Portal:Politics

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

Politics 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 the word often also 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 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...)

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The Power of Nightmares is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. The series consists of three one-hour films, consisting mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis's narration, which were first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and have been subsequently aired in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The films compare the rise of the American Neo-Conservative movement and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and noting strong similarities between the two. More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is in fact a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies. The Power of Nightmares has been praised by film critics in both Britain and the United States. Its message and content have also been the subject of various critiques and criticisms from conservatives and progressives.

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Credit: George Frederic Watts

George John Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll KG, KT, PC, FRS, FRSE (30 April 1823 – 24 April 1900), styled Marquess of Lorne until 1847, was a Scottish peer, Liberal politician as well as a writer on science, religion, and the politics of the 19th century.

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

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The Palace of Westminster, meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords

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 Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Full article...)
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Kathy Hochul has been governor since August 24, 2021.

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

Fifty-seven people have served as state governor, four of whom served non-consecutive terms (George Clinton, DeWitt Clinton, Horatio Seymour, and Al Smith); the official numbering lists each governor only once. There has only been one female governor so far: Kathy Hochul. This numbering includes one acting governor: the lieutenant governor who filled the vacancy after the resignation of the governor, under the 1777 Constitution. The list does not include the prior colonial governors nor those who have acted as governor when the governor was out of state, such as Lieutenant Governor Timothy L. Woodruff during Theodore Roosevelt's vice presidential campaign in 1900, or Acting Speaker of the New York State Assembly Moses M. Weinstein, who acted as governor for 10 days in 1968 while the governor, the lieutenant governor and the senate majority leader were out of the state, attending the Republican National Convention in Miami. (Full article...)
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A monarch is the head of a monarchy, a form of government in which a state is ruled by an individual who normally rules for life or until abdication, and typically inherits the throne by birth. Monarchs may be autocrats (as in all absolute monarchies) or may be ceremonial figureheads, exercising only limited or no reserve powers at all, with actual authority vested in a legislature and/or executive cabinet (as in many constitutional monarchies). In many cases, a monarch will also be linked with a state religion. Most states only have a single monarch at any given time, although a regent may rule when the monarch is a minor, not present, or otherwise incapable of ruling. Cases in which two monarchs rule simultaneously over a single state, as is the current situation in Andorra, are known as coregencies.

A variety of titles are applied in English; for example, "king" and "queen", "prince" and "princess", "grand duke" and "grand duchess", "emperor" and "empress". Although they will be addressed differently in their local languages, the names and titles in the list below have been styled using the common English equivalent. Roman numerals, used to distinguish related rulers with the same name, have been applied where typical. (Full article...)
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2025 BJP CM History

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one of the two major parties in the political system of the Republic of India, the other being the Indian National Congress (INC). As of 2015^[update], it is the country's largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament. Established in 1980, the BJP's platform is generally considered as the right-wing of the political spectrum. As of 20 February 2025^[update], 55 BJP leaders have held the position of a chief minister out of which fourteen are incumbent.
A chief minister is the head of government of each of the twenty-eight states and two union territories (UTs) (Delhi and Puducherry). According to the Constitution of India, at the state-level, the governor is de jure head, but de facto executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the state legislative assembly, the governor usually invites the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats to form the government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. The chief minister's term is usually for a maximum of five years, with the confidence of the assembly's confidence. There are no limits to the number of terms the chief minister can serve. (Full article...)
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The Parliament of Canada is the legislative body of the government of Canada. The Parliament is composed of the House of Commons (lower house), the Senate (upper house), and the sovereign, represented by the governor general. Most major legislation originates from the House, as it is the only body that is directly elected. A new parliament begins after an election of the House of Commons and can sit for up to five years. The number of seats in parliament has varied as new provinces joined the country and as population distribution between the provinces changed; there are currently 338 House MPs and 105 Senators (when there are no vacancies).

Canada uses a Westminster-style parliamentary government, in which the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes Prime Minister, even if the leader is not an elected member of parliament. The leader of the party with the second-most seats in the House becomes the leader of the Official Opposition, and debate (formally called Oral Questions) between the parties is presided over by the speaker of the House. When the party with the most seats has less than half of the total number of seats, it forms a minority government, which can be voted out of power by the other parties. The Canadian Parliament is located at Parliament Hill in the capital city, Ottawa, Ontario. (Full article...)
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There are 95 counties in the U.S. State of Tennessee. As of 2024, Shelby County was both Tennessee's most populous county, with 910,530 residents, and the largest county in area, covering an area of 755 sq mi (1,955 km²). The least populous county was Pickett County (5,108) 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 729,505. The population of the state of Tennessee as of the 2024 census estimate was 7,227,750 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...)
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Texas Counties and urban areas

The U.S. state of Texas is divided into 254 counties, more than any other U.S. state. While only about 20% of Texas counties are generally located within the Houston—Dallas—San Antonio—Austin areas, they serve a majority of the state's population with approximately 22,000,000 inhabitants.

