murfreesboro in Rutherford County. The center of population pinpoints the location at which the population of the state, as placed on a map of the state where they reside, would balance out the map. The geographic center, the point where the map of Tennessee would balance without the population, is located 5 mi (8 km) northeast of Murfreesboro. In 1976, the Rutherford County Historical Society marked the geographic center of Tennessee with an obelisk. (Full article...)
Image 14
Global Peace Index 2023. Countries appearing with a deeper shade of green are ranked as more peaceful, countries appearing more red are ranked as more violent.

Global Peace Index (GPI) is a report produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) which measures the relative position of nations' and regions' peacefulness. The GPI ranks 163 independent states and territories (collectively accounting for 99.7 per cent of the world's population) according to their levels of peacefulness. In the past decade, the GPI has presented trends of increased global violence and less peacefulness.

The GPI is developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Index was first launched in May 2009, with subsequent reports being released annually. In 2015 it ranked 165 countries, up from 121 in 2007. The study was conceived by Australian technology entrepreneur Steve Killelea, and is endorsed by individuals such as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, former President of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, economist Jeffrey Sachs, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Jan Eliasson and former United States president Jimmy Carter. The updated index is released each year at events in London, Washington, DC, and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. (Full article...)
Image 15
The U.S. state of Alabama has 67 counties. Each county serves as the local level of government within its borders. The land enclosed by the present state borders was joined to the United States of America gradually. Following the American Revolutionary War, West Florida was ceded to Spain by treaty while the remainder was organized primarily as the Mississippi Territory, and later the Alabama Territory. The territorial assembly established some of the earliest county divisions that have survived to the present, including the earliest county formation, that of Washington County, created on June 4, 1800. In 1814, the Treaty of Fort Jackson opened the territory to American settlers, which in turn led to a more rapid rate of county creation. Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd state in 1819. The Alabama state legislature formed additional counties from former native lands as the Indian Removal Act took effect and settlers populated different areas of Alabama. In 1820, Alabama had 29 counties. By 1830 there were 36 and Native Americans still occupied large areas of land in northeast and far western Alabama. By 1840, 49 counties had been created; 52 by 1850; 65 by 1870; and the present 67 counties by 1903. Houston County was the last county created in the state, on February 9, 1903.

According to 2023 U. S. Census data, the average population of Alabama's 67 counties is 76,246, with Jefferson County as the most populous (662,895), and Greene County (7,341) the least. The average land area is 756 sq mi (1,958 km²). The largest county is Baldwin (1,590 sq mi, 4,118 km²) and the smallest is Etowah (535 sq mi, 1,386 km²). The Constitution of Alabama requires that any new county in Alabama cover at least 600 square miles (1,600 km²) in area, effectively limiting the creation of new counties in the state. (Full article...)

edit

Selected quote

edit

Selected biography

Caxias in 1878

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias (pronounced [kaˈʃi.ɐs]; 25 August 1803 – 7 May 1880), nicknamed "the Peacemaker" and "the Iron Duke", was an army officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Like his father and uncles, Caxias pursued a military career. In 1823 he fought as a young officer in the Brazilian War for Independence against Portugal, then spent three years in Brazil's southernmost province, Cisplatina, as the government unsuccessfully resisted that province's secession in the Cisplatine War. Though his own father and uncles renounced Emperor Dom Pedro I during the protests of 1831, Caxias remained loyal. Pedro I abdicated in favor of his young son Dom Pedro II, whom Caxias instructed in swordsmanship and horsemanship and eventually befriended.

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

... that Marisa Anderson organized and participated in multiple cross-country walks to raise awareness for various political causes?
... that the party leader of the new Dutch youth political party LEF – For the New Generation tattooed his party's program points on his forearm?
... that Poles who fought in the Russian Partition during the January Uprising were detained as political prisoners in Magdeburg and Graudenz, Prussia, even though the uprising never crossed the border?
... that Iraqi poet Kazim al-Samawi spent more than half his life in political exile and was called "The Sheikh of the Exiles"?
... that advertisements for Road 96 were taken down by Facebook for being too political?
... that Western media treated Egyptian activist Gihan Ibrahim as a face of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but rarely mentioned her revolutionary-socialist political views?

edit

More did you know...

...that political opportunity theory explains the rise and decline of social movements by their dependence on outside, political factors?
...that impeachment in Norway was used six times in 1814–1845, but only twice since?
...that The Mass Psychology of Fascism, a book written by Wilhelm Reich in 1933, blamed sexual repression for the rise of fascism?

...that the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum recorded over 1,200 violations of human rights in Zimbabwe by the law enforcement agencies from 2001 to September 2006?
...that the ideology of the Romanian National Renaissance Front has been described as "operetta fascism"?
...that in the 1984 Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a New Jersey gaming law requiring union leaders to be of good moral character?

...that Chinese Taipei is the designated name the Republic of China (Taiwan) uses in most international organizations?

...that Roman embassies to China are reported in Chinese historical accounts from as early as 166?

edit

In this month

April 1, 1979 – Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, overthrowing the Shah officially.
April 9, 1948 – the period known as La Violencia begins with the assassination of Colombian Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. For the next ten years Liberals, Communists and Conservatives would fight each other in the conflict.
April 9, 2003 – Government of Saddam Hussein overthrown by American forces in Iraq.
April 19, 2006 – Han Myung-sook becomes South Korea's first female Prime Minister.
April 24, 2005 – Presidential elections in Togo return Faure Gnassingbe to power two months after he was installed by the military following the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma.
April 28, 1937 – Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq was born.
April 30, 1945 – Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun, commit suicide as the Red Army approached the Führerbunker in Berlin. Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as President of Germany; Joseph Goebbels succeeds Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

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 1Eugène 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 2Sir 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 3Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović is often described as having strong links to Montenegrin mafia. (from Political corruption)
Image 4Candlelight protest against South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, 7 January 2017 (from Political corruption)
Image 5Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigning for extended US Medicare coverage in 2017. (from Health politics)
Image 6The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams' "corrupt bargain" of 1824 is an example of patronage. (from Political corruption)
Image 7Blockchain technology has created cryptocurrencies similarly to voting tokens seen in blockchain voting platforms, with recognizable names including Bitcoin and Ethereum. (from Politics and technology)
Image 8World map with the concepts of Heartland and Rimland applied (from Geopolitics)
Image 9Russia 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 10American lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation. (from Political corruption)
Image 11United Nations Convention against Corruption (from Political corruption)
Image 12Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. (from Political corruption)
Image 13This 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 14Reformers 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 15A 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 16Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016 (from Political corruption)
Image 17Protesters in support of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Berlin, Germany, 30 August 2014 (from Political corruption)
Image 18The 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 19The logo and slogan for change.org (from Politics and technology)
Image 20US Military Police officer restraining and sedating prisoner, while a soldier holds him down (from Political corruption)
Image 21Ferdinand Marcos (pictured with his daughter Imee) was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption. (from Political corruption)
Image 22A map depicting Corruption Perceptions Index in the world in 2022; a higher score indicates lower levels of perceived corruption.
  100 – 90
  89 – 80
  79 – 70
  69 – 60
  59 – 50
  49 – 40
  39 – 30
  29 – 20
  19 – 10
  9 – 0
  No data
(from Political corruption)
Image 23Malaysia'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)
Image 24Karl 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 25A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations (green) from unitary states (blue), a work of political science (from Political science)
Image 26Division of the world according to Haushofer's Pan-Regions Doctrine (from Geopolitics)
Image 27Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister (from Civil and political rights)