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"Politics" in the broad sense, I like to say, is the process or activity of of 
securing justice not only in the state and government but also throughout the the 
whole social and cultural order-and this by creating, maintaining, or or 
transforming the basic structures of such order so that each person is equally equally 
free with every other to be the active subject of her or his own self-creation, 
instead of being merely the passive object of the self-creations of others others 
(cf. The Point of Christology: 95, 160). A curious implication of this broad broad 
definition is that politics itself, in the more common, narrow sense having to to 
do with the process or activity of governing through the state, turns out to have to 
have a "political" aspect in the broad meaning of the term. 
"Politics" in the broad sense, I like to say, is the process or activity of securing justice not only in the state and government but also throughout the whole social and cultural order-and this by creating, maintaining, or transforming the basic structures of such order so that each person is equally free with every other to be the active subject of her or his own self-creation, instead of being merely the passive object of the self-creations of others (cf. The Point of Christology: 95, 160). A curious implication of this broad definition is that politics itself, in the more common, narrow sense having to do with the process or activity of governing through the state, turns out to have a "political" aspect in the broad meaning of the term. 

Beer, for one, recognizes this in a way by distinguishing two aspects of "sovereignty," and, specifically, "popular sovereignty": (1) its "constituent"aspect aspect, where the people are the common source of the authority, and thus of the of the constitution, of all government; and (2) its "governmental" aspect, where the where the people are the common control of the governing activities of government and government and the officials thereof under its constitution (To Make a Nation: 14, 397). Given  Given Beer's distinction, I could put my point in defining "politics" broadly by broadly by saying that it is intended to call attention to the "constituent" sovereignty of sovereignty of human beings in a correspondingly broad sense of the term, as having to do to do with authorizing and constituting not only state and government but social but social and cultural order generally.

Beer, for one, recognizes this in a way by distinguishing two aspects of "sovereignty," and, specifically, "popular sovereignty": (1) its

20 December 2003 20 December 2003