Introduction

Abstract

The simplest definition of politics is the struggle for power over people. It is a very widespread activity and it does not just take place in national elections or inside the Kremlin or in party caucuses or in all the thousands of much-publicised gatherings that we are accustomed to think of as specifically political. It starts on school playgrounds and it is not unknown in old people’s homes. It happens in universities, in churches, in corporations, in hospitals, in tennis-clubs, in the armed forces: in every group, however small, however private, however specialised, which offers to the ambitious a chance to exercise power over people.