Texas was originally divided into municipalities (municipios in Spanish), a unit of local government under Spanish and Mexican rule. When the Republic of Texas gained its independence in 1836, the 23 municipalities became the original Texas counties. Many of these were later divided into new counties. The last county to be initially created was Kenedy County in 1921, but Loving County is the newest organized county; it was first organized in 1893 in an apparent scheme to defraud, abolished in 1897, then reorganized in 1931. Most of these recent counties, especially near the northwest, were created from Bexar County during the 1870s. (Full article...)
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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...)
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The national 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, Womesh 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...)
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La Fortaleza, the official residence of the governor of Puerto Rico since the 16th century

This list of governors of Puerto Rico includes all persons who have held the office of Governor of Puerto Rico since its establishment under the administration of the Spanish Empire (1508–1898) to the present under the administration of the United States (1898–present). The archipelago and island of Puerto Rico was annexed by the United States during the Spanish-American War in 1898, ending 390 years of active rule by the Spanish Empire.

Currently, the governor of Puerto Rico is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States organized under the Constitution of Puerto Rico since 1952. The incumbent governor is Jennifer González-Colón, who took office on January 2, 2025. (Full article...)
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The chancellor of Austria is the head of government of Austria, appointed by the president and viewed as the country's de facto chief executive. The chancellor chairs and leads the Cabinet, which also includes the vice-chancellor and the ministers.

Following World War I, the office was established by the Provisional National Assembly on 30 October 1918 and named state chancellor of the Republic of German-Austria, and its first holder, Karl Renner, was appointed by the State Council. After the Allied powers forbade German-Austria to merge with the Weimar Republic, the country formed the federal First Austrian Republic and the office was renamed from state chancellor to federal chancellor. The first federal chancellor was Michael Mayr. Ten chancellors served under the First Republic until Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss created the authoritarian and dictatorial Federal State of Austria. Following Dollfuss's assassination by Austrian National Socialists, Kurt Schuschnigg succeeded him as chancellor and upheld the dictatorship. Schuschnigg was replaced by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a Nazi caretaker who held the office for two days, until Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany. (Full article...)
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There are ten counties in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Five of the counties were created in 1769, when New Hampshire was still an English colony and not a state, during the first subdivision of the state into counties. The last counties created were Belknap County and Carroll County, in 1840.

The majority of New Hampshire's counties were named for prominent British or American people or geographic locations and features. Only one county's name originates in a Native American language: Coös County, named for an Algonquian word meaning "small pines". (Full article...)
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Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1791)

The lifetime of British writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) encompassed most of the second half of the eighteenth century, a time of great political and social upheaval throughout Europe and America: political reform movements in Britain gained strength, the American colonists successfully rebelled, and the French Revolution erupted. Wollstonecraft experienced only the headiest of these days, not living to see the end of the democratic revolution when Napoleon crowned himself emperor. Although Britain was still revelling in its mid-century imperial conquests and its triumph in the Seven Years' War, it was the French revolution that defined Wollstonecraft's generation. As poet Robert Southey later wrote: "few persons but those who have lived in it can conceive or comprehend what the memory of the French Revolution was, nor what a visionary world seemed to open upon those who were just entering it. Old things seemed passing away, and nothing was dreamt of but the regeneration of the human race."

Part of what made reform possible in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century was the dramatic increase in publishing; books, periodicals, and pamphlets became much more widely available than they had been just a few decades earlier. This increase in available printed material helped facilitate the rise of the British middle class. Reacting against what they viewed as aristocratic decadence, the new professional middle classes (made prosperous through British manufacturing and trade), offered their own ethical code: reason, meritocracy, self-reliance, religious toleration, free inquiry, free enterprise, and hard work. They set these values against what they perceived as the superstition and unreason of the poor and the prejudices, censorship, and self-indulgence of the rich. They also helped establish what has come to be called the "cult of domesticity", which solidified gender roles for men and women. This new vision of society rested on the writings of Scottish Enlightenment philosophers such as Adam Smith, who had developed a theory of social progress founded on sympathy and sensibility. A partial critique of the rationalist Enlightenment, these theories promoted a combination of reason and feeling that enabled women to enter the public sphere because of their keen moral sense. Wollstonecraft's writings stand at the nexus of all of these changes. Her educational works, such as her children's book Original Stories from Real Life (1788), helped inculcate middle-class values, and her two Vindications, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), argue for the value of an educated, rational populace, specifically one that includes women. In her two novels, Mary: A Fiction and Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman, she explores the ramifications of sensibility for women. (Full article...)
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Coat of arms of New Jersey

