It shows how to answer them through a single lengthy historical example: what happened to the politics of my own country, Britain, through the impact of one very drastic leader, Margaret Thatcher. It explains why she could have such an impact and why the impact she had was so far from what she had hoped.
It is a complicated book by the end, and it would probably be best read last of the three. That was what they expected, and insofar as they thought about it they mostly saw nothing wrong with it. It is not clear how far the practical realities have changed since, but today the great bulk of those who believe anything about the question believe something quite opposite. They see it as the right basis for humans to govern one another for most of them to authorize personally in some way or other those who do the governing.
They see the authority to provide that authorization as an entitlement of their own, and they see it as imposing definite responsibilities on their governments the duty to serve them effectively and in ways they endorse. Setting the People Free describes the main way in which the change has come about, through the choice and diffusion of the ancient Greek word demokratia the rule of the people as the name for legitimate government across the world. It shows the name and idea of democracy caught up along that pathway in three dramatic political arenas.
The first was in ancient Athens, which gave the word to the world as a serious category of political understanding and offered an astonishingly vivid and creative collective life to try to understand through it. What makes it so is its offer of political equality to all citizens.
What makes it unreal is two tough and rigid features of the way the world really is. The first is the huge gap in power between rulers and ruled in every state. The second is the relentless dynamic of economic inequality in the way a global capitalist economy works. We have been exploring just what it means ever since. It shows why democracy has come to carry such different meanings in America, or Britain, China or India, and across the other continents of the world.
It shows how badly our smug assumption that our way of governing ourselves is simply the right way has distorted our recognition of the ugliest, most foolish and most dangerous of the ways in which our societies are now living. You too can think about what the politics of your world means, and what you and others can do about it by watching or reading the news in any medium, and talking to your friends and enemies as you move through the rest of your lives.
If you care at all about the harm we are all doing to the world in which we have to live by the way we have so far chosen to do so, and still go on choosing every day, you will have a vast amount to think about for decades to come.
You will think about it much better, and have a far better chance of seeing how to tilt that balance back in a less grim direction, if you spend some of your time while you are still relatively free in learning what really is going on in politics and why it is happening like that. That is the opportunity which studying political science should offer you. The political scientists of the world must make sure, if you choose to take it up, that that is the opportunity you get.
It is also essential in many careers today; business executives, for example, need to have some understanding of the likely trajectory of policy and politics in China or Europe as well as in the United States in order to make wise investment decisions. Because political science is a discipline that uses different approaches, our courses train you in a number of different critical skills that will help you succeed in almost any career.
Most of our courses have assignments that develop your skills in writing. Almost all good jobs require writing skills. Other courses develop skills in quantitative reasoning. An ability to assess statistical arguments is equally important in modern life.
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