Four Times of Politics: Policy, Polity, Politicking, and Politicization

There is just one noun corresponding to the adjective political in French, German, Swedish, Finnish and so on, while the English language has three: policy, polity, and politics. Here, I shall take the tripartite division of the English polit-vocabulary as a point of departure for rethinking politics in a de-centering mode. The English vocabulary provides us with a glimpse into the linguistic possibilities for the formation of different perspectives from which to conceptualize politics. I have modified the tripartite division by taking into account two linguistic novelties, politicking and politicization.1 My intention is to take each of these nouns as an allusion to four aspects of conceptualizing politics. In addition, two different concepts of politics - namely, politics-as-sphere and politics-as-activity, have been commonly used since the nineteenth century, the first indicating a spatial and the second a temporal mode of conceptualizing. Here, I am exclusively interested in the concept of politics-as-activity, and, consequently, I will search for the temporal opportunities present in the four polit-nouns. In this conceptual horizon, policy refers to the regulating aspect of politics, politicking alludes to a performative aspect, polity implies a metaphorical space with specific possibilities and limits, while politicization marks an opening of something as political, as playable. Policy-politicking and polity-politicization form two conceptual pairs. In the sphere-concept, the core of politics is occupied by the borders and regulations of the polity-policy space, whereas in the activity-concept politics is constituted by the verbal figures of politicization and politicking.