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

The first New Jersey State Constitution, ratified in 1776, provided that a governor be elected annually by the state legislature, the members of which were selected by the several counties. Under this constitution, the governor was president of the upper house of the legislature, then called the Legislative Council. The 1844 constitution provided for a popular vote to elect the governor, who no longer presided over the upper house of the legislature, now called the Senate. The 1844 constitution also lengthened the governor's term to three years, set to start on the third Tuesday in January following an election, and barred governors from succeeding themselves. The 1947 constitution extended terms to four years, and limits governors from being elected to more than two consecutive terms, though they can run again after a third term has passed. Joseph Bloomfield, Peter Dumont Vroom, Daniel Haines, Joel Parker, Leon Abbett, and Walter Evans Edge each served two non-consecutive stints as governor while A. Harry Moore served three non-consecutive stints. Foster McGowan Voorhees, James Fairman Fielder, and Richard Codey each served two non-consecutive stints, one as acting governor and one as official governor. (Full article...)
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Number of seats won by major parties at each election
  UCP
  Wildrose
  Conservative/PC
  Liberal
  CCF/NDP
  Social Credit
  United Farmers
  Dominion Labour Party
  Independents
  Other
The Canadian province of Alberta holds elections to its unicameral legislative body, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The maximum period between general elections of the assembly is five years, but the Lieutenant Governor is able to call one at any time. However, the premier has typically asked the lieutenant governor to call the election in the fourth or fifth year after the preceding election. The number of seats has increased over time, from 25 for the first election in 1905, to the current 87.

Alberta's politics has historically been one of long-lasting governments with government changes being few and far between. The province from 1905 to 2015 was ruled by four "dynasties": the Liberal Party (1905–1921); the United Farmers of Alberta (1921–1935), the Social Credit Party (1935–1971), and the Progressive Conservative (PC) Association (1971–2015), the longest political dynasty in Canada. No minority government has ever been elected. Thus, Alberta can be said to have continuously had a dominant-party system for its entire political history, though the dominant party has changed over time. (Full article...)

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Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

— Margaret Thatcher

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Portrait of Capehart, published in 1923

Harry Jheopart Capehart Sr. (May 2, 1881 – May 15, 1955) was an American lawyer, politician, and businessperson in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Capehart served as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing McDowell County for three consecutive terms, from 1919 to 1925. He also served as an assessor, city councilperson, and city attorney for Keystone, West Virginia.

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... that Kit Nascimento, a spokesperson for the government of Guyana during the aftermath of Jonestown, disagrees with current proposals to open the former Jonestown site as a tourist attraction?
... that the photograph Kandake of the Sudanese Revolution symbolised the determination of the Sudanese people as they called for political change?
... that artist Tove Jansson based the children's book character Snufkin on a political philosopher whom she had dated?
... that the political opposition in Saint Kitts and Nevis has viewed the national broadcaster, ZIZ, as a government mouthpiece?
... 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 one abolitionist said that William L. Breckinridge's anti-slavery views would "disqualify [him] from political usefulness"?

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...that the public activist group Citizen Action shut down in 1997 due to the effects of a labor union election campaign funds scandal?

...that the 1968 pamphlet Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? claimed that sex education was a Communist conspiracy?
...that the American Society of Magazine Editors book The Best American Magazine Writing 2007 features investigative journalism about the Beslan school hostage crisis and survivors of Agent Orange?
...that the Libyan opposition has embraced "Zenga Zenga", an Israeli-created auto-tuned song and viral YouTube video that parodies Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi (pictured)?

...that although U.S. President Barack Obama is Christian, high-ranked al-Qaida member Ayman al-Zawahiri has falsely claimed that Obama secretly "pray[s] the prayers of the Jews"?

...that the Proletarian Revolutionary Organisation of Nepal proposed a synthesis of Buddhism and Maoism in 1977?

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June 28, 2004 - Canadian federal elections occur; the Liberal party loses its absolute majority.

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General images

The following are images from various politics-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A 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 2United Nations Convention against Corruption (from Political corruption)
Image 3Russia 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 4American lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation. (from Political corruption)
Image 5Malaysia'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 6Sir 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 7World map with the concepts of Heartland and Rimland applied (from Geopolitics)
Image 8John Stuart Mill (from History of political thought)
Image 9Reformers 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 10John Locke (from History of political thought)
Image 11This 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 12The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams' "corrupt bargain" of 1824 is an example of patronage. (from Political corruption)
Image 13Benjamin Constant (from History of political thought)
Image 14Ferdinand Marcos (pictured with his daughter Imee) was a Philippine dictator and kleptocrat. His regime was infamous for its corruption. (from Political corruption)
Image 15The 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 16A world map distinguishing countries of the world as federations (green) from unitary states (blue), a work of political science (from Political science)
Image 17Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. (from Political corruption)
Image 18Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović is often described as having strong links to Montenegrin mafia. (from Political corruption)
Image 19Division of the world according to Haushofer's pan-regions doctrine (from Geopolitics)
Image 20Karl 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 21Candlelight protest against South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, 7 January 2017 (from Political corruption)
Image 22Protesters in support of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, Berlin, Germany, 30 August 2014 (from Political corruption)
Image 23Niccolò Machiavelli (from History of political thought)
Image 24Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigning for extended US Medicare coverage in 2017. (from Health politics)
Image 25US Military Police officer restraining and sedating prisoner while a soldier holds him down (from Political corruption)
Image 26Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister (from Civil and political rights)
Image 27The logo and slogan for change.org (from Politics and technology)
Image 28Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the Panama Papers leak on April 15, 2016 (from Political corruption)
Image 29Eugène 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)