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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...)

Selected article

JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner). Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the president, for which Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) was found responsible by two Government investigations: the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (which concluded that there was another assassin shooting with Oswald). The film was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the "fictional myth" of the Warren Commission. The film became embroiled in controversy. Upon JFK's theatrical release, many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film's implication that President Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d'état to kill Kennedy. After a slow start at the box office, Stone's film gradually picked up momentum, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross. JFK went on to win two Academy Awards and was nominated for eight in total, including Best Picture. The film was one of three films Stone made about the American Presidency, followed later by Nixon with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and W. with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush.

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.

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Featured lists have been determined by the Wikipedia community to be the best lists on English Wikipedia.
  • Below is a list of the premiers of the province of Ontario, Canada, since Confederation in 1867. Ontario uses 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 Ontario's head of government. The premier picks a cabinet from the elected members to form the Executive Council of Ontario, and presides over that body.

    Members are first elected to the legislature during general elections. General elections must be conducted every four years from the date of the last election. An election may also happen if the Governing party loses the confidence of the legislature, by the defeat of a supply bill or tabling of a confidence motion. (Full article...)
  • The U.S. state of Massachusetts has 14 counties, though eight of these fourteen county governments were abolished between 1997 and 2000. The counties in the southeastern portion of the state retain county-level local government (Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth) or, in one case, (Nantucket County) consolidated city-county government. Vestigial judicial and law enforcement districts still follow county boundaries even in the counties whose county-level government has been disestablished, and the counties are still generally recognized as geographic entities if not political ones. Three counties (Hampshire, Barnstable, and Franklin) have formed new county regional compacts to serve as a form of regional governance. (Full article...)

  • Presidential standard

    This article lists the heads of state of the Central African Republic. There have been seven heads of state of the Central African Republic and the Central African Empire since independence was obtained from the French on 13 August 1960. This list includes not only those persons who were sworn into office as President of the Central African Republic but also those who served as de facto heads of state.

    Jean-Bédel Bokassa served as a de facto head of state (and also reigned as Emperor from 1976 to 1979), while David Dacko (who served as de facto head of state from 1979 to 1981), André Kolingba, Ange-Félix Patassé, and François Bozizé were elected into office at some point during their tenure. To date, Kolingba is the only former head of state of the Central African Republic to voluntarily step down from the office through a democratic process, following the 1993 general election. (Full article...)

  • Districts (Sinhala: දිස්ත්‍රි‌ක්‌ක, romanized: Distrikka, Tamil: மாவட்டம், romanized: Māvaṭṭam) are the second level administrative divisions of Sri Lanka, preceded by provinces. Sri Lanka has 25 districts organized into 9 provinces. Districts are further divided into a number of divisional secretariats (commonly known as D.S. divisions), which are in turn subdivided into 14,022 grama niladhari divisions. There are 331 DS divisions in Sri Lanka.

    Each district is administered under a district secretary, who is appointed by the central government. The main tasks of the district secretariat involve coordinating communications and activities of the central government and divisional secretariats. The district secretariat is also responsible for implementing and monitoring development projects at the district level and assisting lower-level subdivisions in their activities, as well as revenue collection and coordination of elections in the district. (Full article...)

  • This is a list of the 100 most populous of the 3,144 counties in the United States based on the national decennial US census conducted on April 1, 2020 and vintage Census population estimates for July 1, 2023.

    Many of the counties on the list include major cities or metropolitan areas in all parts of the United States. Six of the listed counties have consolidated city and county government, namely the City and County of Honolulu, Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, City and County of Philadelphia, City and County of San Francisco, City of Jacksonville and Duval County and City and County of Denver. New York County, Bronx County, Kings County, Queens County and Richmond County are coterminous with the respective boroughs of New York City; they fall under the jurisdiction of the combined city government. Independent cities are not counted. (Full article...)

  • The governor of Indiana is the head of government of the U.S. state of Indiana. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Indiana's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws.

    While a territory, Indiana had two governors appointed by the president of the United States. Since statehood in 1816, it has had 49 governors, serving 51 distinct terms; Isaac P. Gray and Henry F. Schricker are the only governors to have served non-consecutive terms. Four governors have served two four-year terms; territorial governor William Henry Harrison served for 11 years. The shortest-serving governor is Henry S. Lane, who served two days before resigning to become a U.S. senator. The current governor is Eric Holcomb, who took office on January 9, 2017. (Full article...)

  • Kamala Harris is the highest-ranking African American 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 35 African-American members altogether, with one of them serving in multiple different positions for a total of 36 cabinet appointments. Of that particular number, 25 different Black individuals held a total of 26 permanent cabinet posts, serving as vice president or head of one of the federal executive departments, and 10 more held cabinet-level positions, which can differ under each president; no one officeholder served in both cabinet and cabinet-rank roles. The U.S. Census Bureau defines African Americans as citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. The term is generally used for Americans with at least partial ancestry in any of the original peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. During the founding of the federal government, African Americans were consigned to a status of second-class citizenship or enslaved. No African American ever held a cabinet position before the Civil Rights Movement or the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions.

    Robert C. Weaver became the first African-American to serve in a president's cabinet when he was appointed secretary of housing and urban development by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. Patricia Roberts Harris was the first black woman to serve in a presidential cabinet when she was named to the same position by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Two years later, Carter tapped her for secretary of health and human services, thus making her the first African-American to hold two different cabinet positions. (Full article...)

  • France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions.

    Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I, king of the Franks (r. 507–511), as the first king of France. However, historians today consider that such a kingdom did not begin until the establishment of West Francia, during the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire in the 800s. (Full article...)

  • The premier of British Columbia is the first minister for the Canadian province of British Columbia. The province was a British crown colony governed by the governors of British Columbia before joining Canadian Confederation in 1871. Since then, it has had 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 British Columbia's head of government, and the king of Canada is its head of state and is represented by the lieutenant governor of British Columbia. The premier picks a cabinet from the elected members to form the Executive Council of British Columbia and presides over that body.

    Members are first elected to the legislature during general elections. General elections must be conducted every four years from the date of the last election. An election may also take place if the governing party loses the confidence of the legislature by the defeat of a supply bill or tabling of a no-confidence motion. (Full article...)

  • 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 war in Ukraine. (Full article...)

  • Standard of the governor of Ohio

    The governor of Ohio is the head of government of Ohio and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. state's military forces. The officeholder has a duty to enforce state laws, the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Ohio General Assembly, the power to convene the legislature and the power to grant pardons, except in cases of treason and impeachment.

    There have been 64 governors of Ohio, serving 70 distinct terms. The longest term was held by Jim Rhodes, who was elected four times and served just under sixteen years in two non-consecutive periods of two terms each (1963–1971 and 1975–1983). The shortest terms were held by John William Brown and Nancy Hollister, who each served for only 11 days after the governors preceding them resigned in order to begin the terms to which they had been elected in the United States Senate; the shortest-serving elected governor was John M. Pattison, who died in office five months into his term. The current governor is Republican Mike DeWine, who took office on January 14, 2019. (Full article...)

  • The 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, Wyomesh 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...)

  • Coat of arms of the Soviet Union

    The first deputy premier of the Soviet Union was the deputy head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Despite the title, the office was not always held by a single individual. The office bore three different titles throughout its existence: First Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1923–1946), First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (1946–1991), and First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union (1991). The term "first deputy premier" was used by outside commentators to describe the office of first deputy head of government.

    A first deputy premier was responsible for a specific policy area. For example, Kirill Mazurov was responsible for industry, while Dmitry Polyansky was responsible for agriculture in the Soviet Union. In addition, an officeholder would be responsible for coordinating the activities of ministries, state committees, and other bodies subordinated to the government. It was expected that a First Deputy gave these organs guidance in an expeditious manner to ensure the implementation of plans for economic and social development and to check if the orders and decisions of the government were being followed. If the premier could not perform his duties one of the first deputies would take on the role of acting premier until the premier's return. During the late 1970s, when the health of Premier Alexei Kosygin deteriorated, First Deputy Premier Nikolai Tikhonov acted on his behalf as during his absence. Finally, a first deputy was by right a member of the government Presidium, its highest decision-making organ. (Full article...)

  • 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...)
  • The Canadian province of New Brunswick was a British crown colony before it joined Canada in 1867. It had a system of responsible government beginning in 1854, and has kept its own legislature to deal with provincial matters. New Brunswick has a unicameral Westminster-style parliamentary government, in which the premier is the leader of the party that has the confidence of the Legislative Assembly to form a government. The premier is New Brunswick's head of government, and the king of Canada is its head of state and is represented by the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick. The premier picks a cabinet from the elected members to form the Executive Council of New Brunswick, and presides over that body.

    Members are first elected to the legislature during general elections. General elections must be conducted every five years from the date of the last election, but the premier may ask for early dissolution of the Legislative Assembly. An election may also take place if the governing party loses the confidence of the legislature by the defeat of a supply bill or tabling of a confidence motion. (Full article...)

Selected quote

Selected biography

The early life and military career of John Sidney McCain III spans the first forty-five years of his life (1936–1981). McCain's father and grandfather were admirals in the United States Navy. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone, and attended many schools growing up as his family moved among naval facilities. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958. He married the former Carol Shepp in 1965; he adopted two children from her previous marriage and they had another child together.

As a naval aviator, McCain flew attack aircraft from carriers. During the Vietnam War, he narrowly escaped death in the 1967 Forrestal fire. On his twenty-third bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder in October 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi and badly injured. He subsequently endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war, including periods of torture. In 1968, he refused a North Vietnamese offer of early release, because it would have meant leaving before other prisoners who had been held longer. He was released in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accords.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

  • ... that Liu Yu has been called "one of China's best-known America-watchers" and "China's de Tocqueville"?
  • ... that Olga Onuch is believed to be the first professor of Ukrainian politics in the English-speaking world?
  • ... that What Hath God Wrought, the 2007 history of Jacksonian America written by Daniel Walker Howe, is dedicated to Andrew Jackson's "political nemesis" John Quincy Adams?
  • ... that American football wide receiver Bo Hines transferred to Yale University as a freshman to further his political ambitions?
  • ... that following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a diverse group of exiled Russian public figures formed the Anti-War Committee of Russia to unite different political movements to oppose the war?
  • ... that at one point in its political history, the Philippines was represented in the Spanish Cortes Generales?

More did you know...

  • ...that Thutmose I was the first Pharaoh to be buried in the Valley of the Kings?
  • ...that Chinese Taipei is the designated name the Republic of China (Taiwan) uses in most international organizations?
  • ...that in April 2009, Lim Hwee Hua became the first woman to be appointed a full Minister in Singapore's Cabinet?

In this month

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Topics and categories

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General images

The following are images from various politics-related articles on Wikipedia.
  • US Military Police officer restraining and sedating prisoner, while a soldier holds him down (from Political corruption)
  • Russia handing over the symbolic relay baton for the hosting rights of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar in June 2018 (from Political corruption)
  • Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016 (from Political corruption)
  • The logo and slogan for change.org (from Politics and technology)
  • This 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)
  • Division of the world according to Haushofer's Pan-Regions Doctrine (from Geopolitics)
  • Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigning for extended US Medicare coverage in 2017. (from Health politics)
  • Blockchain technology has created cryptocurrencies similarly to voting tokens seen in blockchain voting platforms, with recognizable names including Bitcoin and Ethereum. (from Politics and technology)
  • Ferdinand Marcos (pictured with his daughter Imee) was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption. (from Political corruption)
  • Eugène 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)
  • United Nations Convention against Corruption (from Political corruption)
  • World map with the concepts of Heartland and Rimland applied (from Geopolitics)
  • Protesters in support of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Berlin, Germany, 30 August 2014 (from Political corruption)
  • Reformers 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)
  • Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. (from Political corruption)
  • American lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation. (from Political corruption)
  • The 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)
  • Malaysia'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)
  • Sir 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)
  • Karl 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)
  • Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović is often described as having strong links to Montenegrin mafia. (from Political corruption)
  • A 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)
  • The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams' "corrupt bargain" of 1824 is an example of patronage. (from Political corruption)
  • A 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)
  • Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister (from Civil and political rights)
  • A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations (green) from unitary states (blue), a work of political science (from Political science)
  • Candlelight protest against South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, 7 January 2017 (from Political corruption)

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